6 ms·

Ask HN: Typical work hours

• asolove 10y ago
  I have worked at a startup before and after acquisition. I am a morning person and have small kids so I normally worked 8-4. I got a little push-back for leaving early, but after a few days of telling my boss what I had already accomplished by the time he got in in the morning, it was pretty much ok. Now, I work from home, so I usually work something like 8am-3 plus 8pm-9 so I can play with my kids after school. Highly recommended. But if you're asking this question, then what you probably need is advice about how to talk about this with your boss.
• mattlondon 10y ago
  UK here - typically 8:30ish to 4:45-5ish for me Could easily go 9-5 but I am very much a "morning" person and my productivity usually nose-dives after about 2pm (so I choose to have a very short lunch or eat at my desk, but could easily take a full hour if I wanted)
• jeffasinger 10y ago
  I work at a Post Series B startup (so really medium size tech company). I typically work about 9:00am-6:30pm, with a decent break in the middle for lunch. Fridays are usually shorter. This is busy season for us, in the winter, I'd probably leave around 5:30 instead of 6:30.
• yeowMeng 10y ago
  Canada, 10am-6pm, 1 hour lunch (30 mins paid).
• kentt 10y ago
  I worked strict 8-4 with an hour paid lunch at my last job (so 35 hours ass in chair time). The office was generally empty around 4:30 Now I generally get close to 40 hours in a week, but rarely hit it. Hours are very flexible (today I'm in at 6am, yesterday 9). Both jobs were smaller companies (<50) in Vancouver, Canada.
• MichaelBurge 10y ago
  Mostly 9-5 or 10-6. I don't usually eat lunch.
  • chrisBob 10y ago
    I use the full hour about once a week, but you are expected to be around 9 hours regardless. Thanks, I am glad to hear that at least someone works the schedule I expected though.
• ddgflorida 10y ago
  Mine is 8 to 5 with one hour lunch break. That is the minimal expected. I hear about other developers regularly working 10-12 hour days though.
• mathgeek 10y ago
  Working remote for me has been 9-5 with an hour for lunch.
• eDameXxX 10y ago
  Poland. Internship in multinational company. 9am-5pm. Time for lunch - not specified.
• criddell 10y ago
  8:30-5 (I leave a bit early to beat traffic. Sometimes if I can't sleep I'll VPN in to work and do some code janitor tasks. A few times a year my work load gets heavy enough that I'll work extra at night or very early to get through it, but that's not my normal routine. My lunch is anywhere from 0 to 90 minutes but I probably average about 30 minutes. During the day I'll sometimes go for a 30 minute walk. I keep a guitar at work so if I get hung up on something I'll play for bit.
  • weavie 10y ago
    Presumably you have your own office, or do your work colleagues enjoy the impromptu performance?
    • criddell 10y ago
      Yeah, we each have an office with a door. My guitar is an electric that I either play through headphones or unamplified. Plus, I'm often just playing scales or something.
• norswap 10y ago
  Typically something like 11:30 - 19:30, but with wild variations. I work in academia so I enjoy a lot of freedom in that respect. It's not rare that I work in the evening, or during weekends, but I am never required to (although when paper deadlines are due, there is a strong expectation that you will in order to finish things up).
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• punk-coder 10y ago
  My typical workday is more like 9:30 - 4:30 or 5:00, although if needed I'll hang around until 6:00 or so. I work as an Application Architect in a large enterprise. We have some developer teams that work start-up hours, working 60+ hours a week, but most of us do an 8 hour day.
• ryanSrich 10y ago
  I work remotely on the west coast for a company in the Midwest. 8am-12/1pm-3pm 7pm-9pm Leaving work at 3pm gives me time to hit the gym, make dinner, and hangout with my wife for a bit. I'll typically pick back up around 7pm and work for another hour or two depending on how busy we are. My evenings after 9pm are then open for whatever, which is nice.
• WillKirkby 10y ago
  UK rather than US, I typically work 10:30-19:00 with a half-hour unpaid lunch.
• cprayingmantis 10y ago
  8.30-5:00 There's a few folks that do more than that but they're the more senior folks. That's the thing I've seen about a hierarchical company structure, the further up the ladder you go the more that's expected of you and the less return you get.
