29 ms·

Cutting your salary by 40%

• foo101 9y ago
  The original job postings[1][2] were even more egregious. They originally said, "many of us routinely work 70-90 hours/week". After a lot of criticism on a Facebook post by Andrew Ng[3] (where you can still find residual evidence of the "work 70-90 hours/week" claim), they modified it to, "many of us routinely work and study 70+ hours a week". So to be precise, they were initially offering you a 43% to 56% pay cut. Getting paid for 40 hours when you have worked for 70 hours is a 100 * (1.0 - 40 / 70) ≈ 43% pay cut. Getting paid for 40 hours when you have worked for 90 hours is a 100 * (1.0 - 40 / 90) ≈ 56% pay cut. [1]: https://www.deeplearning.ai/machinelearningsoftwareengjobdescri https://www.deeplearning.ai/machinelearningsoftwareengjobdes... [2]: https://www.deeplearning.ai/fullstacksoftwareengineerjobdescrip https://www.deeplearning.ai/fullstacksoftwareengineerjobdesc... [3]: https://www.facebook.com/andrew.ng.96/posts/1472272026162033 https://www.facebook.com/andrew.ng.96/posts/1472272026162033
  • philipov 9y ago
    Does trawling HN for Github repositories and blog posts count as study? Gotta get that market research done somehow!
  • chrisseaton 9y ago
    > Getting paid for 40 hours Do salaried jobs always specify a number of hours in their contracts? Otherwise you aren't being paid for 40 hours - you're just being paid to get the job done aren't you?
    • Cthulhu_ 9y ago
      They should, because if they would instead offer an amount per week or month without the hours, employees could just decide to only put in 4 hours a day. Contracts work both ways. Also the definition of "getting the job done" would also have to be defined in the contract somewhere. The job advert also states "full-time", which IIRC implies a certain hours a week.
    • aetherson 9y ago
      I mean, sure. But if you have a typical programming job, it's not like there's a clean finish line. There's always more work to do, but at some point you need to pack up and go home for the night.
      • walshemj 9y ago
        then your employer needs to plan better and descope where required
        • aetherson 9y ago
          No, dude. Like, not, "There's always omigod super important crunch time work to do." There's always just ordinary "what's next on the queue" work to do. Descoping doesn't mean "We're done as software developers," it means "We aren't going to worry about getting this functionality into this release." But there's no point where you don't have a backlog. When you finish the task you're current working on, you pick up the next task. Nobody's expecting anyone to work all night on the next task, but similarly there's no place where you're like, "Okay, we're done, everyone go home for the week." So... work 40 hours-ish.
          • walshemj 9y ago
            Sounds like your employer sucks mate and probably a weak or ineffectual CTO who is not doing their job
    • shados 9y ago
      Not really. Most of mines have had stuff like "the employee will work the amount of time needed to get stuff done", worded in legalese. Which is kind of the definition of being salaried, so it makes sense.
    • eli_gottlieb 9y ago
      It's a very rare "get the job done" job that ever lets you finish your work and go home before 40 hours are up.
    • soneca 9y ago
      In Brazil, yes, they always include how many hours are required. Usually 40 or 44 (the maximum allowed by our laws). I think it would be very weird to not have that in a employment contract, as time for money is the essence of employment.
    • doikor 9y ago
      This is weird to me. At least here in Finland when you are salaried for the standard 37.5h work week (7.5h work day with 30min lunch break) if you work more then that you log the hours as overtime and get paid for them or in some form of "flex" time that you turn into vacation days or money (there are limits to how many hours of flex you can have banked up) I know some smaller companies/start ups work around this but they can very easily get in trouble as doing that is illegal (as in if even a single employee complains to the authorities about not being paid for overtime they are fucked)
      • chrisseaton 9y ago
        If it's a standard number of hours what's the point in being salaried? Why don't they just pay you hourly?
        • doikor 9y ago
          Because nobody on the better paid fields would take such a contract. You could try it but you would most likely lose in the market place of jobs by all the best employees going somewhere else. As to why having a contract that pays you for the standard work week always I think people just like the security of getting roughly the same amount of money each month (or biweekly or however often you get paid). Especially once you have some money so you have mortgages, loans and credit cards to manage on top of your monthly bills. Also the hours beyond the normal work week are overtime and come with multipliers for your effective hourly rate so companies try to do their best to arrange things so that minimal amount of overtime is actually done.
          • ikeyany 9y ago
            So the point of salaries is to not have to pay overtime? No wonder everyone is becoming a contractor.
            • logfromblammo 9y ago
              The point of salaries was to pay employees by the week instead of by the hour. My first job had a weekly timecard that consisted of a checkbox: "Did you work this week?" Now, every job I have requires me to account for all my hours, so it seems like the only reason I am not a wage employee is to avoid paying me 150% base rate for hours worked beyond the first 40 in a calendar week.
    • indiadev 9y ago
      In India, most employment agreements in the software industry mention an average of 40 work hours per week. They usually also have a disclaimer that mention that one may have to work more than 40 hours per week without any additional compensation. That's just a legal disclaimer. In reality though, in every software company (except Oracle) I have worked for overtime was rewarded with free pizzas for the extra hours we spent after sunset and also additional paid time off (known as "compensation time off").
      • fred_is_fred 9y ago
        I make enough money that I can buy my own pizzas whenever I want. Trading an hour of my time is not a good deal for pizzas, much less 3 or 4.
        • indiadev 9y ago
          Did you read the entire comment or did you just find the first point where you can find something to disagree with and give up? Read the entire comment again, if you haven't. I don't trade 3-4 hours of my time for pizzas. I trade it for additional paid time off, i.e. I put 4 hours one evening and I get back a full work day (worth 8 hours) off in return. The pizza is just a bonus.
    • richardknop 9y ago
      Yes this is standard. In all my employment contracts there has been 37.5 or 40 hours defined as work week. In Europe it's mostly 37.5h so you are paid to work 7.5 hours per day and have 30 min paid lunch break.
      • wozer 9y ago
        Not sure if this is the case for most of Europe. In Germany, only a minority enjoys a 37.5h week. The obligatory lunch break is not paid.
        • richardknop 9y ago
          Yes it depends, I meant if your contracts says 37.5h, then if you go for lunch every day you should be in office 40h per week. Some companies will have paid lunch break though.
    • walshemj 9y ago
      its normally expected for salaried jobs that you do on average x hours a week and that you in most days for the core hours say 10 - 4
    • marcosdumay 9y ago
      It is usually specified in a law somewhere. No, salaried workers are not paid to get the job done, they are paid for the time. That is why companies can let the job loosely specified. Contract workers are the ones hired for a job, not their time. Yet, actual pricing will vary and even then some contractors will insist on getting paid by time.
