3 ms·

I'm not sure why this is such a common misconception. I almost never work 70, or 60 hour weeks. 50, often, but that's usually my own fault for making promises

I'm not sure why this is such a common misconception. I almost never work 70, or 60 hour weeks. 50, often, but that's usually my own fault for making promises to others I want to keep. I've managed inside Engineering at Facebook and am now back to just being a straight Engineer, and my advice to everyone I work with is the same: Don't kill yourself working 70/80 hour weeks. We pay you to give 40 solid hours, and that is what I want. What I ask of you is that you set expectations for the people and teams around you as accurately as you can. Don't make a bunch of promises you have to work crazy hours to keep. The majority of our most successful engineers have a very good work-life balance.

aaronbrethorst 13y ago
Because it seems like every mainstream news article about engineering at Facebook is written like this one: http://www.fastcompany.com/3005165/how-facebook-survived-34-intense-days-lockdown-build-graph-search http://www.fastcompany.com/3005165/how-facebook-survived-34-... Maybe it's Facebook PR's fault.
- bbillings 13y ago
  So we do lock-downs still, but it's not about working crazy hours, it's about focus. Under lock-down you are allowed to push the other stuff to the side for awhile. For instance I typically do 2-3 interviews a week, help with training new interviewers, etc. This can easily be 5-6 hours of total time out of my week. This is part of being an engineer at Facebook. Onboarding sessions, new engineer mentoring, etc. This is all part of normal workdays, unless you are in a lock-down, then you focus on getting whatever it is you need to get done done and not worry about the rest for awhile. I personally disagree pretty heavily on sleeping in the office and working crazy hours. I find it very counter productive and generally think it leads to bad decisions, bad code, and ultimately bad products. It is certainly the exception, and not something you should be doing if you aren't 22 years old and/or more than a little crazy. I personally haven't worked crazy hours at Facebook since probably 2009. Talking about this sort of thing from a PR perspective seems has to balance getting people excited about our environment and explaining our goals and day-to-day. I've found it's something the media outlets love to play up. The normal day-in-the-life of an engineer is fun, but chill, and not particularly news worthy.
  - aaronbrethorst 13y ago
    I personally disagree pretty heavily on sleeping in the office and working crazy hours. I agree completely. Facebook's tried to recruit me on at least one occasion and I turned them (you?) down flatly for this reason (that, and I don't want to ever have to write PHP). I get that you don't have complete control of the press you get, but maybe it'd be worth focusing some attention on these work-life balance issues in the outlets you do have complete control over. getting people excited about our environment 1 billion users. Boom, done.

aaronbrethorst 13y ago

Because it seems like every mainstream news article about engineering at Facebook is written like this one: http://www.fastcompany.com/3005165/how-facebook-survived-34-intense-days-lockdown-build-graph-search http://www.fastcompany.com/3005165/how-facebook-survived-34-... Maybe it's Facebook PR's fault.

bbillings 13y ago
So we do lock-downs still, but it's not about working crazy hours, it's about focus. Under lock-down you are allowed to push the other stuff to the side for awhile. For instance I typically do 2-3 interviews a week, help with training new interviewers, etc. This can easily be 5-6 hours of total time out of my week. This is part of being an engineer at Facebook. Onboarding sessions, new engineer mentoring, etc. This is all part of normal workdays, unless you are in a lock-down, then you focus on getting whatever it is you need to get done done and not worry about the rest for awhile. I personally disagree pretty heavily on sleeping in the office and working crazy hours. I find it very counter productive and generally think it leads to bad decisions, bad code, and ultimately bad products. It is certainly the exception, and not something you should be doing if you aren't 22 years old and/or more than a little crazy. I personally haven't worked crazy hours at Facebook since probably 2009. Talking about this sort of thing from a PR perspective seems has to balance getting people excited about our environment and explaining our goals and day-to-day. I've found it's something the media outlets love to play up. The normal day-in-the-life of an engineer is fun, but chill, and not particularly news worthy.
- aaronbrethorst 13y ago
  I personally disagree pretty heavily on sleeping in the office and working crazy hours. I agree completely. Facebook's tried to recruit me on at least one occasion and I turned them (you?) down flatly for this reason (that, and I don't want to ever have to write PHP). I get that you don't have complete control of the press you get, but maybe it'd be worth focusing some attention on these work-life balance issues in the outlets you do have complete control over. getting people excited about our environment 1 billion users. Boom, done.