• WalterSear 10y ago
  At my current contract job, I get to work just before nine and leave around 6:30, and have a quick lunch. I'm charging for nine hours a day. The extra hour is making me both miserable and palpably less effective, but it's what I undertook, it's what they want, and the money's good. I'm going to try and avoid jobs that expect more than 40 hours on an ongoing basis after this.
• AnonyBrah 10y ago
  My last job I worked 10:30-5:30 and took an hour break for lunch/gym. Just started a remote job, so now nobody cares about my hours, just my results. Too early to say what the typical day is.
• werber 10y ago
  I typically work 8am-4pm, but most people in my office work 9:30am - 4pm. Our parking lot is empty at 9am and 5pm
  • ideonexus 10y ago
    This is me as well 8am-4pm... but most people in my office work 9-5 or 10-6pm, which often means answering emails when I get home. This schedule has held true for my previous two jobs as well. Exceptions are when servers and sites go down, but my current company gives me comp time when I get pulled away from my family on a weekend or a vacation so it all works out.
• tetrep 10y ago
  ~8 hours of work starting at somewhere between 7:30 and 8am (so i don't have to deal with rush hour). lunch is generally 1 hour but sometimes i take less and leave sooner, and other times i take more and leave later. if i'm in the middle of something, i generally stay until it's done, but some of my coworkers drop everything when they've done their ~8 hours. (Silicon Valley/salaried)
• arconis987 10y ago
  7am - 7pm in office, plus 1 hour commute each way.
  • adrianN 10y ago
    I hope you're writing lots of job applications.
    • arconis987 10y ago
      Yeah, it's intellectually interesting work, but it takes its toll.
• hclivess 10y ago
  9-16:30 then 18-22 on private projects
• kminehart 10y ago
  I enjoy my job a lot. Web developer in Northwest Arkansas. I usually come in at around 8:00, take maybe an hour lunch at around 11 or 12, and leave at 5. If I get called in the middle of the night, I'm always happy to help out. When I worked for the government my hours were a strict 8:00 - 4:30 with a 1 hour lunch. When I worked for Toshiba, it was 45 hour weeks; I hated that job so I would come in at 6:00 and leave at 3 without taking a lunch. I think a big part of working a lot of hours is enjoying the work involved. I greatly disliked Toshiba and the government, so working less / more hours was just awful.
  • dhimes 10y ago
    What sucked about Toshiba? I bought one of their laptops...
• uncleserb 10y ago
  8:30 - 12:30 / 2:00-5:30 I work in Paris, France so my lunch break (actually go to the gym and grab a sandwich afterwards) is paid. Some of my colleagues do 9:30 - 1:00 / 2:30 - 18:30 or alternative hours (some work remotely, some from the office).
• W0lf 10y ago
  Germany, 7am-4pm, with half an hour of unpaid lunch time. Usually by the time I arrive at work I already did my workout (gym or running). Since I'm living close to my work place I also drive my bike from/to work which takes about 20 min.
• thearn4 10y ago
  I'm a math/software guy at NASA. I work 80 hours every two weeks, with flexible scheduling. A lot of folks will work over 8 hours a day to get one or two extra days off every pay period. Others (like me) tend to opt for a more traditional work schedule. I do a fair amount of telework though, usually at least 1-2 days a week.
• Bahamut 10y ago
  Mostly roughly 9 to 5, although lately I have been heading into the office at 7 - 8 am & leaving at 5, or sometimes later if I'm engrossed in a particular task. Lunch is whatever time I choose to have it, typically I'll do a half hour, sometimes a little longer. I also have flexibility to leave when I want too - there have been days where I left at 3 pm to go running with friends.
• hclivess 10y ago
  so much wasted time
• misiti3780 10y ago
  9/930 - 6/830; no lunch; run my own company based in NYC
• po1nter 10y ago
  France: 9am-5:30pm with 1:30 for lunch (typically from 12:30pm - 14pm)
• specialp 10y ago
  I come in at varying times but officially I work 7.5 hrs a day with an unpaid lunch. Usually I come in ~10am and leave ~6pm. If something is broken on weekends or nights though I am fixing it, and when there is a large time sensitive project I will work more hours from time to time.
