This is one of those times when you shouldn't attribute malice (or greed, I guess) to something that ought to be attributed to incompetence. I've been a PM for

This is one of those times when you shouldn't attribute malice (or greed, I guess) to something that ought to be attributed to incompetence. I've been a PM for long enough to have dealt with lots of situations like this, and never once have I had the slightest inkling that there was any plan to overwork engineers in order to get them to work for free. The good companies I've dealt with understood that engineers are vital to their success and try to make them happy. The short term benefits of getting free work by bullying them with deadlines doesn't outweigh the downside of them leaving. The bad companies just don't think like this - they want cheap labor so they outsource engineering to the cheapest possible places. Based on this post, I would strongly recommend the author get a new job.