4 ms·

It's an interesting topic, and quite complex. In my line of work (high level tech support), measuring productivity is relatively straightforward, and the Europe

by dhoe 16y ago

It's an interesting topic, and quite complex. In my line of work (high level tech support), measuring productivity is relatively straightforward, and the European team with its 30 days of holidays and no overtime at all beats the US team in average output per year easily. Both lose out to the Indians, whom I admire a lot for the pure raw effort. On the other hand, I've heard local startups complain about the difficulty of finding people that are willing to put in the hours that you'd need in a startup.

rb2k_ 16y ago
The question is if those startups are willing to pay in relation to the hours they want (and I don't think one should keep this relation at a linear scale)
gst 16y ago
Do startups really need these hours? Or do they only think they need them? It's not the hours that count, it's the output. For example, I can work 60 or 80 hours a week instead of 40, but it doesn't really make a difference because the effective output will stay more or less the same. Without sufficient leisure time I'm just slower and I'll make errors when working. In addition, with progressive systems it doesn't even make sense to work that much. 20 hours more a week reduces my leisure time to effectively zero. On the other hand, even if this additional hours were paid, the effective difference would be minimal, due to the high taxes I'd have to pay for them.
- arethuza 16y ago
  I'm interested that this question has got so many votes without any replies. In my view there are times in start-ups (I've been involved in two, once as a co-founder) there are times when you do have to go that extra mile (or ten), but I don't think coding is the area where this is really obvious. For example, if there are a handful of people in the company and you try and get VC investment that takes a huge amount of effort so you end up having coding time round about other tasks. So even though your total code output doesn't go up that much you end up doing piles of other stuff (e.g. planning for a major deployment at a customer) thay someone technical has to do but which isn't coding. Something has got to give - so you work longer hours, not because you want to, but because you have to. Looking back do I think expecting employees to work crazy hours makes them any more productive as developers - absolutely not. But as a founder/exec you have to do it.

by dhoe 16y ago

rb2k_ 16y ago

The question is if those startups are willing to pay in relation to the hours they want (and I don't think one should keep this relation at a linear scale)

gst 16y ago

Do startups really need these hours? Or do they only think they need them? It's not the hours that count, it's the output. For example, I can work 60 or 80 hours a week instead of 40, but it doesn't really make a difference because the effective output will stay more or less the same. Without sufficient leisure time I'm just slower and I'll make errors when working. In addition, with progressive systems it doesn't even make sense to work that much. 20 hours more a week reduces my leisure time to effectively zero. On the other hand, even if this additional hours were paid, the effective difference would be minimal, due to the high taxes I'd have to pay for them.

arethuza 16y ago
I'm interested that this question has got so many votes without any replies. In my view there are times in start-ups (I've been involved in two, once as a co-founder) there are times when you do have to go that extra mile (or ten), but I don't think coding is the area where this is really obvious. For example, if there are a handful of people in the company and you try and get VC investment that takes a huge amount of effort so you end up having coding time round about other tasks. So even though your total code output doesn't go up that much you end up doing piles of other stuff (e.g. planning for a major deployment at a customer) thay someone technical has to do but which isn't coding. Something has got to give - so you work longer hours, not because you want to, but because you have to. Looking back do I think expecting employees to work crazy hours makes them any more productive as developers - absolutely not. But as a founder/exec you have to do it.