    • s73ver_ 9y ago
      Try getting your work done in 30 hours, and say you're going home. See how far that gets you.
  • srtjstjsj 9y ago
    It's not a pay cut if the pay is $500K-$1M/yr including expected value of stock options...
    • s73ver_ 9y ago
      Unless it's a publicly traded company, stock options should be considered a bonus, and not relied upon for this. They will likely end up dilluted to hell and back, or just end up worthless.
  • dahart 9y ago
    Working for 70+ hours a week is trading your entire life for whatever money you make, all of it. I've done it multiple times working crunches in games, and I finally realized it's not worth any amount of money. If it's really a true 70 hours, there is no social life outside of work. Once you exceed 80 hours, you are compromising your ability to exercise & sleep, and there is zero time for family. I worked 80 hour weeks after my 2nd son was born, and I didn't see much of him for six months. My wife was rightly sore about that for years, and even worse than that I regret it deeply and wish I hadn't done it. That said, I think calculating the percent pay cut feels like an awkward way to frame the issue. Very few people working 70 hours at a salaried job could get paid for 70, even contractors will normally get scaled back to 40 if they ask for 70. If you worked only 40, very few people will get another 30 hours per week job to make that extra money. (And contracts for lots of salaried employees would prevent that scenario.) The value of hours worked above 40 is your life, not a percent pay cut. It would take a jump from a 6 figure salary to a 7 figure salary, or more, to make extended 70 hours weeks worthwhile, so I think talking about a 50% pay cut is drastically undervaluing that extra effort & time.
  • astura 9y ago
    Funny thing is that site shows up as just a black screen on Chrome on Android.[1] If they are working so much then why is their website so broken? [1] https://imgur.com/a/dWnvl https://imgur.com/a/dWnvl
• quuquuquu 9y ago
  Cool post! What happens when every company is doing this ritual? I'm starting to notice a very bad trend. Just like how LA has record numbers of homeless people, it also has a high vacancy rate. Similarly, despite plenty of "open positions", candidates are being denied left right and center, even as they do their best to signal that they will do anything for the job.
  • Cthulhu_ 9y ago
    > What happens when every company is doing this ritual? Just look at Japan to see what a 12+ hour / day work culture looks like. Their population and their economy are both slowly going down the shitter thanks to it, depression is widespread, etc.
    • dx034 9y ago
      Not sure if economic problems really come from long work days. Otherwise it'd be easy to boost the economy by forcing people to work less. I totally agree with the health problems it causes though.
      • eli_gottlieb 9y ago
        >Otherwise it'd be easy to boost the economy by forcing people to work less. Well have we tried it?
        • bryanlarsen 9y ago
          Henry Ford did, to great success.
      • marcosdumay 9y ago
        > it'd be easy to boost the economy by forcing people to work less That looks likely. But it will reduce the concentration of wealth (probably, dramatically), so expect some opposition.
      • randomdata 9y ago
• TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Tangential: I loved the "When programming is your hobby" part of this blog post. Finally someone accepting, and not dissing, people who actually like to code. The advice is spot-on, too: coding > 40h / week is fine, but why give up your freedom of choosing what to work on, when to work on it, and when to take time off, without any compensation?
  • rhpistole 9y ago
    Yeah, except what this actually means is, "You don't have any interests outside of work and you do not have kids that may take you away from work and you don't have a SO/spouse to tell you that you're being taken advantage of." It's not really about your interests, it's about you being naive.
    • TACIXAT 9y ago
      This is pretty amazing. OP made a comment about people not hating on those who enjoy coding and you came and called them naive. Plenty of people code outside of work, on personal projects, and are not being taken advantage of.
    • arjie 9y ago
      It's all very nice disparaging people for having found a passion, but when I read Masters of Doom, I didn't pity John Carmack and John Romero and their gang for programming all week, then 'borrowing' work computers to program and play D&D all weekend. I admired them. They found a thing they loved to do with people they loved to do it with. Other people have to do many things to be happy, but they found it all there! These were incredibly intelligent, incredibly creative people expressing their intelligence and creativity. They weren't lesser men for their passion. It elevated them.
      • dasil003 9y ago
        You're right, we shouldn't disparage people for working long hours in pursuit of their passion. But we absolutely should disparage investors and founders who seek to exploit this youthful passion and energy to enrich themselves without fair compensation. The tricky part is actually defining what's fair.
• teekert 9y ago
  Smart trick, you will notice that people will be more rested, better motivated and thus almost as productive as in 70+ hours! But they will earn a lot less!
• Ascetik 9y ago
  To add to this, I recently got let go from my job 2 weeks ago . With that said, my boss routinely tried to guilt trip me because I didn't want to work more than 40hrs a week. I have 2 very small children and my wife is pregnant, I can't spend all my time working, nor do I have any desire to. There were a few times I put in a couple of 60hr weeks, but that was only to appease him, not because I felt it was necessary. Like I said, my boss would bully me with phrases like "When CAN YOU work after hours?" "You're a 40hr work week kind of guy" "Time to put on your big-boy pants" and other totally demeaning comments. This was for an IT managed service provider. The real clincher was that I was let go the day I got back from vacation. The first thing after he said "I gotta let you go" was "You didn't check in at all on your vacation". That was incredibly disrespectful to me and shows a total lack of empathy for me and my family. I am happy to no longer work for him, although I am in a bit of a financial bind now.
  • lukevers 9y ago
    That sounds really horrible. I'd rather be out of a job than work for some place like that. What kind of a job are you looking for? I assume you're some kind of engineer, but on my phone so didn't look into anything.
    • Ascetik 9y ago
      I'm a Level 2/3 SysAdmin/Engineer in the ATL area. But I do "develop" in POSH if you can call that coding. I'm learning python now.
      • sundaeofshock 9y ago
        Do you have Terraform chops? I'm looking for part-time remote SysAdmin type right now.
        • Ascetik 9y ago
          I have no idea what Terraform chops is..., but I would be more than happy to entertain your offer! Is there a way to PM on here?
• andy_ppp 9y ago
  Forgetting the article a second; I’d happily work for 40% less than the going rate as long as I can work remote full time...
  • txttran 9y ago
    You can! And usually with only a slight pay cut. There are a lot more remote-ok and remote-only companies now.
    • richardknop 9y ago
      The pay cut from my experience can be pretty dramatic. Whenever I have replied to a remote job ad and asked about salary it would often mean 40%+ pay cut for me.
