5 ms·

Software Engineer, Machine Learning

45 points by foo101 9y ago

TheM00se 9y ago
This says learning and studying takes 70 hours a week so perhaps its not working for 70 hours a week, but there's a strong learning component which could be done outside of the job. Working as an ML Engineer there's a good bit of learning outside of the job and reading up on the latest papers which can take a lot of time outside of work.
ejjpi 9y ago
why don't they just hire 2 persons instead of 1 and split the work? let's put an end to this toxic behavior from companies. working 70+ hours per week doesn't make you a better employee or the world a better place.
foo101 9y ago
Note: The original title of this post was: "Andrew Ng is looking for Software Engineers who routinely work 70-90 hours/week". A moderator has understandably updated the title to "Software Engineer, Machine Learning". Thought I should clarify this because this thread was posted to highlight the issue of demanding long work hours. There are two job postings that mention these long work hours. Job Description 1: https://www.deeplearning.ai/machinelearningsoftwareengjobdescri https://www.deeplearning.ai/machinelearningsoftwareengjobdes... Job Description 2: https://www.deeplearning.ai/fullstacksoftwareengineerjobdescrip https://www.deeplearning.ai/fullstacksoftwareengineerjobdesc... Both pages originally said, "many of us routinely work and study 70-90 hours a week". After a lot of criticism on Andrew Ng's Facebook post, as of now, it has been modified to, "many of us routinely work and study 70+ hours a week". Andrew Ng's Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/andrew.ng.96/posts/1472272026162033 https://www.facebook.com/andrew.ng.96/posts/1472272026162033
jswensen 9y ago
So basically they are discriminating against people who would like to see their children? 90 hours per week == 12.86 hours per day. That means I clock in close to 7AM and clock out at 8PM every day of the week. This excludes any travel time, meals, etc. My wife called the first two years of graduate school her "grad-student widow years". Even now on occasion I put in that much time, but a consistent 70-90 hour work week is unsustainable if you value family life.
- ryguytilidie 9y ago
  Not even family life. Any sort of relationship at all? Nope. Any sort of hobbies or things outside of grinding away to get someone else rich? Nope. Why does anyone accept this shit anymore? This guy should be laughed at.
  - fatso83 9y ago
    Some people don't care about people.
- arkadiytehgraet 9y ago
  I don't understand why is it a "discrimination". Yes, even 50 hour week severely limits family time; so what? Just do not apply then, especially since they are totally upfront about the desired working hours. It is not as if you do not have choice - you are already employed, and if you were to switch jobs - there are plenty of places available with sustainable work-life balance. Some people are willing to put in actual effort and time in the work (and get compensated for it accordingly); removing the 70+ hour week part of the job would be the very same "discrimination" against them.
- thecolorblue 9y ago
  The other option is they are looking for people who are comfortable getting less than 8 hours of sleep a night. This is also not healthy, but can be done.
- scarface74 9y ago
  How is this "discrimination"? You have a choice. You can decide to take the job or not. At least they are up front about it. For me personally, there isn't enough money you could pay me to work 90 hours a week.
daly 9y ago
I routinely work those hours. I love what I do, which is self-directed research in computer algebra. I'm retired, though, so I probably don't count.
- samoright 9y ago
  90 hours/week = 18 hours/day (assuming 5-day work week). That leaves only 6 hours for other chores, travel and sleep. This is not sustainable. So I'll assume people who can pull off a 90-hour work week work all 7 days of the week which would amount to 13 hours/day. That still leaves sufficient time for a 7-hour sleep and 4 hours of chores and entertainment. Now, if you are your own boss where you decide the scope and the deadlines, the work is going to be fun and I can understand that you would not mind working 13 hours/day. But I don't think working 13 hours/day for a boss or a company that considers me a cost in a business transaction of buying my skills is going to be fun.
  - oneneptune 9y ago
    To provide an anecdote for the effect this has on your life. I worked 70+ hours minimum (106 was my "record") for 5 years and averaged 4 hours and 45 minutes of sleep per night. It was spread out over 6 days a week which made it a little easier.. but it wasn't worth it. I couldn't keep any intimate relationship, pretty much just dated very casually over that time. Rarely saw my family. Saw my friends so infrequently, that I may as well have lived 2,000 miles away. It was a big event any time I saw them which was usually once every 2-3 months. My blood pressure reached full blown hypertension levels and I needed medication. It's not a healthy way to live and I've undoubtedly erased years from the end of my life as a result. I don't care how motivated or passionate you are about what you do, this work load isn't sustainable and will forever be a "Dark Ages" era of my own life.
  - daly 9y ago
