If you're in management (defined as having authority to hire/fire IIRC) you're exempt from the law, same if you're self-employed. For a regular programming job

If you're in management (defined as having authority to hire/fire IIRC) you're exempt from the law, same if you're self-employed. For a regular programming job, I believe the the law applies (no more than 10h/day and (8h/weekday average over 6 months). Practically, it only matters if somebody cares about it which only happens systematically on larger companies with a union presence. But: you're responsible for your employees and they can not waive this right. If you regularly tolerate it, you may run the risk of someone changing his mind after a few years and getting you into trouble, trouble being up to 15000 Euro in penalties and (theoretically) a year in prison if someone was harmed.