• raverbashing 9y ago
  Oh I think they're on point (with what they want) with that ad They want the technical wizard with no social life that will give some years for the company while being paid ~50% less. They call it "strong work ethic" I call accepting such position "being naive" Thanks but no thanks
• edanm 9y ago
  As much as I'd love to believe the "work more than 40 hours a week, because SCIENCE!" party line, I have a hard time accepting it, and I think so do most people who hear it (outside of HN, at least). For one thing, it's highly convenient that the standard US work-week happens to be the exact "correct" amount of hours to work to maximize productivity. For another, anecdotally at least, most people know plenty of people who work longer hours and do it successfully. And most of the really successful people out there will mention that they worked insanely hard at some point. Are they all lying? All wrong? The article itself mentions people doing extra hours of coding on personal projects, and we all know some people who have started companies that way. What, do these projects simply not exist? How does that make any sense? You can think it's exploitation to ask people to work hard, but this is to work on a team with a world-class researcher who most people would love to work with. Is it too much work for some people? Sure. Are there others for whom it is worth the trade-off? Probably. Why does everyoªne on HN just assume they know better than those people themselves, and set off to make them feel bad and exploited? Working really hard is a totally legit and rational choice under some circumstances. (Btw, worth pointing out that this article is at least partly a pitch for a book about working less hours. Not saying this invalidates its points, but it is certainly taking advantage of the publicity Andrew Ng's post has gotten to sell a product).
  • richardknop 9y ago
    If you are expecting me to work extra hours you will have to pay multiple of my normal rate for overtime. I'm sorry but anything else is some form of exploitation or at the very least unfair. And the argument with extra hours working on personal projects is ridiculous. As a matter of fact I am a heavy open source contributor and work on numerous projects in my personal time, some of them already have many hundreds of hours invested time in them. I choose to work on them for free because they interest me. If you want me to spend that extra time working on the company instead then don't expect me to do it for free. You are basically asking to own my free time which is ridiculous. Overtimes and their compensation should be clearly defined in the contract, otherwise you can't expect to take employees' free unpaid time outside of work hours.
    • 9y ago
• shubhamjain 9y ago
  So few companies realise that working 70-90 hours / week calls for introspection not celebration. Fortunately, I never had a job where I had to put unreasonable hours against my will but I have heard stories of people who went through the ordeal and they share a common element: the capacity to think better solutions dampens which effectively makes 70 hour work-week, a <40 hour one. It's sad that only a fraction of people in managerial positions understand this dynamic. It's always people who work 'hard', who are more in the office, get admired and promoted.
  • kamaal 9y ago
    Because that is not always possible. In India, in most IT firms, either budgets are fixed for a project, or there are upper slabs for hourly billing. What happens is you will eventually run into situations where you are pushing very aggressive deadlines with limited resources. The only option to do a project is to work crazy hours. Its easy to say why don't they scale down for better work hours. If they did, they wouldn't even have those kind of projects, and by that definition you wouldn't have a job. Most companies can't do this. Also in my early career this kind of a working environment was a boon. Sure if you are only in for a 9-5 job and money, you don't even have to sign up for something like this. But working crazy hours gives people far more disproportionately higher learning opportunities compared to peers. I have seen people volunteer and even fight with managers for these kind of projects only for the exposure. Do this enough number of years and you get very good at a lot of other things. Doing side projects, start ups and a range of other things necessary for a long haul career. Also your ability to contribute with merely participating in a project goes up way higher than your peers, and that eventually brings you more opportunities. >>It's always people who work 'hard', who are more in the office, get admired and promoted. Lastly, Is this really surprising to you. Look at how academic performance works, or how it is in sports, investing or for that matter in other walks of life. Quantity of work, has a very deep effect on quality of work.
    • shubhamjain 9y ago
      I think it's incorrect to equate working long hours with passionate pursuits like learning something or working on a side-project. Good motivation, almost always, never let's you burnout in real terms. Hell, I love creating something after work and counterintuitively, it makes me feel happier than stressful. But, I don't count this as work, it's kind of a break for me. In most cases, the effort put is not in the right direction. Stroking the brush the same way a thousand times will never make you a better painter if it's not accompanied with a study of better techniques and introspection into your mistakes. I can't deny that sometimes you can have enough motivation to have be 'the right kind of productive' for long hours but working on the same project necessitates a break. The break allows you to work out better approaches, which is not thought out by most managers. I would be susceptible of any claim that working long hours enabled someone to learn more. I have often encountered them in my career, and it's never the case.
• blauditore 9y ago
  This job seems to be located in Singapore (can be easily found by googling the quote). On a related note, I recently saw a question on The Workplace SE mentioning it's common for most devs in Sri Lanka to work 12+ hours[1]. In both cases, companies seem to intentionally exploit this by explicitly filtering out candidates not willing to go such lenghts. Pretty pathetic. [1]: https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/97039/how-to-answer-when-asked-are-you-able-to-work-long-hours-in-a-job-interview https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/97039/how-to-a...
  • rhcom2 9y ago
    I think it's in Palo Alto. https://www.deeplearning.ai/machinelearningsoftwareengjobdescri https://www.deeplearning.ai/machinelearningsoftwareengjobdes...
    • blauditore 9y ago
      This is funny - the same wording can be found here: http://startupjobs.asia/job/33056-backend-developer-fast-growing-startup-lomotif-singapore http://startupjobs.asia/job/33056-backend-developer-fast-gro...
• etiene 9y ago
  This is insane. I've actually been looking to reduce my work hours to about 30, because even 40 seems too much. Having had a couple of burnouts before, I want my life to be more than my job, and I truly believe this would make me better at my job in the long term. After a day of full time work I almost never have the energy to do some of the other things I want to do. I want to be able do more open source, learn a foreign language or a musical instrument, spend time with my partner, study some new cool technology, do some exercise etc. I was very disappointed to see a big name in the industry to promote exploitation like that.
  • Joe-Z 9y ago
    Go for it! I'm working a 30-hour week right now. Like you, I feel even 40 hours/week of pure coding ist just not sustainable. Out of the 3 software dev jobs I had up to this point all the people that 'worked' over-time were just wasting more time drinking coffee and chit-chatting with colleagues. Most of the time I just want to put in a productive day, solve 1 or 2 problems and then go home at a reasonable time, so I can actually enjoy my life, not just sit in a damn office all the time. Also, having worked a 30-hour week for a few years now, I'd actually be willing to work a 40-hour week again, but only if my job then gives me responsibilies beyond just being a coder. Putting in 4-5 hours of really productive coding work a day and then spend the rest of the time on something else, like managerial work is something I can see myself actually doing. But expecting people to produce high-quality coding work for 8 hours a day is just wishful thinking.
