I've worked way over 9-5 for ~months a few times and I usually feel very unhappy with my decision for months afterwards. If you are just an engineer, there is

I've worked way over 9-5 for ~months a few times and I usually feel very unhappy with my decision for months afterwards. If you are just an engineer, there is no point. You are just burning yourself out to make someone else's dream come true, or get your boss promoted, or get your director their bonus. Maybe you will get promoted, or a better rating. Even when I've seen that outcome I was still unhappy with it. Any company will always have an endless backlog of work and burning it down faster doesn't do anything. IMO you should only do it when financial or career incentives are very well aligned. I don't know if I've ever met another person who is truly (not for resume/career/money purposes) "passionate" about the kind of software people get paid to write. Most software is really boring. Even for software that isn't, it looks boring once you've seen how it works.