    I'd need to be convinced that they had a really interesting problem, one that would keep me awake at night. I'd also need to be convinced they understand the idea that "anything we can solve by throwing money at the problem isn't a real problem". Real problems can't be solved by money and problems that can be solved by money aren't real. You'll find at a job that a 70% productive day is outstanding. Time not lost to meetings, travel, etc. is rare. Working from home helps because it extends the work time and minimizes the interruptions. My years working from home were the most productive. As for the 70 hours thing, I work 7 days a week. Since I have no outside constraints the term 'day' gets a bit blurry; sleep happens when it happens, eating happens between keystrokes, etc. In fact, I'm "on vacation" this week at the Outer Banks but reading a PhD thesis. My wife can't understand why I brought "work" to a beach resort. She works in medicine so this really is "escape time from work" for her. Interesting work is its own motivation. We seem to have lost that idea somewhere. Her work is not interesting so she needs to escape. Mine is interesting and I consider not working as "lost time". Andrew has the possibility of "interesting work" but I'm going to bet they screw it up with things like "required sensitivity training", meetings, "required plans and schedules", "interviewing new employees", "friday lunch gatherings", skip-level interviews, open-plan floor office space, investor presentations, morning standups, on-call phone coverage, skype meetings, slack interruptions, agile card games, progress reports, company security protocols, random phone calls, trip reports, trip refund paperwork, employee ratings, changing goals, offsite meetings, time tracking, parking issues, pair programming, etc. All of which are examples of time-sinks I've experienced on the job. I can't spend 3 weeks absorbing a relevant PhD thesis "between meetings". I can't write really difficult programs without huge blocks of uninterrupted time.
daly 9y ago
Since the job description includes 70-80 hours I expect that they are paying more. It would be normal to assume a 70/40 or 80/40 pay rate, that is, about twice the normal rate for a leading edge programmer. So, base salary should probably start north of $500,000 per year. And those hours will require working both at work and at home so you should expect a fully funded home-office and half-coverage of your rent. I'm willing to bet that won't happen.
- singularity2001 9y ago
  Is that even legal to demand a 70+ hour 'work ethic'?
- wageslaving 9y ago
  Personally, I would expect at least time and a half applied to those last 30-40 hours as well. Which would be 85/40 to 100/40.
  - monktastic1 9y ago
    Stupid question: what does a pay rate in the form "x/y" mean?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - clooless 9y ago
      Normal rate is 40 hours/wk. New rate is (e.g.) 80 hrs per week, so the pay should reflect that. 80/40 or 2/1 or 2x the rate.
      - monktastic1 9y ago
        Derp, should have been obvious from context. Thanks!
- falcolas 9y ago
  Agreed. If this was a hourly position, and if the base pay was around $150,000, that would put it just shy of the $400,000 range just to account for all the overtime. Of course, it won't be paid hourly; it's much easier to abuse salaried individuals.
zaptheimpaler 9y ago
If you don't like the job, DONT APPLY. There is absolutely nothing wrong with seeking people who voluntarily wish to work those hours. It is in fact much better than implicitly expecting long working hours like many jobs while not being upfront about it - that can trap people into a deal they did not fully understand. This is the opposite. It may be unsustainable for the vast majority of people (me included) - so what? I don't go around crying about coal miners jobs because it would be unsustainable for my physical frame, I just choose not to apply.
- falcolas 9y ago
  Ethical considerations and actual productivity hits aside - unless properly paid, the company is opening itself up for lawsuits. EA was sued for working salaried workers beyond 50 hours a week.
- zzalpha 9y ago
  My guess is this is being called out because it's symptomatic of a toxic valley culture that clearly values workaholism, to the detriment of people's mental and physical health. Couple that with a broader obsession in the US corporate workplace for increased productivity at all costs, and I can see why people would see this as beyond the pale. So, yes, taken as a single point, you're right, simply don't apply. As part of a larger trend in tech workplaces, it's a worrying symptom of a deeper dysfunction.
  - daly 9y ago
    Working these hours at Google would be stupidity. But startups are different. I've worked for a few. You basically sell your soul to try to make it succeed. If you love the idea the work hours are not the issue. Things go sour when the startup is being sold. Then everyone discovers that only a few people will make money off the effort and you get to watch. It gets toxic quickly.
    - pm90 9y ago
      The problem isn't that people should be forbidden from working hard on something they are passionate about. Its simply that it shouldn't be the norm. And also: that kind of work should be compensated appropriately. From your comments it seems like that is not usually the case for startups.
sgy 9y ago
Also, there seems to be a ~7600 USD referral bonus on for the position here: https://ref10.com/ https://ref10.com/
- fs85 9y ago
  so people are being rewarded for sending their friends to work long hours?