• drewg123 10y ago
  When I was working for Google in MTV, I would get to the office around 6am and leave around 3:30pm. I worked early hours to avoid the chaos of the open office. I had ~3 hours of good concentration until most people arrived & the distractions started. As a bonus, I got to pick up my son from elementary school and spend quality time with him. I would often answer email in the evenings. So I ended up working ~9-10 hours a day. Now that I work from home (for a different company), I probably work roughly 60 hrs per week. But my time is much more flexible, I typically work 8am->5pm most days, with one or two evenings of actual work (not just answering email) from 9pm to 1am, and often a few hours on the weekends. But somewhere in those 8-5 hours, I'll often take my son to school or pick him up, or take him to an athletic practice, or help him with homework, or have lunch with my wife, etc. Given that my office is steps away, the line between home and work blurs. I find that it is hard to resist checking on things almost obsessively, and I often go into my office intending to just spend 2 minutes check the progress of something only to emerge 3 hours later.
  • some_throwaway 10y ago
    I work for Google in MTV now. I typically get in around 9:30-10 and leave around 5 with half an hour of lunch and sometimes a trip to the gym in the middle. I never work or read email in the evenings, so I probably average slightly under 7 hours a day. There's no pressure to work more, and I really value and appreciate that. Still, I feel like admitting to enjoying your free time and working ~35 hour weeks is a scandalous taboo that would ruin your chances to get hired elsewhere, so I posted this on a throwaway.
    • drewg123 10y ago
      Yes, I honestly think that Google was probably the most laid back workplace I've ever experienced. It was like a vacation after my previous job. More pay for 1/2 the work is always a nice tradeoff. I had come to Google from a small company where I was in the critical path, with a feeling like if I didn't put in 110% all the time, the company could go under. The transition from that environment to being a tiny cog in a giant machine was very liberating. The main reason I answered email in the evenings was that it was a habit from the previous job.
• Jean-Philipe 10y ago
  9-10 until 18-19, plus/minus one or two hours
• LukeB_UK 10y ago
  UK here. I work 7.5 hour days with an hour unpaid for lunch. I usually work from 8am - 4:30pm.
• markwaldron 10y ago
  I'm working at a fin-techy start up outside NYC. Hours are normally 8:45 - 19:00 with an hourish paid lunch. Very flexible though - people leave early frequently
• _tomasz 10y ago
  10am until 3 or 4pm. M/W/F I work from home and at the moment T/Th I drive to the office about 30-50 minutes away depending on traffic. Edit: Work as Senior Software Engineer for a startup in the US.
• aaronbasssett 10y ago
  Scotland UK, we work a 4 day week; 9:30–17:30/18:00 28 days paid holidays I normally grab lunch at my desk except on Wednesdays were we have a staff lunch which normally takes an hour.
• scarecrowbob 10y ago
  I'm a remote web developer who works for a company in Virginia. I'm in rural Texas. I usually work 10-5 central, taking an "unpaid" hour for lunch. But I will also push that around however I need to in order to get work or personal tasks done.
• cachichas 10y ago
  required 7.5hrs/day + .5hr for lunch but i put in an additional 50mins - 1hr per day and get every other Friday off. Vancouver, Canada (about 50 employees)... btw, when school is off, i get to come in at 6am. on school days, i come in around 7:30
• sealthedeal 10y ago
  You should work as long as it takes to get your work done, then deuce out. Tracking how long you work is not productive.
• tapan_k 10y ago
  BLR: 9:00a-6:30p [includes 30m paid lunch] + 30m commute each way
• british_india 10y ago
  When I worked at Bloomberg, if you left after 12 hours in a given day, the other developers would mock you by saying: "What--another half day?"
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• jamescampbell 10y ago
  Mostly 8 hours depending on if I get caught up in code and then stay half the evening to get the damn thing working finally again after breaking something critical even though I was just going to change the stylesheet.
• suvelx 10y ago
  Current client's 'official' hours are 9:30 to 6:30 with an hour break. In reality, I get in as early as I can (When somebody unlocks at ~8:30ish, has occasionally meant sitting outside waiting), and then go home after about 8.5 hours (not including lunch break). Most other people get into the office when I do, and then leave sometime after. They don't pay any more than 40 hours, and pay at the very end of the statutory 30 day payment terms. If they want to be sticklers, I can be too.
• 33W 10y ago
  Varies, but generally between 8 and 6, with some email checking (~15min)at 6am and 10pm.
• znebby 10y ago
  Bay area startup with 100+ employees. Expected hours are 10am to 9pm, plus a little less on Sundays.
  • marcc 10y ago
    You are expected to work 11 hours a day for 6 days a week, and then some more on Sunday? A 100+ employee company shouldn't be setting that expectation. No company should be asking that, regardless of size.
