Welcome to the world of software development. Only at my last job (~ 6 years before retiring) were there huge projects that were inevitably late. These were pro

Welcome to the world of software development. Only at my last job (~ 6 years before retiring) were there huge projects that were inevitably late. These were projects for the company's business, not external. Typically we were handed some requirements with a hard deadline, then everything changed daily (and was required for day 1) until we neared the deadline, then the deadline was moved; rinse, repeat. Then after months of this sometimes it was cancelled, sometimes it was postponed further, sometimes it finally shipped. It was a dance I got used to dealing with. Longer hours were asked, sometimes mandated, but everyone knew it was part of the show, and while as lead I worked longer hours I refused to demand my team did. In the end it didn't matter, as these projects involved huge numbers of people/teams so blame (fair and unfair) was spread around. Once something shipped, if it worked, then no one remembered the pain until the next one. If everyone is working long hours including execs and it's shared pain, something will eventually change for the better. My problem with it was when I worked long hours but the execs went on long vacations and weren't even available for approvals or questions. Then nothing will change and you should go elsewhere.