  - sgy 9y ago
    A lot of people voluntarily work for long hours, especially in tech/research and especially if they like what they're working on
    - virtuexru 9y ago
      I've never met anyone who voluntarily enjoys working 70-90 hours a week.
      - sgy 9y ago
        I've met several people who work even more than that
        transverse 9y ago
        This can only last a short while. In time you would have sufficiently damaged their health and wellbeing that they will stop it and curse you for it. But what do you care.
        sgy 9y ago
        Why would you stop someone passionate and determined? Their wellbeing is a personal matter in that regard.
        9y ago
kloncks 9y ago
I genuinely don't understand the criticism. You don't find or enjoy working 70-90 hours healthy? That's your view and you likely shouldn't apply for this position. Even assuming this is crazy, what's wrong with crazy people recruiting similarly minded crazy people? It's most obviously not a fit for anyone who wants to work 40 hours or wants to see their kids or whatever, but for those, there are plenty of other jobs. I just find it crazy that because of your personal views on work-life-balance, you expect Ng to have to change his desires for you. That seems wrong to me imho.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- wageslaving 9y ago
  All I can see are the economics of it. If he was paying his engineers $600,000 / yr in compensation for all the overtime they're working, I would have no trouble with the arrangement. However, software engineers rarely get any form of compensation for extra hours work outside of small vanity bonuses. This is just someone looking to take advantage of the fact they can get free labor out of their employees by "encouraging" them to work an extra 30 to 40 hours a week.
- saiya-jin 9y ago
  Science doesn't find this amount of work healthy. Many people push themselves, or are pushed by external pressures, and then burnouts, suicides etc happen. Fair thing is, they are honest about it. Pathetic is, this is upfront expectation for business to perform. Personally, I believe that if one decides to waste its life on work, however pathetic life choice that is, one should be allowed. Rest of us can point a finger, laugh and get back to living our lives. This ain't something to glorify or to be proud of, quite opposite. One last thing - most people think along these lines, based on reactions here & his FB.
- falcolas 9y ago
  I, personally, criticize it because I consider it to be abuse. The individuals hired for these kinds of conditions are typically underpaid and overworked, and come out of it burnt out and hating their profession. EA did this, and were successfully sued for it. The consequences for their actions were greater than just being sued, however; an entire generation or two of game developers were burnt out on their passion and moved away from the gaming industry.
xroche 9y ago
All modern research/studies tend to demonstrate that, beyond 40 hours, productivity does not rise, and, beyond 50 hours, it actually plunge, with quality dropping, employees driven to burn-out, etc. But still, the stupid mantra from the Silicon Valley is "you have to work 80 hours to be successful" Why are these CEO/CTO unable to comprehend studies and adopting a totally irrational position ? https://www.inc.com/tom-popomaronis/science-says-you-shouldnt-work-more-than-this-number-of-hours-a-day.html https://www.inc.com/tom-popomaronis/science-says-you-shouldn... https://www.cnbc.com/2015/01/26/working-more-than-50-hours-makes-you-less-productive.html https://www.cnbc.com/2015/01/26/working-more-than-50-hours-m... https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/crunchmode/econ-hours-productivity.html https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/crunc...
- wageslaving 9y ago
  the name of the game is leveraging explosive, unsustainable growth into a high rate of return into cheap capital into a big payday for founders everything else is long-term
  - DevinTheDude 9y ago
    > the name of the game is leveraging explosive, unsustainable growth into a high rate of return into cheap capital into a big payday for founders I've come to the conclusion this is the case. Has anyone written on this?
- edanm 9y ago
  Probably because most people don't really believe these studies (assuming they've heard of them). I'm very doubtful of them myself. It really just-so happens that the standard US workweek is the exact perfect amount? That sounds incredibly unlikely. And this is a hard thing to study, too. Moreover, anecdotally, I know plenty of people that work more hours than this, effectively (and also some that work less!).
deweller 9y ago
I expect very few engineers are actually productive beyond 50 hours a week. A young engineer may be able to burn at 70 hours a week for 2 weeks if one is highly motivated. But after a couple of weeks, the amount of productivity will fall off a lot. more hours != productivity
calvinbhai 9y ago
It's 70+ hrs of working "AND LEARNING". I'm not sure what the mean by that, or if that was added later, but the "learning" part looks like a reasonable amount of effort for those who are in this field with only 3 to 5 yrs of experience.
shaimagz 9y ago
They work so hard they forgot to test the website on mobile browsers
SoCool 9y ago
I seem to see this as an upfront declaration on the requirements. I think, this 70+ hours work week involves reading and learning too.

