Do part time IT jobs exist?

November 16, 2006 7:39 PM

Do part-time IT jobs exist?

I've had enough of the self-employment/freelance thing and am looking to find a part-time IT job. Does anyone out there have experience in landing a 20-30 hour/week job in system administration (preferably) or tech support? And specifically, what about using a staffing firm/temp agency to find p/t IT jobs? Or how about landing a p/t contract? (I am ignorant to a lot of the contract/staffing stuff.)

I can find plenty of clerical work that pays a decent amount, however, I was thinking that if I could find a tech job that it would pay more. So far I did find a tech support position that was nights/weekends, but it didn't pay much more than an average clerical job.

My goal is to be able to replace some or most of my meager self-employment income, but still have some spare time during the day to work on another project I have cooking.

Am I wasting my time looking for a p/t IT position? Any suggestions?

posted by tremolo1970 to Work & Money (12 answers total)

Depends on where you are. But yes, there are part time gigs. Usually through staffing agencies. I think "Taos" was doing some part-time/on call gigs.
posted by drstein at 7:46 PM on November 16, 2006

Check with schools who have smaller budgets. Some of your smaller ones can't afford or don't want to pay for a full time IT person. Or maybe offer your PT serviced to a school with a larger budget who might not have a FT position but provide the occasional extra work.
posted by jmd82 at 7:54 PM on November 16, 2006

I work at a school district and, yes, we have many part-time IT folks, some who work at the central office, some who help out at the school sites. We treasure those that know what they're doing.
posted by SPrintF at 7:58 PM on November 16, 2006

Small companies definitely. Look for anywhere between 30-40 employees. Originally I was suppose to be 15 hours and moved up to ~30 hours. Sometimes they don't realize they need and can use more. Most outsource to some IT consulting agency and make due with a lot. Once you get in there and they are comfortable with you, your hours go up.
posted by geoff. at 8:28 PM on November 16, 2006

Yep. If you're in southern Ontario I'm hiring for one right now :)
posted by saraswati at 8:36 PM on November 16, 2006

I've got one day per week doing sysadmin and technician stuff at each of two local primary schools (2 days/week total). It works for me.
posted by flabdablet at 8:50 PM on November 16, 2006

The contracting I do is limited, but yep, I recently landed an actual W-2 employed part time gig in IT. At the moment I'm working on some datacenter virtualization and implementing change control processes for a smallish (under-100) local company. 30 hours a week, I can telecommute at will, full benefits, non-exempt status, "no end user support" is in my employment agreement, and I get paid OT if I work OT. I even get to tell my boss what to do.

So yes, kick-ass part time jobs do in fact exist.
posted by majick at 9:33 PM on November 16, 2006

My past employers had part-time IT people. Sometimes I see ads for part-time IT people on Craigslist.

Have you considered raising your freelance rates, though?
posted by acoutu at 9:36 PM on November 16, 2006

I've seen many part-time IT jobs advertised at places like webhostingtalk.com and other web host aimed forums. The smaller guys have too much to do, but not enough money for full timers.
posted by SpecialK at 9:49 PM on November 16, 2006

Very small shops with IT infrastructure -- particularly joints like graphic design firms, which may have less than a half-dozen people but upwards of a dozen or more computers, plus centralized servers, sophisticated printers, and high-bandwidth networks -- usually have people on contract for IT. They only need a few hours of support work per month, but the uptime is crucial.
posted by ardgedee at 5:17 AM on November 17, 2006

I have a 25 hour / week programming job. I responded to a full time job ad, but they were ok with my request to work part time instead. Perhaps there are lots of jobs out there looking for full time but would be willing to offer part time instead to the right person.
posted by GregX3 at 8:12 PM on November 17, 2006

Speaking from experience, you may also want to try alternating between short full-time contracts and breaks for focused work on your own project. You're likely to find full-time contracts for more $$ per hour than p/t jobs. And by taking regular breaks you would be effectively working p/t overall but still having chunks of time where you can fully devote yourself to your real projects.
posted by allterrainbrain at 8:35 AM on November 18, 2006