OP here. I don't think that I am looking for a completely chill environment, just something saner than "everything is on fire all the time." I agree that there

OP here. I don't think that I am looking for a completely chill environment, just something saner than "everything is on fire all the time." I agree that there is a competition. However, I disagree entirely that crazy pressure and long hours win. - In b2b companies, it's all about the sales team, and engineering is more of necessary evil dragged by sales along. - Tech debt and mediocre teams, which I described above, slow things substantially (this is the reason why more hours and bodies are thrown at problems) Also, I know several great engineers and a team of them working regular hours will wipe a floor with a much-much larger team working a huge number of hours (in organizations I mentioned above). (BTW. Usually, such a small team of great engineers go and build a brand new startup. This would solve the tech-excellency problem, but it doesn't solve the work-life balance problem)