45 points by foo101 9y ago

This says learning and studying takes 70 hours a week so perhaps its not working for 70 hours a week, but there's a strong learning component which could be done outside of the job. Working as an ML Engineer there's a good bit of learning outside of the job and reading up on the latest papers which can take a lot of time outside of work.

ejjpi 9y ago

why don't they just hire 2 persons instead of 1 and split the work? let's put an end to this toxic behavior from companies. working 70+ hours per week doesn't make you a better employee or the world a better place.

foo101 9y ago

Note: The original title of this post was: "Andrew Ng is looking for Software Engineers who routinely work 70-90 hours/week". A moderator has understandably updated the title to "Software Engineer, Machine Learning". Thought I should clarify this because this thread was posted to highlight the issue of demanding long work hours. There are two job postings that mention these long work hours. Job Description 1: https://www.deeplearning.ai/machinelearningsoftwareengjobdescri https://www.deeplearning.ai/machinelearningsoftwareengjobdes... Job Description 2: https://www.deeplearning.ai/fullstacksoftwareengineerjobdescrip https://www.deeplearning.ai/fullstacksoftwareengineerjobdesc... Both pages originally said, "many of us routinely work and study 70-90 hours a week". After a lot of criticism on Andrew Ng's Facebook post, as of now, it has been modified to, "many of us routinely work and study 70+ hours a week". Andrew Ng's Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/andrew.ng.96/posts/1472272026162033 https://www.facebook.com/andrew.ng.96/posts/1472272026162033

jswensen 9y ago

So basically they are discriminating against people who would like to see their children? 90 hours per week == 12.86 hours per day. That means I clock in close to 7AM and clock out at 8PM every day of the week. This excludes any travel time, meals, etc. My wife called the first two years of graduate school her "grad-student widow years". Even now on occasion I put in that much time, but a consistent 70-90 hour work week is unsustainable if you value family life.