    • stefantheard 9y ago
      How were you able to swing a 30-hour a week job? Was it negotiated or are you consulting / setting your own hours?
      • Joe-Z 9y ago
        It actually started as a side-job while studying. I actually increased to 30 hours/week over time from starting with 20 hours/week. That said, I think most companies would be willing to find some agreement on reduced working hours if you've proven valuable too them. A friend of mine just recently switched to 32 hours/week over 4 days, after having started out at the company with a 40 hours job. It's really the best option for the company and yourself if one of the two parties isn't satisfied with the agreement anymore.
• LogicFailsMe 9y ago
  Unless he's paying seven+ figures annually, all working 70 to 90 hours a week will get you is a broken relationship/marriage and utter social isolation with little or nothing to show for it in the end when you realize what a mistake you've made and unplug from The Matrix, probably 20 to 30 pounds heavier than when you started. Work hard. Study a lot. But take a breather now and then. Life is short.
  • aidenn0 9y ago
    mid six figures would get me to work 70 hours a week because I could retire in under 2 years.
  • tracilee 9y ago
    Hi LogisFailsMe, I ran across one of your old posts regarding curing a sinus infection. I'm trying to avoid a third surgery and hoping you will please let me know what you used for success? Thank you very much
• megaduck 9y ago
  I enforce a militant "40 hours only" policy for my employees, and it's incredible for productivity. When you work longer hours defect rates increase, code quality drops, and things are on fire all the time. You also lose really good people due to burnout. Sustainable pace is super important for creating and maintaining high performance teams. Crassly, it's just a more profitable way of doing business. I wish more managers would stop buying into the myth of "time in seat == productivity", and look at the real output of their teams. When you actually run the numbers there's a lot of results that run counter to conventional wisdom.
  • arjie 9y ago
    What is your methodology for determining the change in defect rates and code quality?
    • megaduck 9y ago
      We use Pivotal Tracker, and it's pretty easy to see how many bugs are popping up and how often. Code quality shows up in your velocity over time. My favorite saying right now is "quality is future speed". We also do regular reviews to assess things like cyclomatic complexity and how well SOLID principles are being followed.
      • sidlls 9y ago
        The quantity of bugs popping up and code quality haven't got what I'd call a well-understood relationship. How do you reconcile that?
      • arjie 9y ago
        Interesting. Thank you very much for sharing.
  • dogruck 9y ago
    How did you determine that 40 hours is optimal? Why not 30? Or 50?
• AquinasCoder 9y ago
  The article doesn't claim this is endemic to only startups, and in my experience work life balance among small, medium, and large companies is equally threatened. Even the term "work-life" balance seems to assume an artificial divide between the two. When work is a facet of a rich life, those extra long hours, the grueling commute, the vacillations of the newest management fad are just not worth it. Not to mention that those with families are severely disadvantaged in a workplace that values hours at the office rather than productive hours. I am curious to find out how this becomes a culture and whether this is reversible? Does this toxic overstepping begin at companies who once valued a predictable balance between work and life or was there a mistake made in company culture from the beginning? Can a company effectively counter this tendency? However you might answer these questions, it seems clear that throwing new studies out showing that overwork is counter-productive is not changing this trend. It goes back to the age-old idea, knowledge doesn't make you good, just more knowledgable.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • moron4hire 9y ago
    I wonder about this a lot. I can be highly productive in certain scenarios, and in others I can really drag on where others would be much faster than me. It's stuff like, I'm really good at code that involves math, I'm not so good at operations. Completely different, unrelated subject areas, but one is viewed as "harder" than the other, so if I can do one, I'm expected to be able to do the other. I often end up get a reputation for being a high-performer, because the stuff I'm good at often gets done during the initial proof-of-concept, and then start getting the screws tightened down on me from management in a really angry way as it appears I start slacking off when we hit the later-stages of a project that involve deployment management and other things that I'm just not very good at. And it's other stupid shit, like, "if he's a whiz at JavaScript, he must be great at CSS and terrible at embedded systems." No, in this example, I'm the opposite. Of course, it never occurs to them that maybe expecting everyone to do everything is not the right way to do things. I think, in sum total, I'm probably more skilled in a broader area of subjects than most people, but I'm not anywhere near skilled enough across every necessary subject for a full project to be able to pull one off on my own. I don't want to focus on just one thing. I do think I provide a unique value by being very versatile. It should be used as a way to smooth over bumps in the project schedule while management rebalances staff or highers more people. I don't mind jumping from 3D graphics into web and database development, or whatever. I've always believed that all work is worth doing and none "beneath" me. But too often, once I reveal I'm more capable than the original position to which I was hired, I'm expected to do everything, all at the same time. And that's when things get out of hand. It has at least always appeared like the people who keep their heads down and their mouths shut during meetings and don't volunteer anything beyond their job description have a much better time of their jobs.
• darthdev 9y ago
  In Spain this is quite normal ( they don't say it in the job offer, but is expected that you work more than 40 hours/week ). When you ask to get paid for those extra hours they usually laugh at you. People outside Spain usually make jokes about Spanish "siesta", but in fact we are exploited in the same way this article describes. ( making jokes of course is ok, what is not ok is the exploitation )
  • glastra 9y ago
    There's life outside "consultancy companies" (which in Spain are basically just intermediaries that resell your work for a higher price without any added value).
• qwtel 9y ago
  I see it the other way around: Any programming (or similar) job that doesn't compensate you as if you were working 70 hours a week is taking money away from you. These are not the 1900s and you are not assembling widgets in a factory. Your work goes with you wherever you are, quite literately in the form of your smartphone, and more insidiously by not getting off your mind. Maybe it's just me and I lack the skill to forget work at 5 p.m. sharp, but my suspicious is that half our industry comes up with solutions to work-related problem while they are at home, on holiday, etc.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• dogruck 9y ago
  The most successful people I know work much more than 40 hours each week.
  • grasshopperpurp 9y ago
    Professionally successful, or successful as people?
    • dogruck 9y ago
      As people. Granted, none of those people are grinding away working for The Man. Instead, they are running their own organizations. Is that not your experience?
      • grasshopperpurp 9y ago
        Yeah, my experience is the opposite. Sounds like you hang out with people in a higher tax bracket than I do, and that could explain some of the difference in experience.
        • dogruck 9y ago
          Their behavior certainly has a causal relationship with their tax bracket, yes. The attitude pervades their life. * You know how most folks sleep and drink when they fly? They work on their laptop. * You know how most people come home from work exhausted? They come home energized by the things they worked on, filled with new ideas.
          • grasshopperpurp 9y ago
            I appreciate the perspective. Do you know if these people have similar backgrounds (rags-to-riches vs born into money)?
