6 ms·

If you don't do it, there's always a willing colleague who will. At least, that's been my experience in FAANG and related companies. Since I became...complacent

If you don't do it, there's always a willing colleague who will. At least, that's been my experience in FAANG and related companies. Since I became...complacent, I guess... and started only working 9-5 for the most part, I can't keep up with my colleagues who are working seemingly every waking minute. It's a great way to get passed up on promotions, not get handed the "good" projects, and just generally be sidelined from decision making. Ymmv of course.

throwaway713 6y ago
> If you don't do it, there's always a willing colleague who will Haha, isn't this the truth. I work at one of FAANG as well and was curious how one of my colleagues was accomplishing so much. His output is astonishing. I checked his work profile and noticed he had commits, notes, and research actions starting at 7:00 AM and going until 1:00 AM the next day, every day, including weekends. I don't think the founder of this company ever even worked that much. I guess there's just some people who never burn out. Meanwhile, my wife gets annoyed about dinner when I work past 6 PM...
- the_gipsy 6y ago
  Oh he will burn out, eventually.
- frank2 6y ago
  Maybe he uses a script to make commits to give the appearance of working all the time.
- heretoo 6y ago
  > there's just some people who never burn out I once read there is only concrete that has either already cracked or is about to crack.
- purerandomness 6y ago
  Give him 6-9 months. He'll disappear, all of a sudden. We all do this. Once. When we grow up, at ~23.
  - kabdib 6y ago
    Once, at 21 (an Atari game). Again, at 31 (the Apple Newton). And again, at 41 (the Kinect). Every ten years or so I get stupid, I guess. I guess I finally wised-up when I turned 51, we'll see if I stay that smart in a couple of years :-)
    - purerandomness 6y ago
      I guess the key here is that you can totally immerse yourself in something that doesn't feel like work; a project that fullfills you from the deepest of your heart. That tends to happen once every 10 years. It doesn't tend to happen in day-to-day grunt work at an AdTech shop, pushing JIRA tickets.
- mikro2nd 6y ago
  One place I was consulting to had a dev who only ever committed code in the wee hours of the night. By day he'd fiddle around with all kinds of unproductive crap, but by night he appeared to be a productivity daemon. Turned out he was outsourcing his work to a job-shop in India... Couldn't actually programme worth a damn.
johnvanommen 6y ago
I think this might be the number one thing that bugs me about this field. For instance, when I was in college, I had a job that paid by the hour. I didn't need a lot of money, so I worked one day a week. In our field, there's no option where you can opt to work four days a week, or work part time. You would think that at some point, and employer would come up with the idea of opening up some part time positions. There's got to be thousands of talented techies who've reached a point in their life where they don't want to work 50 hours a week. But such a role simply does not exist. It's particularly odd since a lot of us make good money. IE, my Dentist probably works 20 hours a week, and I imagine the reason he works so little is because he isn't living paycheck to paycheck.
- momokoko 6y ago
  That role does exist. In lower-wage countries with outsourcing. In the US and other high wage countries, most developers are hired because of the need for maximum velocity at all costs or having them available to discuss things directly with non-technical stakeholders. Neither of these roles fit well into spending 20 hours a week knocking out bugs and well specced features.
- krab 6y ago
  In Europe, it's becoming easier to work four days a week as a developer, mostly due to shortage of qualified candidates. I wouldn't say it's common but it's definitely possible. I lead a team four days a week and it's working quite well. The other team members work five days a week. They didn't request shorter time.
  - lelaurent 6y ago
    Currently looking for a 4-day dev job in Munich :) http://laurentpichler.com/cv.pdf http://laurentpichler.com/cv.pdf
- limograf 6y ago
  I work three days a week (UK). It's totally possible but you're right that it does constrain where you work. Smaller companies where you can talk directly to the boss is the thing. I have a family caring role so for me it's pretty non-negotiable. I just can't take most offers (which you're right, usually start full time even if in reality there's flexible working available to permanent employees). It would hugely open up the field to women with caring duties if more companies would do this. Perhaps this is why they do not - I don't know.
madhadron 6y ago
> If you don't do it, there's always a willing colleague who will. At least, that's been my experience in FAANG and related companies. I really wish they wouldn't, because I have to come along and clean up the messes they make in their fatigue induced haze. Meanwhile I just finished a project that we originally plotted as taking 18 months. It took about two once we sat down and thought about what really needed to be done, and those two were mostly slowly rolling out configuration changes. Most of the problems I deal with are young engineers coding like the wind, adding new services, and locking the system more and more into its current state until all wiggle room is gone and it becomes a multiyear, multiteam project to modify the system semantics in the slightest way.