ryguytilidie 9y ago
Not even family life. Any sort of relationship at all? Nope. Any sort of hobbies or things outside of grinding away to get someone else rich? Nope. Why does anyone accept this shit anymore? This guy should be laughed at.
- fatso83 9y ago
  Some people don't care about people.
arkadiytehgraet 9y ago
I don't understand why is it a "discrimination". Yes, even 50 hour week severely limits family time; so what? Just do not apply then, especially since they are totally upfront about the desired working hours. It is not as if you do not have choice - you are already employed, and if you were to switch jobs - there are plenty of places available with sustainable work-life balance. Some people are willing to put in actual effort and time in the work (and get compensated for it accordingly); removing the 70+ hour week part of the job would be the very same "discrimination" against them.
thecolorblue 9y ago
The other option is they are looking for people who are comfortable getting less than 8 hours of sleep a night. This is also not healthy, but can be done.
scarface74 9y ago
How is this "discrimination"? You have a choice. You can decide to take the job or not. At least they are up front about it. For me personally, there isn't enough money you could pay me to work 90 hours a week.

daly 9y ago

I routinely work those hours. I love what I do, which is self-directed research in computer algebra. I'm retired, though, so I probably don't count.

samoright 9y ago
90 hours/week = 18 hours/day (assuming 5-day work week). That leaves only 6 hours for other chores, travel and sleep. This is not sustainable. So I'll assume people who can pull off a 90-hour work week work all 7 days of the week which would amount to 13 hours/day. That still leaves sufficient time for a 7-hour sleep and 4 hours of chores and entertainment. Now, if you are your own boss where you decide the scope and the deadlines, the work is going to be fun and I can understand that you would not mind working 13 hours/day. But I don't think working 13 hours/day for a boss or a company that considers me a cost in a business transaction of buying my skills is going to be fun.
- oneneptune 9y ago
  To provide an anecdote for the effect this has on your life. I worked 70+ hours minimum (106 was my "record") for 5 years and averaged 4 hours and 45 minutes of sleep per night. It was spread out over 6 days a week which made it a little easier.. but it wasn't worth it. I couldn't keep any intimate relationship, pretty much just dated very casually over that time. Rarely saw my family. Saw my friends so infrequently, that I may as well have lived 2,000 miles away. It was a big event any time I saw them which was usually once every 2-3 months. My blood pressure reached full blown hypertension levels and I needed medication. It's not a healthy way to live and I've undoubtedly erased years from the end of my life as a result. I don't care how motivated or passionate you are about what you do, this work load isn't sustainable and will forever be a "Dark Ages" era of my own life.
- daly 9y ago
  I'd need to be convinced that they had a really interesting problem, one that would keep me awake at night. I'd also need to be convinced they understand the idea that "anything we can solve by throwing money at the problem isn't a real problem". Real problems can't be solved by money and problems that can be solved by money aren't real. You'll find at a job that a 70% productive day is outstanding. Time not lost to meetings, travel, etc. is rare. Working from home helps because it extends the work time and minimizes the interruptions. My years working from home were the most productive. As for the 70 hours thing, I work 7 days a week. Since I have no outside constraints the term 'day' gets a bit blurry; sleep happens when it happens, eating happens between keystrokes, etc. In fact, I'm "on vacation" this week at the Outer Banks but reading a PhD thesis. My wife can't understand why I brought "work" to a beach resort. She works in medicine so this really is "escape time from work" for her. Interesting work is its own motivation. We seem to have lost that idea somewhere. Her work is not interesting so she needs to escape. Mine is interesting and I consider not working as "lost time". Andrew has the possibility of "interesting work" but I'm going to bet they screw it up with things like "required sensitivity training", meetings, "required plans and schedules", "interviewing new employees", "friday lunch gatherings", skip-level interviews, open-plan floor office space, investor presentations, morning standups, on-call phone coverage, skype meetings, slack interruptions, agile card games, progress reports, company security protocols, random phone calls, trip reports, trip refund paperwork, employee ratings, changing goals, offsite meetings, time tracking, parking issues, pair programming, etc. All of which are examples of time-sinks I've experienced on the job. I can't spend 3 weeks absorbing a relevant PhD thesis "between meetings". I can't write really difficult programs without huge blocks of uninterrupted time.

