5 ms·

Not sure how much you can consider Work/Life balance a key value when you expect people to work 50 hour weeks (https://www.keyvalues.io/kite https://www.keyvalu

by alrehn 9y ago

Not sure how much you can consider Work/Life balance a key value when you expect people to work 50 hour weeks (https://www.keyvalues.io/kite https://www.keyvalues.io/kite). Not to say that 50 hours is awful, there's certainly a lot worse out there, but I'd say it's enough to disqualify that as a 'key value'.

ArchReaper 9y ago
Any company that expects more than 40 hours a week should be automatically disqualified from picking 'work life balance' imo.
jxcl 9y ago
I agree that any company that asks for more than 40 hours should not be allowed to have the work/life balance key value. The profile says that the company eats dinner together and people go home at 8pm. That sounds pretty work centric and not much time for life left after that.
- alrehn 9y ago
  Also they accompany it with a picture of a fun work outing. Those can be great, but should go with some other key value. When I think of work/life balance I think of having time to myself, to relax, see friends/family and work on other things/hobbies. Company events are nice and I think a good idea in terms of teambuilding but they are still on the side of work, not life.
- busterarm 9y ago
  Also might say that they value their employees being young, single and childless.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  If everyone comes in at noon, that seems fine to me. It's not for everyone, but it's not overworking.
rvanmil 9y ago
Apparently the teams self-select their values, so it looks like these poor souls actually think that working 50 hours a week and eating dinner at the office is good work/life balance.
meritt 9y ago
Every time work/life balance comes up I get so damn annoyed with this uniquely tech-centric viewpoint. You've got people bringing home $150-350k/yr plus every imaginable perk fretting over the idea of putting in more than 40 hours a week. Even high-skilled high-pay workers (medicine, legal, and finance come to mind) put in lots of hours without whimpering about finding a balance, much less the vast percentage of the population who hold blue-collar jobs and clamor for overtime pay. If someone doesn't feel they should work more than 40 hours, then by all means don't take that job, but please drop the damn sense of entitlement. This bubble will not last forever and one's ability to crank out an Uber-for-X clone in NodeJS won't always pay the bills.
- alrehn 9y ago
  Like I said, I don't think working more than 40 hours is the end of the world, I just don't think a company that expects that can list work/life balance as a core value. It's ok to sacrifice that for high salaries or other perks, but that's what a site like this is for, to help match your priorities with a companies'. If you put down work/life balance as one of the things you value most then you probably don't want to work for a place that expects you to work until 8pm.
- slavapestov 9y ago
  > If someone doesn't feel they should work more than 40 hours, then by all means don't take that job, but please drop the damn sense of entitlement. This bubble will not last forever and one's ability to crank out an Uber-for-X clone in NodeJS won't always pay the bills. It is possible to make a lot of money while working reasonable hours and solving problems that are a lot more interesting than "Uber for X" type shit. The fact that our industry values the latter while burning out inexperienced engineers who don't know better is definitely a problem though.
- Volt 9y ago
  >You've got people bringing home $150-350k/yr plus every imaginable perk So now you've made this assumption. I get what you're saying, but you also have to understand that there are people willing to give up salary for more free time, and these people are therefore allowed to ask for fewer hours. There's no entitlement here.
vosper 9y ago
I agree, though I will give Kite credit for being upfront about the hours and the environment ("we hardly ever speak person-person outside of lunch", [paraphrasing:] "dinner comes at 6:30pm and we sort of expect you'll eat at the office". "Slack doesn't notify after 8pm because that's when most people leave"). Much better to know that from the start than get surprised during interviews or after you start.

by alrehn 9y ago

ArchReaper 9y ago

Any company that expects more than 40 hours a week should be automatically disqualified from picking 'work life balance' imo.

jxcl 9y ago

I agree that any company that asks for more than 40 hours should not be allowed to have the work/life balance key value. The profile says that the company eats dinner together and people go home at 8pm. That sounds pretty work centric and not much time for life left after that.

alrehn 9y ago
Also they accompany it with a picture of a fun work outing. Those can be great, but should go with some other key value. When I think of work/life balance I think of having time to myself, to relax, see friends/family and work on other things/hobbies. Company events are nice and I think a good idea in terms of teambuilding but they are still on the side of work, not life.
busterarm 9y ago
Also might say that they value their employees being young, single and childless.
humanrebar 9y ago
If everyone comes in at noon, that seems fine to me. It's not for everyone, but it's not overworking.

rvanmil 9y ago

Apparently the teams self-select their values, so it looks like these poor souls actually think that working 50 hours a week and eating dinner at the office is good work/life balance.

meritt 9y ago

Every time work/life balance comes up I get so damn annoyed with this uniquely tech-centric viewpoint. You've got people bringing home $150-350k/yr plus every imaginable perk fretting over the idea of putting in more than 40 hours a week. Even high-skilled high-pay workers (medicine, legal, and finance come to mind) put in lots of hours without whimpering about finding a balance, much less the vast percentage of the population who hold blue-collar jobs and clamor for overtime pay. If someone doesn't feel they should work more than 40 hours, then by all means don't take that job, but please drop the damn sense of entitlement. This bubble will not last forever and one's ability to crank out an Uber-for-X clone in NodeJS won't always pay the bills.

alrehn 9y ago
Like I said, I don't think working more than 40 hours is the end of the world, I just don't think a company that expects that can list work/life balance as a core value. It's ok to sacrifice that for high salaries or other perks, but that's what a site like this is for, to help match your priorities with a companies'. If you put down work/life balance as one of the things you value most then you probably don't want to work for a place that expects you to work until 8pm.
slavapestov 9y ago
> If someone doesn't feel they should work more than 40 hours, then by all means don't take that job, but please drop the damn sense of entitlement. This bubble will not last forever and one's ability to crank out an Uber-for-X clone in NodeJS won't always pay the bills. It is possible to make a lot of money while working reasonable hours and solving problems that are a lot more interesting than "Uber for X" type shit. The fact that our industry values the latter while burning out inexperienced engineers who don't know better is definitely a problem though.
Volt 9y ago
>You've got people bringing home $150-350k/yr plus every imaginable perk So now you've made this assumption. I get what you're saying, but you also have to understand that there are people willing to give up salary for more free time, and these people are therefore allowed to ask for fewer hours. There's no entitlement here.

vosper 9y ago

I agree, though I will give Kite credit for being upfront about the hours and the environment ("we hardly ever speak person-person outside of lunch", [paraphrasing:] "dinner comes at 6:30pm and we sort of expect you'll eat at the office". "Slack doesn't notify after 8pm because that's when most people leave"). Much better to know that from the start than get surprised during interviews or after you start.