5 ms·
> People have a healthy work/life balance (40-50 hours a week) 40-50 hours of work a week isn't healthy.
by Accacin 9y ago
> People have a healthy work/life balance (40-50 hours a week)
40-50 hours of work a week isn't healthy.
- dx034 9y agoWhy not? The important part is commute. 50hr work week in a job you like with a reasonable commute is no problem for your health. 30hr/week in a job you don't like with 2.5hr in traffic each day is much less healthy.
- neon_electro 9y agoSays what research?
- sidlls 9y agoUnless all 50 hours are compensated, 10 of them at 1.5-2x base pay, the person working them is getting ripped off. Every one of my friends in engineering (actual engineering, e.g. civil, aerospace, etc.) positions get at least 1.5x for any hour over 40 they work in a week. In fact "unpaid overtime" is something I hadn't heard of for an engineering position prior to working in software. It's almost like workers in this industry are competing to see how much they can let themselves be exploited.
- eppsilon 9y agoIn the US, software developers are exempted from the law requiring 1.5x pay for overtime. Not sure it matters if they're salaried instead of hourly to begin with though.
- sidlls 9y agoThis is in the US and they're all salaried. Their overtime is computed as a function of the equivalent hourly rate, biweekly pay, etc.
- lovich 9y agoThat is a set of regulations that vary state by state. I work in mass and I have never received a dime for overtime
- sidlls 9y agoIt has nothing to do with regulations, actually. These companies they work at aren't normally obliged to pay overtime by any regulation or contractual obligation. The engineers there are "exempt" employees, classified identically to what a software engineer would be. In some cases these employers' contracts require them to pay overtime to employees that work on the contract project, but generally that isn't the case. They pay overtime because of the historical evolution of the industry and the expectations and dynamics of the employer/employee relationships.
- davidf18 9y agoInteresting, my undergrad is actual engineer, Electrical, worked in VLSI design (GPUs) for 4 years after college, and nobody I ever heard doing EE every got paid overtime.
- fivestar 9y agoYou have to negotiate your salary based on these assumptions. Or get paid hourly (as a consultant or contractor). I'm not currently hourly, but I am also not getting exploited, either. Most places I have worked didn't give a damn about their employees. They would just use them up and get new ones when people eventually got fed up and quit (or got sick and quit, in a few cases). When you bill hourly, projects are far more honest in terms of not shifting costs onto the staff.
- kingnothing 9y agoI'm guessing you don't live in the US, or your friends are underpaid, or they work for a firm that chooses, but does not have to, provide overtime. Actual engineering should generally be considered exempt from overtime. 1. If nothing else, engineers are considered a learned professional. 2. They probably make over $100,000 per year. 3. They may hit the executive exemption. https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/fs17a_overview.pdf https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/fs17a_overview.pdf
- sidlls 9y agoTheir firms choose to provide overtime. I live in the US, and so do they. They are underpaid, but so are software engineers (even adjusting for overtime or lack thereof).
- tigershark 9y agoI guess you are speaking about juniors/graduates? Senior engineers in my experience in two different European countries have always contracts with unpaid overtime exactly as management contracts.
- sidlls 9y agoNo. Three of them have very senior positions (e.g. principal or chief engineer). They've always had paid overtime at every stage of their career.
- MiddleEndian 9y agoAgreed, although I imagine it's probably the norm unfortunately.