            • dogruck 9y ago
• jnordwick 9y ago
  What many here dont seem to understand is that you work commensurate with where you want to be. I work longish hours become I'm in finance and want to move up the organization or find a higher spot inn another. I want to know more about all facets of the firm and one day be a principal in a prop trading firm. I don't put in 80+ hour weeks because I want to stay where I'm at in my career. I become involved in more and take on more reliability because I want more responsibility I the future. I work twice or more what I'm paid to work because I want to earn at least twice as much in the future. Worrying about how many hours you are putting in against your current paycheck isn't very forward looking for your career.
  • slaunchwise 9y ago
    Pro tip for getting ahead: learn the difference between 'commiserate' and 'commensurate'. Otherwise you will be unintentionally funny.
    • wiredfool 9y ago
      Perhaps it's the sleep deprivation showing.
    • jnordwick 9y ago
      Thanks. On phone. Swype "comm" and just accept what it gives you.
    • ssalazar 9y ago
      "Thanks to you, sales are up 20% and infrastructure costs are down 15%. But you made a minor spelling error in a Hacker News post, so we're gonna have to pass on that promotion this year."
  • huebnerob 9y ago
    We're all quite familiar with the idea that working long hours gets you brownie points with your managers. The point that's being made here is that companies should not be so proud of this quid pro quo, because on paper it is quite literally a devaluation of your time. You feeling you need to work excessive hours to progress in your career does not make anything about it right, quite the opposite actually.
• jackschultz 9y ago
  I always see posts like this, talking about the negativity of long working hours, but I do get curious the percentage of jobs in each of the categories. Categories like: - Forcing only 40 hour work weeks - Not forcing, but expecting 40 hour work weeks - Not forcing, but expecting overtime work weeks - Forcing (or talking positively about) over 40 hour work weeks All the blog posts and comments talk about how necessary those standard weeks are (I absolutely agree), but knowing the commonality of both would be great to see. In my case, I'd guess forcing of 40 hour work weeks is more common than we think.
  • Retric 9y ago
    In government consulting at large companies it's very common for people to work ~40-44 hours a week including lunch. I often see people work less than 40 hours if you exclude lunch breaks. It's not uncommon for people to have literally nothing to do for long stretches while say waiting for clearance paperwork / between contracts / etc. Sure, you get paid less but cost of living is also less and frankly your often working on things more important than selling Ad's.
• Asdfbla 9y ago
  Not that I would strive for it myself, but I think at least it was honest that the job posting was upfront about the requirements instead of being silent about it and then peer-pressuring the employee into 70 hour work weeks anyway because everyone there does it. Who knows, maybe being upfront about it causes the applicants for the job to self-select for those who are confident that they can productively work 70 hours? Maybe the research only applies to normal people like us and the mythical super engineer they are looking for can do it (pure speculation, I don't know the research - I guess even super programmers have biological limits). Then again, it's probably right to be wary of such job postings so that they don't create a general atmosphere in the industry that such working hours are necessary, whether you want it or not.
  • chriskanan 9y ago
    I think you are right. Andrew Ng is an academic and I have no doubt he works 80+ hours per week. Working really long hours is common in that world. I average about 60-90 hours per week. I know my colleagues in AI research are working just as hard and so are many of their PhD students. The biggest problems I have are meetings. I can do research and code for 12-15 hours straight on weekends, but 8-9 hours on meeting days are utterly exhausting. Got to figure out a better way. Kids would be the real obstacle to my current output.
• atstartup5252 9y ago
  I work at a startup now in a leadership role. I am not a founder and I get paid less than I could make elsewhere while doing more work. However, working in a large company is not an alternative for me. Whenever I do I lose my motivation and phone it in, which damages my mental health because I feel like I can and should be doing more to keep my brain active. There is more time for R&R but something deep inside me is unfulfilled and I break down. I need the action and adventure of a risky bet. If I'm not fighting for my life then there's no fun in it. I'm going to spend a third of my life working regardless, so I want it to be exciting and interesting enough to keep me motivated. I'm getting to the point in this company where the risk is almost gone and all that remains is work, and the closer we get to that point the less interested I am in the business. I'm sure it will feel nice when we're consistently profitable and can hire more, delegate, etc., but it loses something at that point too. I won't be as hands-on, will have to work harder to whip the team into moving in the right direction, we'll be moving slower even if we're accumulating capital... Not my cup of tea. I find myself exploring side contracts, ideas for my own businesses, grad school, thoughts of alternative lifestyles that might make my wife and I happier... Fewer hours worked is part of that, I'd LOVE to have more time to learn and play, but it's hard to get there without putting in the effort upfront. The main thing that keeps me where I am is that I've spent years shaping my role into one where I can learn exactly what I want to learn, and I'm on the precipice of being able to finally do that. That's not something one gives up easily.
• auserperson 9y ago
  Let's all be real here. Trying to impress your boss by working long hours (or whatever pointless shit) is worthless. Promotions don't exist and when they do they pay you less than actually just quitting the job.WTF do you get from trying to be the best employee of your silly company? Fucking nothing. You need to impress your co-workers who can give you recommendations on jobs in the future not your fucking ass shit boss. It's naive to try to impress your boss try to be the perfect employee. It's smart to try to be the best professional who happens to get paid for your work hours. Fuck employers.
• philrw 9y ago
  I studied film production in grad school, and one of the reasons I didn't pursue a career in that industry is because of the rampant, pervasive abuse like that mentioned in the article. "12 on/12 off" was a movement started by an industry veteran that cried for limiting the work days to 12 hours and providing a minimum of 12 hours down time before having to be back on set. It was started after a crew member died from falling asleep at the wheel on the way home from a shoot. I am so glad to work in a place that a). not only doesn't have insane deadlines and the corresponding pressure but, b). has a sub-discipline dedicated to project management. And that I get to push back with my favorite mantra, "poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."
  • philrw 9y ago
    http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/riverdale-star-late-night-car-crash-working-16-hour-day-1041899 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/riverdale-star-la...
• srtjstjsj 9y ago
  The headline and thesis is completely bogus, because the author has no idea how much Ng's company pays or how much an applicant is earning elsewhere.
  • ryen 9y ago
    The job posting is here: http://startupjobs.asia/job/33056-backend-developer-fast-growing-startup-lomotif-singapore http://startupjobs.asia/job/33056-backend-developer-fast-gro... And the salary looks pathetic (in USD)
• gerbilly 9y ago
  I think this must be the posting: http://startupjobs.asia/job/33056-backend-developer-fast-growing-startup-lomotif-singapore http://startupjobs.asia/job/33056-backend-developer-fast-gro...
