I’ve only been in tech for 10 years but I’ve worked at companies of various sizes (FAANG, a 50-person startup, and now a mid-sized “unicorn”) and I’ve never had to work crazy hours. Maybe leading up to a launch I’d work past dinner occasionally but mostly my work weeks have been 40-45 hours consistently.
Am I just lucky? I mean obviously I’m lucky relative to the world (tech has been lucrative and interesting during this decade) but are others in tech really working crazy hours all the time?
I have worked with some people who seem to turn any job into a 24/7 thing but they were either workaholics or under-qualified people trying to substitute quantity for quality. And it did not seem to pay off for them.
I’ve always thought that San Francisco was a pretty laid back city. Working until 7 is “late”. My friends in NYC think that’s early.
I will say that I’ve always thought oncall as a concept is odd and somewhat exploitative. Only software engineers and doctors seem to carry pagers. And software engineers (mostly) don’t save lives.
Tech is a big industry. It employs millions in the US. I’ve met people who only work 20-25 hours/week while pulling down $500k/yr+ at a known company that has a very toxic work culture. I’ve met people making under $150k who are working 60-70hr/week regularly at a supposed easy company. All within Silicon Valley.
The reality is that experiences vary widely in the industry even within each company - sometimes even within a team.
Am I just lucky? I mean obviously I’m lucky relative to the world (tech has been lucrative and interesting during this decade) but are others in tech really working crazy hours all the time?
I have worked with some people who seem to turn any job into a 24/7 thing but they were either workaholics or under-qualified people trying to substitute quantity for quality. And it did not seem to pay off for them.
I’ve always thought that San Francisco was a pretty laid back city. Working until 7 is “late”. My friends in NYC think that’s early.
I will say that I’ve always thought oncall as a concept is odd and somewhat exploitative. Only software engineers and doctors seem to carry pagers. And software engineers (mostly) don’t save lives.