How much working-hours overlap does Sydney have with San Francisco?
Sydney and San Francisco share one to three hours of a standard workday, which gives teams 13 to 15 hours of coverage a day.
On a standard 9am to 5pm day in both cities, Sydney and San Francisco overlap for one to three hours, depending on the time of year. The overlap falls in the Sydney morning and the San Francisco afternoon. It is three hours from November to March, two hours in the short shoulder periods when daylight saving is out of step, and one hour from April to October.
The two cities change their clocks on different dates and in opposite directions, which is why the number moves.
TL;DR
- Sydney is 17 to 19 hours ahead of San Francisco.
- Standard hours overlap for one to three hours. Starting at 8am in Sydney adds one hour.
- You get about four shared working days a week, because San Francisco's Friday afternoon is Sydney's Saturday morning.
- Together the two cities cover 13 to 15 hours of engineering time each day, compared with 8 for a team in one city.
The overlap on a calendar
The overlap through the year
Sydney's daylight saving runs from the first Sunday in October to the first Sunday in April. San Francisco's runs from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November.
Which days overlap
Sydney's day starts while San Francisco is still on the day before:
Monday morning in Sydney is Sunday afternoon in San Francisco, so a Sydney engineer starts the week with a quiet morning. Anything a US team needs before its weekend has to be raised by Thursday afternoon, San Francisco time.
Why a small overlap gives you more coverage
A short overlap means the two teams' days barely repeat each other, so engineering keeps moving for longer. A team split between Sydney and San Francisco has someone working for 13 to 15 hours a day, compared with 8 hours for a team in one city.
In practice, a bug reported at the end of the San Francisco day can be picked up by Sydney within hours instead of waiting until the next morning. A feature reviewed in the US afternoon can be finished and ready by the time the US team logs back on.
How remote engineering teams make it work
The small overlap matters less than how the team uses it:
- Put the live meeting in the overlap. Hold standups, reviews and decisions in the San Francisco afternoon, and protect that window from other meetings.
- Hand over in writing. Each side finishes the day with a short update covering what shipped, what is blocked and what the other side needs to decide.
- Treat the gap as extra build time. Work finished during the Sydney day is ready for review when San Francisco starts. Review comments left in the US afternoon are waiting when Sydney starts.
- Shift when it counts. Starting an hour earlier for a launch or an incident is often enough. Most teams only need this occasionally.
When the overlap is not enough
The arrangement gets harder if your work depends on all-day live pairing, your on-call needs someone awake during US business hours, or the team has no habit of writing things down. If any of these apply, sort them out before you hire across this time difference, or look for a closer time zone.
How Lyra handles it
Lyra's engineers are based in Australia and work inside US startup teams as forward deployed engineers, in the client's Slack, codebase and standups. If you are weighing the wider decision, read how a US startup can hire software engineers from Australia, or book a call.