• srtjstjsj 9y ago
  Articles like this show why the economic growth of the 21st Century will be in East Asia. This generation's educated Westerners are too comfortable and complacent.
  • s73ver_ 9y ago
    Part of the huge problem is people thinking that wanting to have a life outside of working to make someone else rich is "complacency."
• Waterluvian 9y ago
  One of my past employers wouldn't pay me what I felt and showed was fair market value for my skills and what I do for them. So I counter offered to work 4 days a week for the same salary. A year of 3 day weekends did more for my life and relationships than a raise ever could have.
  • tome 9y ago
    It's quite bizarre to me that they would accept a reduction in working hours but not an increase in salary.
    • Waterluvian 9y ago
      It probably helped that I convinced them (then proved it) that my productivity really wouldn't fall much. I could do the same work in less time. Unless you're making widgets on a production line, productivity doesn't linearly scale with time. I wasn't at work on Friday, but I was still subconsciously processing what I had researched, how to solve problems, etc. It's the ultimate "sleep on it" or "get up and walk around".
      • zulln 9y ago
        Did you experiment with other days, or was it just Friday? Was this choice made by you, or what fitted the job the best?
        • Waterluvian 9y ago
          I didn't experiment because I felt it was unfair for my availability to wander through the week. People learned I was not present on Friday. I wanted it to abut the weekend so that I could get into my own projects (coding, building, being with family, etc.) for a longer amount of time.
    • raarts 9y ago
      Things managers really hate to do, #1: Ask superiors for a budget increase.
• adambmedia 9y ago
  I often think about Arthur Rubenstein, the phenom mid-century pianist, for whom a lot has been written about his mission in early life to "practice as little as possible." There's a lot of hyped up romanticism in these quotes and anyone who plays at his level has spent a lifetime playing piano, period. Regardless, his guidance about spontaneity, creativity, and the relationship to practicing too much, which I equate to the current discussion on overworking, is highly interesting. "I was born very, very lazy and I don't always practice very long, but I must say, in my defense, that it is not so good, in a musical way, to overpractice. When you do, the music seems to come out of your pocket. If you play with a feeling of 'Oh, I know this,' you play without that little drop of fresh blood that is necessary—and the audience feels it." Of his own practice methods, he said, "At every concert I leave a lot to the moment. I must have the unexpected, the unforeseen. I want to risk, to dare. I want to be surprised by what comes out. I want to enjoy it more than the audience. That way the music can bloom anew." Not all work benefits from risk, the drop of blood, the unexpected, that are all baked into the right amount of effort, but a great deal of valuable and innovative work does.
  • yomly 9y ago
    Didn't Rubinstein humbly then revisit technique and practise religiously in his 40s? (Not to detract from your point, which I think has value). I think that the middle way is key. I've met people who think work for the sake of work is valuable. Others who wouldn't touch hard work with a barge pole. If you cherish success, both are required. Having met virtuoso pianists, I'd say the context which Rubinstein talks from is open to misinterpretation: Reaching the level of mastery where one can sightread any of the Beethoven concerti or a Liszt etude requires a lifetime of years/decades of dedicated practice, but it is true that once you're at that level, you can find diminishing returns on hard work which encroach upon your creativity.
    • k-mcgrady 9y ago
      >> Reaching the level of mastery where one can sightread any of the Beethoven concerti or a Liszt etude requires a lifetime of years/decades of dedicated practice, but it is true that once you're at that level, you can find diminishing returns on hard work which encroach upon your creativity. I would argue that looking at sheet music and playing it requires very little creativity, if any at all. It is in that arena that practice is important. Being able to play anything put down in front of you is only possible with mastery of your instrument. However - if you are creating music mastery can get in the way. Often the best ideas come from stumbling upon things. If you know everything or know how things 'should' be done coming up with original ideas is difficult. Personally I've seen this in guitarists. There are some who are clearly masters of their instrument. They can play anything, at any speed, with a wide array of techniques at their disposal. Most of the time they don't write anything interesting.
• ojbyrne 9y ago
  "many of us routinely work and study 70+ hours a week." The use of "study" suggests to me that the job posting is not as slavish as it sounds. "Late into the evening" could mean 6pm. I recently read an MIT career guide that recommended aiming for a 60 hour week - 40 hours for your current employer, and 20 hours for your career.
• bitL 9y ago
  Founders with a major stake in a company can work as much as they like; if they expect regular folks to sacrifice their lives so that they can profit from it immensely, they can take a hike.
• j45 9y ago
  The reality is in a startup, you're giving up income for equity. Equity rarely realizes to any value unless there is a remarkable alignment of opportunity, timing, skill, delivering a solution, and finding a market. I have oscillated both ways on the spectrum of less compensation and more time/happiness, and maximizing income at the expense of other areas of life. "Things never get easier, you just get better." There is always a focus on what value someone is paid, instead of the value they add and create. Having a value adding focused mentality (making sure you add value, and knowing how, and having agreement on it), there is less of an issue with facing pay cuts, when you are returning several multiples of your compensation, whatever it might be. Being essential without being irreplaceable is a valuable lesson to learn. If you want to limit it to 40 hours a week, it has to be that much more organized, focussed, effective to have meaningful impact. There's also 3 number to think about. What you absolutely need, what you should be getting, and what you want. Aligning your life with where you are at on those 3 fronts will help lower the dissonance a lot more and comparing yourself to the perceived location of others. The other thing that changes in your 20's is you. You become more well rounded from experience and discover, magically, that you might be good at a few things and like spending your time on other things too. One reality is the newer you are to working, the more hours you have to work to compare to someone who has 5, 10, or 20 years of development experience to compare. It's less about becoming a 10x developer, and more about learning how to structure and focus your time for maximum benefit both to the employer and yourself on mutual goals. There's a reason why inexperienced talent is cheaper, and it's an incredible opportunity to soak up more things than you think you can handle. Learning to drink from a firehose isn't for everyone, but it is an invaluable experience to learn how you want your work/life harmony to be.
• alexeiz 9y ago
  I work as a software developer. Instead of working more hours I found another approach quite useful for productivity which is almost quite the opposite. The idea is that every day you have to call it a day at a certain hour. Let's say your bus leaves at 5:30pm and if you're late, the next bus is only at 6:30pm. So you'd better get all your work done by 5:30pm to catch the first bus. Amazingly, this is quite a productivity boost for me. I don't want to waste any time at work, because if I do, I'll either have to stay late, or not get things done. It also allows me to prioritize tasks better. For example, at 5:00pm I'll try to wrap up my current tasks and I don't start any new tasks that can take more than 10 minute to complete. Another positive aspect of this approach is that each day I go home with a clear picture of what I have accomplished that day. And that feeling of accomplishment makes me want to come to work the next day.
