Agree here. Extra long hours on the job or being effectively on-call all waking hours may occur occasionally, but not continuously all the time.
Also, some people who work late hours do so with broken up work days, where they are not continuously working since waking up, but may be mixing their work days with other activities, such as caring for children or elderly relatives (particularly during work-from-home during COVID-19).
Sometimes the demand for a work-life balance leads to changes in the law. 30 years ago, govt contractors could bid free hours and demand that everyone on a project had to work mandatory overtime. Someone down the hall making the same general salary on a different contract wouldn’t have to do that. Eventually they changed the law and don’t let contractors do that anymore. Most people didn’t have a problem working more than 8 hours to get the job done (and got no extra pay for it), but requiring it rubbed a lot of people (most currently boomers) the wrong way.
I’ve been working in tech for quite some time, at a variety of different CA companies. My experience and surveys of large number of engineers suggest something very different. For example, a pre-COVID (2019) CS related salary survey is at Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2019 . Median salaries were in the low 6 figures, with variation by job title. The median hours per week was 42-43 hours for job titles most similar to SW engineer. The only job title that had >45 hours per week was “Senior Executive/VP.” There are a variety of companies that are different for various reasons, but I believe a median of a little over 40 hours per week is far more typical than extreme hours.
Note that I said “median.” This does not mean that every employee at every company meets this definition. Some companies average more hours than others, some teams within specific companies average substantially more hours than others, and some teams within specific companies average substantially more hours at specific times such shortly before a tape out or customer shipment. There isn’t a simple one size fits all rule.
The working conditions are often influenced by competitors. If area company A is regularly asking software engineer employees to work 80 hours per week without increased pay and area company B, C, and D are asking ~40 per week; then company A may start losing their best software engineer employees to companies B, C, and D. Turnover can be quite high, with many employees staying for as little as <3 years.
Regarding the specific hours, at all companies I have worked for, staff engineers are not required to work fixed hours like you must come in at 9AM and leave at 5PM. Instead it’s more you have to make adequate progress with work (or be able to justify why progress is not adequate) and be available for meetings, which are generally scheduled between 10AM and 5PM. Some employees like to arrive before 8AM, and others like to arrive after 10AM; but they all need to attend certain scheduled meetings. Government contractors can be an exception due to special billing and security requirements.
COVID and working from home has changed things more recently. There is not a clear as division between home and office, which I think on average leads to more total hours worked, and far more likely to do work outside of normal business hours. Both pre-COVID and post-COVID employees are generally expected to communicate with team members well, and certainly not wait until 10pm to reply to emails. However, my experience has been that post-COVID someone is far more likely to immediately reply back to an email/skype message sent at 10pm, which can lead to a technical discussion and plans of how to approach the next day.
re: Work/Life balance. Important for sure. Understand what the trade-offs are.
I have a new neighbor. She is a physician, and has made the decision to work as a hospitalist in primary care. The good news- when she clocks out, she’s off the clock. No patients calling at midnight. She has zero responsibility for managing a practice- the hospital does the billing, reminds her when she’s got to update some licensing thing, pays her malpractice, shuffles around the workload so she’s got the right balance between rounds, consulting with colleagues on tough cases, and charting.
The bad news- a lot less money than she’d be making in private practice (which are now almost all hospital owned multi-practitioner practices- the days of three doctors together are over). But she has great work/life balance, can take a vacation without worrying about patients, and is pretty happy with her choice.
That’s the key- understanding the trade-offs. I’ve got colleagues who wouldn’t travel for work (very hard with young kids- I get it), turned down promotions which involved a lot more money and a lot more stress. Yup, I get it.
But you can’t turn 60, now that the kids are out of the house and you’ve decided you want more challenge and more money and you’d love to travel (once that comes back) and demand that your employer restore you to the fast-track. In some cases- that ship has sailed.
Understand the trade-offs.
The issue is you are expecting to make 100k as a grad. Yes it happens. But no one is entitled to anything.
I am thankful every day that my company chooses to employ me. They don’t have to.
In the grand scheme of things, very few kids are making six figures out of school. Even in Cs. Again, you are talking exception, not the rule.
As for the generation pushing back, that’s great in a time of labor shortage. But in the end one is lucky to be employed. It’s a privilege at the discretion of the one paying you. Not a right.
I agree with everything in this post. I’ve done most of those things you mention - turn down a promotion, accept lower pay. But I’ve been happier, still live comfortably, competed in sports, coached my kids in sports, and have dinner with the family nightly. I take a lot of pride in my work and have done training to keep up with new technologies, but it can’t be my whole life.
Kudos to you!
I have a friend who is an MD at a large VA hospital. He is essentially a civil servant, notwithstanding his stellar education, medical credentials, military service, etc.
He has a gajillion hobbies, involved family member, volunteers in the community, etc. Not one of the harried and stressed out MD’s in town who always look five minutes away from having a stroke.
He knows what’s important to him- marathons, skiing, volunteering- and he has a job which brings him satisfaction. Wouldn’t work for other doctors and that’s OK.