daly 9y ago

Since the job description includes 70-80 hours I expect that they are paying more. It would be normal to assume a 70/40 or 80/40 pay rate, that is, about twice the normal rate for a leading edge programmer. So, base salary should probably start north of $500,000 per year. And those hours will require working both at work and at home so you should expect a fully funded home-office and half-coverage of your rent. I'm willing to bet that won't happen.

singularity2001 9y ago
Is that even legal to demand a 70+ hour 'work ethic'?
wageslaving 9y ago
Personally, I would expect at least time and a half applied to those last 30-40 hours as well. Which would be 85/40 to 100/40.
- monktastic1 9y ago
  Stupid question: what does a pay rate in the form "x/y" mean?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - clooless 9y ago
    Normal rate is 40 hours/wk. New rate is (e.g.) 80 hrs per week, so the pay should reflect that. 80/40 or 2/1 or 2x the rate.
    - monktastic1 9y ago
      Derp, should have been obvious from context. Thanks!
falcolas 9y ago
Agreed. If this was a hourly position, and if the base pay was around $150,000, that would put it just shy of the $400,000 range just to account for all the overtime. Of course, it won't be paid hourly; it's much easier to abuse salaried individuals.

zaptheimpaler 9y ago

If you don't like the job, DONT APPLY. There is absolutely nothing wrong with seeking people who voluntarily wish to work those hours. It is in fact much better than implicitly expecting long working hours like many jobs while not being upfront about it - that can trap people into a deal they did not fully understand. This is the opposite. It may be unsustainable for the vast majority of people (me included) - so what? I don't go around crying about coal miners jobs because it would be unsustainable for my physical frame, I just choose not to apply.

falcolas 9y ago
Ethical considerations and actual productivity hits aside - unless properly paid, the company is opening itself up for lawsuits. EA was sued for working salaried workers beyond 50 hours a week.
zzalpha 9y ago
My guess is this is being called out because it's symptomatic of a toxic valley culture that clearly values workaholism, to the detriment of people's mental and physical health. Couple that with a broader obsession in the US corporate workplace for increased productivity at all costs, and I can see why people would see this as beyond the pale. So, yes, taken as a single point, you're right, simply don't apply. As part of a larger trend in tech workplaces, it's a worrying symptom of a deeper dysfunction.
- daly 9y ago
  Working these hours at Google would be stupidity. But startups are different. I've worked for a few. You basically sell your soul to try to make it succeed. If you love the idea the work hours are not the issue. Things go sour when the startup is being sold. Then everyone discovers that only a few people will make money off the effort and you get to watch. It gets toxic quickly.
  - pm90 9y ago
    The problem isn't that people should be forbidden from working hard on something they are passionate about. Its simply that it shouldn't be the norm. And also: that kind of work should be compensated appropriately. From your comments it seems like that is not usually the case for startups.

sgy 9y ago

Also, there seems to be a ~7600 USD referral bonus on for the position here: https://ref10.com/ https://ref10.com/

fs85 9y ago
so people are being rewarded for sending their friends to work long hours?
- sgy 9y ago
  A lot of people voluntarily work for long hours, especially in tech/research and especially if they like what they're working on
  - virtuexru 9y ago
    I've never met anyone who voluntarily enjoys working 70-90 hours a week.
    - sgy 9y ago
      I've met several people who work even more than that
      - transverse 9y ago
        This can only last a short while. In time you would have sufficiently damaged their health and wellbeing that they will stop it and curse you for it. But what do you care.
        sgy 9y ago
        Why would you stop someone passionate and determined? Their wellbeing is a personal matter in that regard.
        9y ago

