I half disagree. In the case where you are working 20 hours a week and meeting all your deliverables, your employer should simultaneously promote you and give y

I half disagree. In the case where you are working 20 hours a week and meeting all your deliverables, your employer should simultaneously promote you and give you more work to do. This is assuming that your 20-hour workload is equivalent to a peer's 40-hour workload. If they want to give you more work to do without paying you more, then they're falling into the trap of seeing you as an underutilized machine that could be producing more widgets. Based on your definition of employment, I think you believe that model applies to software development. I think that attitude fundamentally misunderstands that the work we do is not primarily measured in quantifiable output but in qualitative results. Sometimes work takes longer than expected, sometimes work takes less time than expected. What matters is that progress is being made and project deadlines are carefully chosen given available resources and the risk profile of the project.