Exactly. You get it. This UMC American “complete devotion to your job at all times in your 20s” is an absurd concept. Glad to see my generation is pushing back.
There are definitely trade offs - when I was younger I had an exciting job including travel and it was great. When I had my #1 (in my late 30s) I stepped back and, eventually, took time away and had #2. After I went back to work (kiddos in elementary) I changed careers - starting my own business and working fewer hours with minimal travel. I don’t make as much but I’ve had a great quality of life. When I was younger I couldn’t have imagined any of it, but it has worked out great!
@Data10 I should have been clearer that the people I know had “succeeded” in getting to higher level management roles, so they were certainly in your “>45 hours per week” category. And it wasn’t that they weren’t responding to day-to-day matters until late at night, but that they used the evenings or weekends to think about bigger picture strategy questions. That wasn’t every evening or weekend, but my point is that you can’t just switch off at 5pm every day either.
And you may decide to go and do an intense startup, work 80 hours a week for a few years, then be burned out and take time off (hopefully with shares that were worth something). That wasn’t something that appealed to me.
Working with people in Europe, I’m familiar with the “out of the office for the next 4 weeks, I’ll respond when I return” type of auto-reply emails even from senior executives. Not so much in the US. And I don’t think Gen Z’s demanding a better work-life balance will get us there.
The “senior executive / VP” category averaged 47.7 hours per week in the previously linked survey. Regular engineering managers averaged 44.5 hours. This thread has largely focused on recent grads. Recent grads are extremely unlikely to be upper management executives.
Among engineers who are trying to switch to the management track (a large portion are not), working abnormally long hours is rarely a requirement. Decisions are often more related to performance, team/company impact, experience, and skill set. Larger companies often have a more standardized process with annual performance reviews, levels with different job titles, and typical promotion schedule for lower levels. For example, it’s my understanding that Google has the following levels (may be outdated). Note that the positions involving more management responsibility are associated with 6+ years experience.
Google Employee Levels
Level 1 – Intern with no experience
Level 2 – Intern with experience, Software Engineer I (Some recent CS grads)
Level 3 – Software Engineer II (new CS grads with good tech interview coding level, many have MS degrees)
Level 4 – Software Engineer III (typically has 3+ years work experience, Some PhDs may start here)
Level 5 – Senior Software Engineer, or Manager I (typically has 6+ years work experience)
Level 6 – Staff Software Engineer, or Manager II (typically has 10+ years work experience, different criteria is emphasized for promotion, <15% of engineers are L6+)
Level 7 – Senior Staff Software Engineer, or Senior Manager (inconsistent promotions that are not as well correlated with experience at this level and beyond)
Level 8 – Principle Software Engineer, or Director
Level 9 – Distinguished Software Engineer, or Senior Director
Level 10 – Google Fellow, or Vice President
Level 11 – Senior Google Fellow, or Senior Vice President
@blossom , @youcee , I totally agree with both of you! There are ways in medicine to shift around the tradeoffs and make it work. I am “part-time” in pediatrics (and still make a great living) and have been since I got out of residency–I am about 75% time, so 75% of the normal salary. So, I have been able to have more time home after school, etc. Including after hours charting I still work in the 38-45hr a week range but less than the 55ish of my FT primary care husband. However–as with all medicine–we paid our dues upfront with brutal schedules in med school and 4 years each of residency, which is 80 hrs per week most months of those years. And that only paid $30-40k per yr(early-mid 2000s). Now, together, we make what I consider to be ridiculous money, but certainly we could make more if we were specialists or I chose FT. I think the emphasis on 6 figures right out of college is not realistic for most people, and of the non-doc non-engineers I have known for many years, they got to 6figures well before we did…but definitely had crazy travel schedules as they climbed the ladder in their non-science jobs.
I disagree - well maybe they are demanding it and I do know of many companies who take life quality as a measure - because they are trying to retain workers. Right now, the pendulum is in the worker’s favor - but make no mistake, when it comes to layoffs and they’ve come many a time in my 30 years, it’s those who fit into their 8:30 - 5 box that are out at the end of the day no matter the fire that we might be going through - they’re the first gone - if they didn’t leave on their own because they had no growth - they’re called “blockers” and companies figure out how to manage them out.
Those kids who complained at Goldman are more likely to be driven to leave then to change the system. Year after year my company does surveys and rates well (used to be Fortune Best Places) but year after year the same needs to do better comes up - work life balance and career growth - even though they talk about doing better year after year.
Software is a bit different - the margins are huge and it can be done anywhere - as can other jobs. Stock Research - India. Someone mentioned the other day their Radiologist was in India…so a company needs to profit…and if they are too generous, then they’ll have to cut workers and / or outsource, hire contractors…and that won’t change when society gets back to normal.
I worry for you because it seems like you feel entitled to a job and not just a job - but a high paying one. You have to remember - and I work for a global 100 - in addition to my salary, pension (i’m lucky), 401K match - they are spending $16K a year on my medical/dental/vision and I’m spending about $2K - and really $1K because they give me $1K into my HSA.
