> I quickly realized that despite a lot of techies being very loud about WLB, that's not how it works with exceptional people. > They are so interested in what

> I quickly realized that despite a lot of techies being very loud about WLB, that's not how it works with exceptional people. > They are so interested in what they do that WLB is not really a thing. (I'm assuming WLB = work-life balance) There's a really important distinction: a job asking someone to work crazy hours is very different from choosing to spend your personal time coding or learning technical things that may or may not be directly related to your $job. Some people have hobbies as Nd interests that closely mirror what they do for work. Learning about stuff that you're interested in anyway, but also applies to your job, is not a problem of balance. I've sometimes been so invested in something I'm working on that I'll pick it up late at night after everyone else is in bed. The balance part of this is when I do that, I'm going to take off early another day. That's a big difference from working extra hours or being told to work extra hours.