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I have found that the more money I make the more hours I have to work. I am a software engineer, non manager. I had a job making 60k a year and I worked 40 hour

I have found that the more money I make the more hours I have to work. I am a software engineer, non manager. I had a job making 60k a year and I worked 40 hours a week, it was awesome. Then I got a job making 120k a year and I worked 65 - 75 hours a week. I did not want to do this but to keep up with the workload I had too. It was not just me it was all of the engineers so I am confident it was not a lack of skill. Now I make 200k a year and I find myself working 75 - 90 hours a week and it is terrible. Again, my co workers who have been there longer than me work the same hours so I know it is not a lack of skill on my part. It is just expected, refusing would likely lead to me losing my job. I have no idea if this is the same at all companies as I can only speak from personal experience. It just seems in software that they just require more and more of your life hours. I would love to find a balance of good salary and ~45 hours a week.

moret1979 6y ago
I hope it doesn’t come too hard, but you’re part of the problem by what you describe. You took the bait of more money to trade off focused hours with busy hours productivity. This sets expectations to employers and others around you, and wall off a lot of people who can’t - and shouldn’t - take the same deal. Plus, this mode of heavy workload in hours is usually a signal of low return of value for what is produced in this time, meaning deep work to deliver more value is crowded out.
- wonderwonder 6y ago
  I don't take it hard at all, but in all fairness its not like they advertised the required hours on the job application. You start a job, its more money than you ever made, you have finally made it and then the hours start to just pour on. I have a family its not like I can just quit so I work and then finally land another job making more money but then somehow the cycle repeats. Sounds like I just have terrible luck to land 2 of these in a row.
  - aaronchall 6y ago
    Some managers will push you to do more until you push back. Perhaps you have to learn to say "No" to things you don't have time for in a regular workday. As Stephen Covey put it in 7 Habits, when asked to do more, pull out your prioritized, filled-out calendar and ask which item they'd like you to deprioritize to take on the new task. Then you'll discover their real priorities.
baumy 6y ago
I feel very confident saying that there are lots of software jobs paying in the ~150k range (particularly for people with at least a couple years of experience, which you clearly have) that rarely if ever require more than 40 hours per week. I've never actually known anyone who works as much as you apparently do, save for high level execs at big companies making 7 figures and up. I've worked at FAANGs, and now work for a medium sized startup, with comp in the ~200-300k range and can count on my hands the number of weeks in my career that I've worked more than 40 hours. Are you willing to name and shame? 60+ hours a week, much less 90, sounds utterly and completely insane to me. I would consider those companies outliers, and have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that you've apparently found yourself at 2 outliers in a row. Obviously location matters, so for reference: I was in Seattle while at a FAANG, and now work fully remote.
- wonderwonder 6y ago
  Both of these jobs have been fully remote. I don't want to name the companies, but the first is a publicly traded company that is currently dying as all of their engineers are quitting. They have lost ~55% of their engineers in the 6 months since I left. The current one is a booming multi unicorn. Good people at this one, just crazy deadlines. That's about as much as I want to reveal. I am currently taking the time to plan my next gig, I want to make sure its exactly what I want so I am studying and planning my exit. I need to get some sort of work / life balance going. Your post gives me hope that its possible.
comp_throw7 6y ago
Agreed with the other comment that this sounds extremely unusual. I started at 45k/yr and now make an order of magnitude more, with jobs that spanned an extremely diverse range of company sizes, lifecycles, and domains - large pre-dotcom tech company, weird mid-size B2B startup, large non-profit, mid-size B2C startup, and now modern tech company. The B2C startup was the only one where I ever worked more than 8 hours a day outside of exceptional circumstances, and even there it was relatively rare.
theshrike79 5y ago
I switched from a manager job to a regular coder, got 20% more pay and my hours are exactly 0800-1600 every day except for a few random evening calls to the other side of the planet. Don't work 80 hours a week unless you're compensated for 80 hours a week.

moret1979 6y ago

I hope it doesn’t come too hard, but you’re part of the problem by what you describe. You took the bait of more money to trade off focused hours with busy hours productivity. This sets expectations to employers and others around you, and wall off a lot of people who can’t - and shouldn’t - take the same deal. Plus, this mode of heavy workload in hours is usually a signal of low return of value for what is produced in this time, meaning deep work to deliver more value is crowded out.

wonderwonder 6y ago
I don't take it hard at all, but in all fairness its not like they advertised the required hours on the job application. You start a job, its more money than you ever made, you have finally made it and then the hours start to just pour on. I have a family its not like I can just quit so I work and then finally land another job making more money but then somehow the cycle repeats. Sounds like I just have terrible luck to land 2 of these in a row.
- aaronchall 6y ago
  Some managers will push you to do more until you push back. Perhaps you have to learn to say "No" to things you don't have time for in a regular workday. As Stephen Covey put it in 7 Habits, when asked to do more, pull out your prioritized, filled-out calendar and ask which item they'd like you to deprioritize to take on the new task. Then you'll discover their real priorities.

baumy 6y ago

I feel very confident saying that there are lots of software jobs paying in the ~150k range (particularly for people with at least a couple years of experience, which you clearly have) that rarely if ever require more than 40 hours per week. I've never actually known anyone who works as much as you apparently do, save for high level execs at big companies making 7 figures and up. I've worked at FAANGs, and now work for a medium sized startup, with comp in the ~200-300k range and can count on my hands the number of weeks in my career that I've worked more than 40 hours. Are you willing to name and shame? 60+ hours a week, much less 90, sounds utterly and completely insane to me. I would consider those companies outliers, and have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that you've apparently found yourself at 2 outliers in a row. Obviously location matters, so for reference: I was in Seattle while at a FAANG, and now work fully remote.

wonderwonder 6y ago
Both of these jobs have been fully remote. I don't want to name the companies, but the first is a publicly traded company that is currently dying as all of their engineers are quitting. They have lost ~55% of their engineers in the 6 months since I left. The current one is a booming multi unicorn. Good people at this one, just crazy deadlines. That's about as much as I want to reveal. I am currently taking the time to plan my next gig, I want to make sure its exactly what I want so I am studying and planning my exit. I need to get some sort of work / life balance going. Your post gives me hope that its possible.

comp_throw7 6y ago

Agreed with the other comment that this sounds extremely unusual. I started at 45k/yr and now make an order of magnitude more, with jobs that spanned an extremely diverse range of company sizes, lifecycles, and domains - large pre-dotcom tech company, weird mid-size B2B startup, large non-profit, mid-size B2C startup, and now modern tech company. The B2C startup was the only one where I ever worked more than 8 hours a day outside of exceptional circumstances, and even there it was relatively rare.

theshrike79 5y ago

I switched from a manager job to a regular coder, got 20% more pay and my hours are exactly 0800-1600 every day except for a few random evening calls to the other side of the planet. Don't work 80 hours a week unless you're compensated for 80 hours a week.