• didibus 9y ago
  I like to call it the difference between efficiency and productivity. When you're efficient, you get more things done. Normally that comes from working more, either by doing more hours or cutting out distractions. So you might get more done in a week. Being efficient does not mean you are productive. Productivity I think of as getting more value out of less effort. It comes from good prioritization, working on what matters most, focusing on the important. Depending on the work, you'll need to be more productive or more efficient. In programming, equal effort tasks have very different outputs. So much that no amount of efficiency can catch up to good productivity. Choosing priorities is critical. Being productive is harder, because its a skill, you have to develop an intuition, measure, reason about the opportunities, predict which tasks are worth a lot and which are useless. Efficiency vs Productivity is one of the bigger difference between a junior and a senior developer. Its the difference between good management and bad. One of the issues is management schools do teach a lot about techniques to make people more efficient. And certain jobs benefit, like maybe a call center, a truck driver, etc. Not programming though.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• valuearb 9y ago
  I don't disagree with the authors point that expecting massive hours without corresponding extra compensation is wrong. But I can't believe the blanket assertions I've seen that working 40 hours a week is the proven output maximization limit. If I work 40 hours from monday to friday, and I have nothing to do on Saturday, and a strong desire to implement a an important customer request, how is working 4 or 5 hours on my day off going to result in negative output?
  • TheKarateKid 9y ago
    There's a difference between doing it occasionally when you desire to, and being expected to do it every week against your will.
• Steeeve 9y ago
  Not sure if it was something that I was linked to here on HN, but I read an article recently that showed the average worker is productive for 3 hours per day - and one of the most popular non-working activities is searching for another job. I'm a firm believer that success is defined by balance. Balance in all aspects of life - balance between family and self, balance between pursuits in which you are driven and those which you enjoy, balance between being social and productive. I regret to say that I have only achieved this on rare occasions. I am a work-a-holic, and frankly I think that's a bad role model for my children to see. Well rested, happy people with healthy social lives can accomplish twice the work in half the time as a constantly stressed work-a-holic. When crunch time comes, they can spend the extra hours and put in that extra effort. Somebody who is already run down when crunch time comes not only has less to give, they have other priorities fighting for that time - because those other priorities are ALWAYS fighting for that time and losing.
• TheKarateKid 9y ago
  I'm glad to see more awareness of corporate exploits on tech workers, and the push back against it. In my experience, people involved in the IT/CS are very passionate about their work but often less outspoken than people in other industries, like finance and business. To see people taking advantage of these qualities for their gain is very frustrating and I hope it doesn't work out in the long run for this company and others like it.
• henrik_w 9y ago
  This article argues that "every hour you work over 40 hours a week is making you less effective and productive over both the short and the long haul" http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_week/ http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_...
• wakamoleguy 9y ago
  > But a manager that is pushing you to work 70 hours a week isn’t a manager who plans ahead for unexpected work. No, this is a manager who solves problem by telling you to work harder and longer. This seems like a little bit of a leap to me. Is it obvious that these two aspects of a manager are inherently related? In my experience, I have also seen that solving a problem by throwing longer hours at it is a net-negative in productivity. You may hit a tight deadline or put out a fire, but it tends to be followed by a period of lower productivity from exhaustion. Overall, your team has picked up increased volatility with a lower average output. You'd be better off if you could predict and catch the problem early. I could imagine a team, though, that is accustomed to putting in 70 hours a week, and a manager that carefully manages the process to make sure that those 70 hours are as predictable as possible. The post would imply that all managers who ignore one aspect of a healthy team or project (sane work hours) would be ignoring all aspects. I don't know if that's a fair leap, but maybe in practice it is true.
• option_greek 9y ago
  I wonder which one of this the author is referring to: https://www.deeplearning.ai/fullstacksoftwareengineerjobdescrip https://www.deeplearning.ai/fullstacksoftwareengineerjobdesc... http://startupjobs.asia/job/33056-backend-developer-fast-growing-startup-lomotif-singapore http://startupjobs.asia/job/33056-backend-developer-fast-gro... https://www.deeplearning.ai/machinelearningsoftwareengjobdescri https://www.deeplearning.ai/machinelearningsoftwareengjobdes...
• perpetualcrayon 9y ago
  I had an interesting experience in this regard. I was hired by a company who had a small team of developers. When I first arrived it was obvious they had built a culture of "work until you drop". Not because anyone above them was pushing it (at least I don't think so), but they seemed to enjoy "being heroes". Granted, from my perspective it appeared they needed to be heroes in the first place because they had accumulated so much technical debt they were drowning in it. I tried silently to change their culture by coming in for 8 hours, doing my job, and leaving on time. I don't know if I was ultimately able to change their mentality, but I certainly turned some heads when they realized that when I was on a project it never sounded like my fingers stopped typing until I would leave for the day. That's the kind of efficiency you can attain when you have work life balance.
  • alexasmyths 9y ago
    I was in that situation as well. Being 10 years older than the rest of the crew, sadly I believe they simply perceived me as 'old'.
• rogy 9y ago
  I used to be incredibly efficient in the beginning of my first job, i could easily do 8 hour days of fairly solid coding. Then came the investment and the big client and the 'big time' and i spent 6mo doing 12-14 hour days and managed to do less work per day. And i never recovered in that job. It took changing jobs twice to get my swing back (didnt help that job 2 was the total opposite, lazy uninspired team)
• kzisme 9y ago
  Interestingly enough I've been asked a few times to start coming in on weekends. I've also heard the phrase thrown around: "We'll have to start putting in extra hours during nights/weekends". I don't think these sort of things _work_ for companies, but to appease a manager they likely have to be done at some point. Long-term I don't think this is a viable solution, but sadly it will keep happening for the time being :/
• movedx 9y ago
  I wake at 0600 and commute to work, to be in for 0700 at the latest (I cycle 6-7km.) From 0700 to 0800 I work on personal development such as reading a book or doing some online study (or sometimes I just catch up with online news as I am now.) From 0800 to 1130 I work. From 1130 to 1300 I dine and take a walk/socialise. From 1300 to 1500 I work. At 1500 I go home. Essentially I work for 5.5 hours -- my fingers are on the keyboard, I'm in a meeting, or I'm thinking through a problem for 5.5 hours per day. We also have the concept of the eight hour day in Australia (which I believe is a matter of law, in fact): eight hours of work; eight hours of social time; eight hours for sleep. I do this everyday. It gives me a lot of freedom to do the things I want to do when I get home at about 1530 and makes me feel great. I feel healthier for it. I can innovate when I get home and work on a project, or spend more time with my fiancé. If I ever find my self in a position with a company that the boss(es) don't like this setup, then I simply show my self the door and find another job. Life is way too short to be putting my employer before my own life, health, wishes, and dreams. Also, I aim to find a job in which I'm solving real social problems (even in a for-profit manner) and not just doing it for the sake of it or the wage. I think this is important too.
