I think many people who overwork themselves really overestimate how much managers and others care. I hear stories of software devs doing like 12 hour days. But

I think many people who overwork themselves really overestimate how much managers and others care. I hear stories of software devs doing like 12 hour days. But why? You're likely salaried for a 7.5-8 hour day. When your salaried work is over you don't need to work longer, log out/go home/ignore anything work related. It's really not that hard. If someone is trying to contact you and you aren't on-call or aren't required to listen, then kindly tell them that you're not at work. Emails are easily ignored too. Did someone send you a ticket at 5pm with the message "Can you take a quick look at this?". That's tomorrow mornings problem, not todays. The outcome of whatever work you do for that will not produce anything meaningful until the next day anyway, because most people finished work, so why bother? Do you feel pressured from needing to work longer to meet expectations set by other people in the same role? Don't be. If your manager or anyone else in charge has a problem with your productivity then the first thing they're going to do is ask you about it. What things are forcing you to work these extra hours? Is it deadlines? A backlog of work? Did they overestimate your skill level? Talk about it. It might turn out that you actually are in over your head, but you're in the job and you're making the company money. Not every manager is evil and most are accommodating. You might be able to get training/help, perhaps a lower salary and therefore lower expectations/responsibilities. Yeah it might suck to lose some money, but you know what sucks to lose more? Your health. Firing people is pretty expensive and a last resort for a company, you're almost never at risk of being fired. So long as you're not punching people in the face when you meet them and you're doing your work at an acceptable level then you're most likely okay. The people that get fired are those who are really really shitty and do nothing. Any reasonable worker will have domain knowledge and other skills that are invaluable and will take a long time for new hires to pick up. Any company which effectively forces you to over work, even after discussing it, is not worth working for. Software devs are lucky in that the market is full of jobs. Other people might not be so lucky, but in that scenario the first thing you should be doing is gradually reducing hours and looking for a another job.