    • znebby 10y ago
      Perhaps I wasn't clear. The 10am-9pm is only on weekdays. Saturdays are off.
• jack-r-abbit 10y ago
  Bay Area office for a SoCal based company with other offices scattered around the US. I work from home M-Th and go into the office on F. While WFH, I usually start around 8:30 so I can get emails and stuff out of the way before our standing 9:00 sprint meeting. I have quite a bit of flexibility on when I take lunch (some times I eat at my desk while working, some times I eat in the living room watching tv). I wrap up my day around 6ish. Often I am multi-tasking between work and cooking dinner between 5-6. On Fridays I usually try to get in before 8 because parking is cheaper if I enter before 8. Group lunch is usually about an hour (give or take... depending on how many people are there). I usually leave around 3-4. My boss understands my commute isn't great (neither is his) so he's cool with me cutting out a little early on Friday. He does too. He also works from home most days. If he isn't going to be in on Friday, then I usually don't go in either. My boss is big on letting your work product show how much you're working. As long as I'm getting my crap done, he doesn't really care if I take a 3 hour lunch and then work at 9PM. Most of the team I work with is spread out, with only three in our office. So working from home is not much different than working from the office. Even at the office, meetings are online, taken at my desk. (Which is weird some times since my office is right next to my boss's office and I can usually hear him through the wall half a second before I hear him on the call.) But it is nice to get some face time with my boss (and coworkers from other teams I'm not on) once in awhile.
• bbcbasic 10y ago
  Australia: 38 hours per week, fairly flexible as long as I am around for core hours. Can leave to go to shops for lunch.
• stevenwiles 10y ago
  Usually 7am to 8pm every day, including Saturdays (I only get Sundays off) I'm a really hard worker and I'm really smart so I like the long work hours. When I see people coming in before me and leaving after me, its a nice reminder of what a good employee I am.
  • nameless912 10y ago
    > I'm really smart Oh you poor sweet summer child. I hope you're being sarcastic, or you're gonna get pulled down real soon. The professional world is rough :/ > a nice reminder of what a good employee I am Remember, you are much more than your job, and if you're staying late to please the company you're not doing yourself any favors. Do it to make extra cash, or to land a big promotion, or maybe to brown nose with your boss, but don't ever think that you staying late is going to so massively help the company that it'll come back to you. I'm not trying to be pessimistic, I just hear a lot of the same things I said my first few months as an engineer and they depressed the shit out of me for a while.
    • dennmart 10y ago
      I thought it was a troll, but this account posted this a day ago: "About to turn 60, been a daily hardcore drug user for most of my life". So it seems like they're pretty used to this lifestyle.
• peelle 10y ago
  Programmer, Missouri. My first few years full time I worked from 7 - 3:30, with a half hour lunch. During this time this I was working to live. I had an overly active social life, and night classes at College. My next few years I worked from 8:30 - 6:30, with a two hour lunch. This was nice because I could do all those little errands, that require banking hours. Most days I got to take a nap, surprise the wife with lunch, or eat somewhere where they actually cook the food. For the last 9 months I have been working from 8 - 3, with an hour lunch, and 8pm - 10pm. I have been working for the same company for 10 years. They have two rules: 1. If I am working that day I need to be on the clock or reachable during "core hours". For us, core hours are from 10am-3pm. 2. Keep a consistent schedule. I can't just show up whenever. My lunch periods are always unpaid. Occasionally I go out to lunch with a coworker, and if we talk shop more than half the time we are encouraged to charge our meals to the company credit card. This happens about once every three or four of months.
• nameless912 10y ago
  I work as a software engineer at a (primarily) communications firm in San Diego. I leave the house at 6:45 or so to get to the office by 7, work til 11, take an hour long lunch, and then leave at 4:30 or so. I also occasionally work a couple hours on the weekends. All this is so that I can take off super early (ideally, by like 2 PM) on Fridays. Gotta love that 40 hour work week. My first 3 hours of the day are uninterrupted bliss until everyone else gets there. Then I generally alternate working alone and either pair programming or meetings about every hour I'm there til I leave. My company allows for ridiculously flexible hours, the only rule is that you have to be in the office 10-2 at least 3 days a week so people can schedule to meet with you in person if necessary. Beyond that, so long as you work at least 40 hours and are properly supporting all your projects, you're golden.