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I work at a startup right now and can count the number of times I've had to work overtime with a null-pointer - 0. Well run startups can still compete by makin

I work at a startup right now and can count the number of times I've had to work overtime with a null-pointer - 0. Well run startups can still compete by making smart, focused decisions.

andy_ppp 6y ago
I completely agree, sure if you’re into a feature and on a roll in a startup keep going but if you’ve reached a good point to stop no need to cause yourself stress!
- SkyPuncher 6y ago
  There are definitely days I work late, but that's almost always by choice. When I do work late, it means shorter days for me later in the week.
derivagral 6y ago
I've never had a startup that hasn't roped me into a production support on-call for a month or more in addition to regular duties. Under 10 engineers, 50 engineers, 500+ engineers: they've all done this.
- qppo 6y ago
  I've never worked on a product where it ever made sense to be "on call." I'm an engineer, not a doctor.
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    It’s probably obvious, but I’d suggest never working on a product doctors use.
  - Philip-J-Fry 6y ago
    If something goes catastrophically wrong at 1am, caused by some unforeseen bug in the code, who fixes it? Who diagnoses that an issue flooding the logs is not an issue with your software but something else down the line? I think it makes sense to have an on-call rota. Some people do it for a week or so. Cycle it through the team. There needs to be someone knowledgeable to call in case of issues.
    - tolbish 6y ago
      The disconnect seems to be that it isn't mentioned before the offer. If the employee is expecting normal hours but finds out after the fact that the employer actually demands more on-call than was initially discussed, how could that be interpreted as anything other than a bait-and-switch?
    - qppo 6y ago
      We fix it when we see it's broken, which isn't going to happen at 1am local time. If we have a distributed team the odds are better it gets fixed sooner. The world keeps spinning and there's always another bug to fix, it's not worth losing literal sleep over. > There needs to be someone knowledgeable to call in case of issues "Thank you for calling. Our normal business hours are ..." works for the rest of the business world, there's no reason it can't work for you. You can always sell 24h tech support for more money, or make products that don't break in the middle of the night by not relying on systems and designs that are likely to fail spectacularly in the middle of the night.
      - com2kid 6y ago
        That doesn't work if gmail goes down. Or netflix. Or an ISP. Or any product that is primarily used by people outside business hours, e.g. xbox live. "Sorry several million people couldn't play games this weekend, the outage was outside normal business hours." Lots of products need uptime guarantees.
        bigiain 6y ago
        Sure. But I bet the people working on those don’t say their employer unexpectedly “roped me into a production support on-call”. If a role isn’t advertised as having responsibility outside regular office hours, bait and switching people into regularly working outside 9-5 type hours should not be allowed. And “not allowed” with serious enough financial teeth that companies right up to FAANG size would care, or at least that employees leaving/fired from bait and switching employment hours would end up feeling satisfied with their payouts. If you need uptime guarantees, hire people letting them know up front so they can choose to accept or reject that work. You don’t (or at least shouldn’t) get to drop that responsibility on people who never signed up for it in the first place.
  - lubesGordi 6y ago
    This was the first thing that really shocked me at my first job (startup in SF back over a decade ago). The attitude that what we're doing really matters, and if something was found broken on the weekend we'd get a call and have to come into the office. Fucking absurd hubris all throughout SV.
    - _-___________-_ 6y ago
      Why are you doing it at all if it doesn't matter?
      - m1gu3l 6y ago
        if the only thing that mattered is some system being down not making some suit money, and mgmt has no respect for the work, it doesn’t matter. i work to feed myself not because it matters.
      - skellington 6y ago
        Very little of what most people do "matters" from a certain point of view. But everyone has to eat and there are plenty of products that make money that might not "matter" but offer jobs. We can't all work for Tesla or SpaceX.
      - istorical 6y ago
        To earn a living.
m463 6y ago
> can count the number of times I've had to work overtime with a null-pointer - 0. Sounds to me like you've malloc'd all of memory.
brian_cunnie 6y ago
Agreed: well-run startups can still compete by making smart, focused decisions. I've worked at 3 startups (5th employee, 16th employee, 2nd employee). The first one had 80 hour weeks and burned me out after a year. The company had enough capital to stay in business, but never went anywhere, and my shares were washed out in subsequent funding rounds. The second had 40 hour weeks and I worked there for six years. A fair-to-middling exit to Broadcom. The third one had 40 hour weeks and I worked there for 3 years. A great exit to Google.