kloncks 9y ago

I genuinely don't understand the criticism. You don't find or enjoy working 70-90 hours healthy? That's your view and you likely shouldn't apply for this position. Even assuming this is crazy, what's wrong with crazy people recruiting similarly minded crazy people? It's most obviously not a fit for anyone who wants to work 40 hours or wants to see their kids or whatever, but for those, there are plenty of other jobs. I just find it crazy that because of your personal views on work-life-balance, you expect Ng to have to change his desires for you. That seems wrong to me imho.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
wageslaving 9y ago
All I can see are the economics of it. If he was paying his engineers $600,000 / yr in compensation for all the overtime they're working, I would have no trouble with the arrangement. However, software engineers rarely get any form of compensation for extra hours work outside of small vanity bonuses. This is just someone looking to take advantage of the fact they can get free labor out of their employees by "encouraging" them to work an extra 30 to 40 hours a week.
saiya-jin 9y ago
Science doesn't find this amount of work healthy. Many people push themselves, or are pushed by external pressures, and then burnouts, suicides etc happen. Fair thing is, they are honest about it. Pathetic is, this is upfront expectation for business to perform. Personally, I believe that if one decides to waste its life on work, however pathetic life choice that is, one should be allowed. Rest of us can point a finger, laugh and get back to living our lives. This ain't something to glorify or to be proud of, quite opposite. One last thing - most people think along these lines, based on reactions here & his FB.
falcolas 9y ago
I, personally, criticize it because I consider it to be abuse. The individuals hired for these kinds of conditions are typically underpaid and overworked, and come out of it burnt out and hating their profession. EA did this, and were successfully sued for it. The consequences for their actions were greater than just being sued, however; an entire generation or two of game developers were burnt out on their passion and moved away from the gaming industry.

xroche 9y ago

All modern research/studies tend to demonstrate that, beyond 40 hours, productivity does not rise, and, beyond 50 hours, it actually plunge, with quality dropping, employees driven to burn-out, etc. But still, the stupid mantra from the Silicon Valley is "you have to work 80 hours to be successful" Why are these CEO/CTO unable to comprehend studies and adopting a totally irrational position ? https://www.inc.com/tom-popomaronis/science-says-you-shouldnt-work-more-than-this-number-of-hours-a-day.html https://www.inc.com/tom-popomaronis/science-says-you-shouldn... https://www.cnbc.com/2015/01/26/working-more-than-50-hours-makes-you-less-productive.html https://www.cnbc.com/2015/01/26/working-more-than-50-hours-m... https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/crunchmode/econ-hours-productivity.html https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/crunc...

wageslaving 9y ago
the name of the game is leveraging explosive, unsustainable growth into a high rate of return into cheap capital into a big payday for founders everything else is long-term
- DevinTheDude 9y ago
  > the name of the game is leveraging explosive, unsustainable growth into a high rate of return into cheap capital into a big payday for founders I've come to the conclusion this is the case. Has anyone written on this?
edanm 9y ago
Probably because most people don't really believe these studies (assuming they've heard of them). I'm very doubtful of them myself. It really just-so happens that the standard US workweek is the exact perfect amount? That sounds incredibly unlikely. And this is a hard thing to study, too. Moreover, anecdotally, I know plenty of people that work more hours than this, effectively (and also some that work less!).

deweller 9y ago

I expect very few engineers are actually productive beyond 50 hours a week. A young engineer may be able to burn at 70 hours a week for 2 weeks if one is highly motivated. But after a couple of weeks, the amount of productivity will fall off a lot. more hours != productivity

calvinbhai 9y ago

It's 70+ hrs of working "AND LEARNING". I'm not sure what the mean by that, or if that was added later, but the "learning" part looks like a reasonable amount of effort for those who are in this field with only 3 to 5 yrs of experience.

shaimagz 9y ago

They work so hard they forgot to test the website on mobile browsers

SoCool 9y ago

I seem to see this as an upfront declaration on the requirements. I think, this 70+ hours work week involves reading and learning too.