throwaway713 6y ago

> If you don't do it, there's always a willing colleague who will Haha, isn't this the truth. I work at one of FAANG as well and was curious how one of my colleagues was accomplishing so much. His output is astonishing. I checked his work profile and noticed he had commits, notes, and research actions starting at 7:00 AM and going until 1:00 AM the next day, every day, including weekends. I don't think the founder of this company ever even worked that much. I guess there's just some people who never burn out. Meanwhile, my wife gets annoyed about dinner when I work past 6 PM...

the_gipsy 6y ago
Oh he will burn out, eventually.
frank2 6y ago
Maybe he uses a script to make commits to give the appearance of working all the time.
heretoo 6y ago
> there's just some people who never burn out I once read there is only concrete that has either already cracked or is about to crack.
purerandomness 6y ago
Give him 6-9 months. He'll disappear, all of a sudden. We all do this. Once. When we grow up, at ~23.
- kabdib 6y ago
  Once, at 21 (an Atari game). Again, at 31 (the Apple Newton). And again, at 41 (the Kinect). Every ten years or so I get stupid, I guess. I guess I finally wised-up when I turned 51, we'll see if I stay that smart in a couple of years :-)
  - purerandomness 6y ago
    I guess the key here is that you can totally immerse yourself in something that doesn't feel like work; a project that fullfills you from the deepest of your heart. That tends to happen once every 10 years. It doesn't tend to happen in day-to-day grunt work at an AdTech shop, pushing JIRA tickets.
mikro2nd 6y ago
One place I was consulting to had a dev who only ever committed code in the wee hours of the night. By day he'd fiddle around with all kinds of unproductive crap, but by night he appeared to be a productivity daemon. Turned out he was outsourcing his work to a job-shop in India... Couldn't actually programme worth a damn.

johnvanommen 6y ago

I think this might be the number one thing that bugs me about this field. For instance, when I was in college, I had a job that paid by the hour. I didn't need a lot of money, so I worked one day a week. In our field, there's no option where you can opt to work four days a week, or work part time. You would think that at some point, and employer would come up with the idea of opening up some part time positions. There's got to be thousands of talented techies who've reached a point in their life where they don't want to work 50 hours a week. But such a role simply does not exist. It's particularly odd since a lot of us make good money. IE, my Dentist probably works 20 hours a week, and I imagine the reason he works so little is because he isn't living paycheck to paycheck.

momokoko 6y ago
That role does exist. In lower-wage countries with outsourcing. In the US and other high wage countries, most developers are hired because of the need for maximum velocity at all costs or having them available to discuss things directly with non-technical stakeholders. Neither of these roles fit well into spending 20 hours a week knocking out bugs and well specced features.
krab 6y ago
In Europe, it's becoming easier to work four days a week as a developer, mostly due to shortage of qualified candidates. I wouldn't say it's common but it's definitely possible. I lead a team four days a week and it's working quite well. The other team members work five days a week. They didn't request shorter time.
- lelaurent 6y ago
  Currently looking for a 4-day dev job in Munich :) http://laurentpichler.com/cv.pdf http://laurentpichler.com/cv.pdf
limograf 6y ago
I work three days a week (UK). It's totally possible but you're right that it does constrain where you work. Smaller companies where you can talk directly to the boss is the thing. I have a family caring role so for me it's pretty non-negotiable. I just can't take most offers (which you're right, usually start full time even if in reality there's flexible working available to permanent employees). It would hugely open up the field to women with caring duties if more companies would do this. Perhaps this is why they do not - I don't know.

madhadron 6y ago

> If you don't do it, there's always a willing colleague who will. At least, that's been my experience in FAANG and related companies. I really wish they wouldn't, because I have to come along and clean up the messes they make in their fatigue induced haze. Meanwhile I just finished a project that we originally plotted as taking 18 months. It took about two once we sat down and thought about what really needed to be done, and those two were mostly slowly rolling out configuration changes. Most of the problems I deal with are young engineers coding like the wind, adding new services, and locking the system more and more into its current state until all wiggle room is gone and it becomes a multiyear, multiteam project to modify the system semantics in the slightest way.