I work at a startup right now and can count the number of times I've had to work overtime with a null-pointer - 0. Well run startups can still compete by making smart, focused decisions.

andy_ppp 6y ago

I completely agree, sure if you’re into a feature and on a roll in a startup keep going but if you’ve reached a good point to stop no need to cause yourself stress!

SkyPuncher 6y ago
There are definitely days I work late, but that's almost always by choice. When I do work late, it means shorter days for me later in the week.

derivagral 6y ago

I've never had a startup that hasn't roped me into a production support on-call for a month or more in addition to regular duties. Under 10 engineers, 50 engineers, 500+ engineers: they've all done this.

qppo 6y ago
I've never worked on a product where it ever made sense to be "on call." I'm an engineer, not a doctor.
- lostlogin 6y ago
  It’s probably obvious, but I’d suggest never working on a product doctors use.
- Philip-J-Fry 6y ago
  If something goes catastrophically wrong at 1am, caused by some unforeseen bug in the code, who fixes it? Who diagnoses that an issue flooding the logs is not an issue with your software but something else down the line? I think it makes sense to have an on-call rota. Some people do it for a week or so. Cycle it through the team. There needs to be someone knowledgeable to call in case of issues.
  - tolbish 6y ago
    The disconnect seems to be that it isn't mentioned before the offer. If the employee is expecting normal hours but finds out after the fact that the employer actually demands more on-call than was initially discussed, how could that be interpreted as anything other than a bait-and-switch?
  - qppo 6y ago
    We fix it when we see it's broken, which isn't going to happen at 1am local time. If we have a distributed team the odds are better it gets fixed sooner. The world keeps spinning and there's always another bug to fix, it's not worth losing literal sleep over. > There needs to be someone knowledgeable to call in case of issues "Thank you for calling. Our normal business hours are ..." works for the rest of the business world, there's no reason it can't work for you. You can always sell 24h tech support for more money, or make products that don't break in the middle of the night by not relying on systems and designs that are likely to fail spectacularly in the middle of the night.
    - com2kid 6y ago
      That doesn't work if gmail goes down. Or netflix. Or an ISP. Or any product that is primarily used by people outside business hours, e.g. xbox live. "Sorry several million people couldn't play games this weekend, the outage was outside normal business hours." Lots of products need uptime guarantees.
      - bigiain 6y ago
        Sure. But I bet the people working on those don’t say their employer unexpectedly “roped me into a production support on-call”. If a role isn’t advertised as having responsibility outside regular office hours, bait and switching people into regularly working outside 9-5 type hours should not be allowed. And “not allowed” with serious enough financial teeth that companies right up to FAANG size would care, or at least that employees leaving/fired from bait and switching employment hours would end up feeling satisfied with their payouts. If you need uptime guarantees, hire people letting them know up front so they can choose to accept or reject that work. You don’t (or at least shouldn’t) get to drop that responsibility on people who never signed up for it in the first place.
- lubesGordi 6y ago
  This was the first thing that really shocked me at my first job (startup in SF back over a decade ago). The attitude that what we're doing really matters, and if something was found broken on the weekend we'd get a call and have to come into the office. Fucking absurd hubris all throughout SV.
  - _-___________-_ 6y ago
    Why are you doing it at all if it doesn't matter?
    - m1gu3l 6y ago
      if the only thing that mattered is some system being down not making some suit money, and mgmt has no respect for the work, it doesn’t matter. i work to feed myself not because it matters.
    - skellington 6y ago
      Very little of what most people do "matters" from a certain point of view. But everyone has to eat and there are plenty of products that make money that might not "matter" but offer jobs. We can't all work for Tesla or SpaceX.
    - istorical 6y ago
      To earn a living.

m463 6y ago

> can count the number of times I've had to work overtime with a null-pointer - 0. Sounds to me like you've malloc'd all of memory.

brian_cunnie 6y ago

Agreed: well-run startups can still compete by making smart, focused decisions. I've worked at 3 startups (5th employee, 16th employee, 2nd employee). The first one had 80 hour weeks and burned me out after a year. The company had enough capital to stay in business, but never went anywhere, and my shares were washed out in subsequent funding rounds. The second had 40 hour weeks and I worked there for six years. A fair-to-middling exit to Broadcom. The third one had 40 hour weeks and I worked there for 3 years. A great exit to Google.