  • okreallywtf 9y ago
    Could I ask where you are in your career and when you started this regimen? I would like to adopt something similar, I'm not sure if I have the willpower just yet but I'm seeing one of two options: following your approach or burning out gradually.
    • movedx 9y ago
      I'm a Senior Site Reliability Engineer in Brisbane, Australia. I started out in the UK at about 27 as a Junior SysAd. I'm 33 now. I highly recommend you space out your working day like I have, perhaps even going as far as using a method such as [Pomodoro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique) to avoid burn out. Also, maybe do what I've done, but do it within a 9-5 window for now. Just remember that burning out for your employer is just isn't worth it unless you're doing something highly social, like helping starving children, providing medical support, some sort of charity work, etc., things that are worth burning out for (in my opinion.) Burning out for your boss' idea of the perfect mobile game is a joke at your expense :-) Apps that I use (iOS): "Timetable", to layout the week and get notifications on when to get up and move on to the next part of the day; "Today", for reminding me to do things and "checking in" when I've done it - this is for building habits; "Pommie" as a Pomodoro timer, but I don't use this much; and "Wunderlist" for todo lists I can share with my fiancé - I have a "Today" entry that has me checking this 2-3 times per day so I'm always aware of what's needed to get things done around the household. Good luck.
• muzani 9y ago
  Unpopular opinion: Working longer hours could be fun and exactly what some people are signing up for. Some people might want more than a job. They want a lifestyle. A new family, a tech monastery if you will. They want to immerse themselves in work. Even with sleep, there's plenty of time for family, just not hobbies. Of course, if you're looking for just a way to pay the bills, it's not a very good one. Most of the companies that work extra long hours don't really accomplish anything though, and the extra time is used for busywork that doesn't change the bottom line. If your metric is hours worked and not work done, you tend to do a lot more light tasks that you can do for long hours, instead of the short, intense, really important ones.
• asah 9y ago
  This was presumably written by someone who's never worked at a successful startup and had equity worth something, let alone seen the tax difference between salary and equity (capgains in the US). Don't take an offer that you can't afford to live on -- but salary ain't the point of startup compensation. As for 40 hour workweeks, most startup jobs have 20+ hours of overhead: commuting, breaks, meals, random email, "status update" meetings, etc. If you're working 40 hours, you're getting 15 hours of real work done ( https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-average-worker-is-productive-for-this-many-hours.html https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-aver... ). Even "real work" includes repetitive tasks and not focused learning. At hour 40, the boring stuff is done and you're working towards Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours of focused learning. tl;dr: if you're motivated by 9-to-5 and 10% raises -- then a startup isn't for you. No need to crap on the rest of us who love it.
  • s73ver_ 9y ago
    Except the odds are that the salary is the only thing you'll actually see as compensation.
    • asah 9y ago
      Obviously YMMV. My hit rate is about one in two, with wildly varying numerators. Even excluding googlers and facebookers, I have dozens of friends who've made millions apiece. Bay area mortgages paid off, kids off to college debt free, parents healthcare paid for, etc.
      • s73ver_ 9y ago
        Dozens, out of several million who live in the Valley. That's still pretty poor odds.
  • mikekchar 9y ago
    I want to reply specifically to this concept and your comment was currently the first one in the thread where I saw it. I'm quite sure if I scroll down a bit I'll find many others. It is worth understanding that this is what a manager is for. Imagine that you are working on your own pet project and you are the only person working on it. You are the stake holder. You are the customer. You are the user. You are the developer. In that atmosphere, you can easily spend 100% of your time doing productive work. All of your time is spent either coding or experimenting with different UX designs. Not only that but you are completely free to try different development approaches, different coding ideas, etc, etc, with absolutely no overhead trying to convince anybody else to go along. Add an external user -- now you have to gather information. Add an external stake holder -- now you have to provide planning information and status updates. Add an external UX designer -- now you have to coordinate UX requirements and development activities. Add another programmer -- now you have to argue about how to indent your code (amongst other things). A good manager is able to coordinate and facilitate communication and development activities. You can measure how good your manager is by how close you come to putting in 40 hours of real-work with 40 hours of bum-in-chair. Not only that, but it's actually completely quantifiable - real-work / bum-in-chair = management efficiency. I highly recommend measuring this value and holding your management accountable. Of course there is a potentially massive downside if your management is relatively bad: they will simply remove all the communication from the project. Then you will be spending all of your time hacking, but getting nothing done because you are working against all your teammates/customers. It's quite difficult to find ways to keep the communication flow up while at the same time reducing the amount of time spent on communication. The best way is by building processes where the artifacts are obvious: well developed stories, prioritised backlogs, defined sprint commitments, visible code merges, visible acceptance test results, etc, etc. Then the manager must summarise the information in ways that allows all of the workers to coordinate easily without having to spend time searching for information. More than complaining about overtime, developers should (IMHO) demand that management actually provide value for the premium salary that they receive. Don't accept 20 hours of screwing around in a 40 hour week (some people on HN swear up and down that more than 4 pomodoros a day is impossible -- they really need to find a better job!). Demand that your time is not wasted.
• mador 9y ago
  A lot of wanting in the comments in this thread. People really want to believe that one's productivity drops off a cliff after 40 hrs. Whenever I read these types of threads, which so often bubble up to the top of HN, I wonder why people are so energized in trying to convince _others_ that they ought to work less (actually, I don't).
  • kamaal 9y ago
    Its for one simple reason. If there is a sizable(but not majority) chunk of people who work above average hours, they will very likely produce above average quantity and quality of work. By that very virtue they will be more competitive, better and well ranked above the remaining majority. And it will eventually lead to having an effect on things like compensation and long term career viability. If you as a young person want to work less, your older self will want to work lesser, and it keeps getting harder to catch up, to a point you will eventually have to give up. This will eventually create a lot of long term problems for non-participants in this crazy work hours work life. There fore they ask for some sanity as a overall work culture. This is nothing new to software. My dad was a bus driver at a factory, he used to tell me that people who picked up over time work were routinely hated, by the remainder who didn't want to or couldn't. Nobody likes to watch themselves being at an disadvantage due to their own actions.
• pedrosanta 9y ago
  An important cautionary tale indeed: don't be a sucker. #protip