I make a fine living and I expect most of my colleagues do. I enjoy my job but I used to be a road warrior. After they saw the savings from covid, now i’m a one week a month warrior 
But I often put in 14 -16 hour days - by choice - because I need to be there for the exterior clients I support.
If I was not doing a good job supporting, they would figure out how to manage me out.
In the end, we all need our job more than it needs us. Everyone is replaceable.
What worries me is you are struggling and it’s understandable but you are attacking the system instead of embracing it.
However, the long term macroeconomic trend is that the economy is becoming less favorable to labor and more favorable to capital, as shown by the falling labor share of the economy as well as increased consolidation leading to oligopolistic markets in many areas. Meaning that people selling their labor (most adults) need to work smarter and harder for less (after incurring greater education and training costs borne by themselves, rather than employers that used to be more willing to do on-the-job-training) than past generations did.
The actionable personal finance goal for a new entrant into the labor market would be to live frugally to save and invest as much as possible, in order to join the capitalist class as soon as possible, in order to reap the economic rewards that are increasingly going to capital rather than labor, and to insulate yourself from the financial vulnerability of being forced out of the labor class and into the useless or discarded class due to future economic or industry disruptions. Granted, this is more difficult (or will take longer, increasing the time frame when you are financially vulnerable) if you can only find lower income jobs.
Once you join the capitalist class (i.e. you can live off your accumulated capital assets and investment income for the rest of your life – can retire, in other words), then you are no longer financially vulnerable if you are forced out of the labor class and into the useless or discarded class. Before then, expect to have to work smarter and harder than past generations did, and hope to avoid the worst luck in economic and industry downturns or workplace politics.
Do not count on politics or short term events like what is happening today to save you from this economic trend. Some politicians may want to reverse this trend, but the most they can probably do is slow it somewhat. Meanwhile other politicians appear to want to accelerate this trend.
It is understandable if someone does not want to embrace how the system is trending, although that should not prevent trying to do the best one can within the system as long as that is the case. Of course, some may want to engage in political activism to change the trend, but that does not preclude personal finance actions as described above, especially since successfully changing the trend is unlikely.
The other thing I meant to say - and I’m your corporate, conservative type - so I’m not a risk taker, etc. but if one starts a business and is successful, it would be awesome and if it wasn’t you’d probably learn.
Or - you can go to law school, hang a shingle, and call your own shots!!
Yes, my plan is to live off my income - pension, 401k, social security - and since interest rates are so low and you can’t buy bonds anymore I’ve been buying dividend stocks - i’m doing what you said. While capital is at risk, i’m buying conservative and hopefully generating a decent income!!!
Someone just starting out tho - it’s what you said - earn what you can and live frugally!! I feel bad for today’s grads…if you make $45K and you’re in a 2nd tier city…like Charlotte or Nashville, it’s $1500 for a decent apartment.
Life is expensive.
Everyone needs to move to Des Moines and Omaha
I thought this tweet was helpful in illustrating just how important networking is in order to be successful early in your career:
The law of supply and demand works whether we are socialist, capitalist or even communist. The market just deals with the variables. As the cost of labor increases it makes investments in alternatives more appealing. I was listening to a broadcast today about self driving trucks. For a variety of reasons there is a shortage of truck drivers at the moment which is contributing to the to challenge of getting products around the country. Labor is expensive and having a shortage for whatever reason will make the investments in self driving trucks accelerate in the coming decade. Within a generation the $100k long distance truck drivers job may well be a thing of the past. We have witnessed an increase the reduction in labor due to technology in the last 20 years. There are far fewer retail, middle management, customer service, etc. type of jobs because of computers, tablets, ipads etc… I would argue that it is a primary driver of the capital vs. labor statistic that usbalumnus talked about.
What I think this means to those just now entering the work force is that if you have skills are willing to learn and prove yourself to be an asset to whomever you work for then you will do fine. If you don’t then you run the risk of being replaced or outsourced or relegated to positions that are low skill and will always pay less.
Skills PLUS the soft stuff- work ethic, communication, ability to take feedback without falling apart, attitude- these things matter. And I agree with LVVCSF that Moore’s Law is rolling through industry right now and we ignore it at our peril.
I find the fetishization of STEM amusing. I am old enough to remember when math majors (even PhD’s) were driving taxis. I remember the aerospace bust in the early 1990’s when experienced mechanical engineers couldn’t find jobs, let alone new grads. I remember busts in oil and gas which threw petroleum engineers out of work, the meltdown of 2001 which hit CS majors VERY hard, etc. Everyone thinks it can never happen again.
The pace of change in the workplace, fueled by automation and globalization, has definitely changed the landscape for kids coming out of college. It has probably contributed the number of students flocking to STEM.
Most jobs, even the ones that are highly paid today, face the risk of obsolescence over the span of a new graduate’s career. As someone who supports the idea that students should pursue their interests and passions in-depth, I also think students should be equipped with some core critical thinking and quantitative skills and some minimal breadth of knowledge so they will be able to adapt to a new environment and potentially reinvent themselves during their careers. That’s why I’m not a fan of schools with little or no curriculum requirement.