a lot. but also not very much. let me explain.
in tech, our jobs-more often than not-demand a lot from us. at least in my experience, you are expected to meet all the deadlines. deadlines which, due to the capitalistic nature of modern day corporations, are always becoming shorter and more demanding. the reason behind this is that big tech likes to portray themselves as growth companies in the stock market. in order to increase shareholder value, they need to keep growing, every single quarter if possible. this would be opposed to a value stock, which would be less based on future outlook of revenue and more on the current profits. the faster a tech company can produce new software, the larger their growth rate will be at the next earnings call (theoretically). this is largely an over-simplification, but i digress.
okay so tech companies and their product managers keep creating shorter and more demanding deadlines, so how much should you be working? is it beneficial to get ahead? to spend some of your extra time on the weekends and weeknights to get caught up?
no.
it's not worth the effort to try and stay ahead of the deadlines set by your unrealistic PMs. PMs who, by the way, will take credit for meeting the ambitious deadline when meeting with higher ups. PMs who will also say it is your job to meet their deadlines.
do i sound biased? because i am. we're all biased. but the fact is, it is most optimal for you to work at a steady, realistic pace. if you haven't been slacking and you've been putting in your 9-5 and the deadline is coming up and you think it's not going to be met, then you need to NOT buckle down and grind harder or after hours.
but why? i hear you asking. this is a trap. ambitious deadlines are often a combination of upper management's wall-street-driven goals and PMs career driven goals. the PM's job is to create new products and features which drive revenue. the faster they can get the same features out, the better they will look.
so let's say you buckle down. you work over the weekend and a few late nights. the project gets done on time. congrats. this looks great for you, right? surely upper management will know how dedicated you are to the company now, right?
wrong.by meeting the deadline, you are simply doing your job. you are meeting expectations. "hey, good job team!", they say at standup the next morning. if you're lucky, the team will get to eat out for lunch. if you're not lucky, that time you spent grinding out the code led you to overlook something, and a bug was released into production.
oh, but i didn't set the unrealistic deadline, so surely this won't reflect poorly on me right? it's my PMs fault for pushing us too hard!
wrong again. your PM didn't touch any code. what are you smoking? you think that upper management would assign any blame of a technical bug to someone who isn't technical? if you believe that, i've got a new js framework to sell you.
your job, as a senior software engineer, is to use your experience as a way to push back on overly ambitious deadlines. "there is no way that this project is going to get done on time because of X, Y, and Z" is what you should be saying weeks prior to the approaching deadline. there are always unknowns. there will always be a need for testing. there will always be that conflict between two downstream dependencies that was overlooked.
both product managers and upper management (skip-level engineering managers, directors, VPs) know nothing about how ambitious their deadlines are. actually, i take that back. they know less than nothing. many of them are former software engineers who haven't touched any code for the better part of a decade.
inexperienced engineers are terrible at estimating how long a project will take. it's one of the very important skills that comes from having spent years making estimates, meeting or missing those deadlines, and adjusting them for next time. if you haven't actually worked to meet a deadline in years, that muscle is going to become incredibly atrophied.
okay so my tech lead (staff) will push back on the deadline for me, right? isn't that their job?
yes, it is their job! great observation. however, due to the increasing need for stock growth, staff engineers are actually more focused on scoping out how to make things possible given the existing architecture and capabilities. they can try to pushback, but many times they are simply told to make things happen.
your team got X deadline done last month super quick! surely you should be able to do the same again, right?
and now, here we have the infamous trap. you met the deadlines. you locked in. you grinded hard. with your own spare time. and now that's the baseline that is expected of you. forever.
and that promotion you're going for? you're going to have to put in EVEN MORE TIME now, since what is expected of you now is that you spend a portion of your free time working.
okay, so what's the solution? it's simple really. work your 9-5. focus. don't watch family guy while you're working, just use your daily job as a way to hone your craft. don't spend any extra time outside of what you want to be the norm working. if a deadline doesn't get met, guess whose fault it is? the people who set the ambitious deadlines. even better, want to get extra points that make you seem super experienced? call out early why the deadline is going to be rough to meet. make sure you document why. if they listen to your guidance, you just actually influenced how much the entire team has to grind. if they don't, haev a record of it. you don't need to be the dick that says "i told you so". that'll get you hated. but often times there is an retrospective done on why deadlines aren't met. this will be the time to share your documentation in a constructive way.
if you're on PIP and don't want to lose your job, this all goes out the window btw. fuck the team, fuck the PM, fuck management, grind your fucking ass off so your family can eat. this is for people who want a good work life balance for their careers to avoid burnout.
but aaron, don't you work 10-12 hours a day at your startup? and half days on the weekend?
why yes, i do. here's the difference: when i was working in big tech, i made $144k base and about $50k in stock per year. that's $50k of a $180B company. at my startup, i own 0.5% of the company. you do the math. at my startup, the amount i work has a direct correlation on how much my net worth increases, as i'm one of the four full-time engineers. the harder i grind, the faster i get to retire and do whatever the fuck i want every single day for the rest of my life. i am the PM, the designer, the developer, and the QA.
if you have millions in stock in your big tech company, then yeah, you probably should be working your ass off. but if you're just a lowbie individual contributor, you really do not gain much. in fact, you effectively reduce your hourly pay by working extra. if you directly benefit from working extra hours and you are 100% certain that you'll get the recognition for it, then by all means, go right ahead.
but i was in that position before. i was sure i'd get recognized. i spend my nights getting deadlines finished. i spent my weekends working on AI proof of concepts that we could incorporate into the app. surely since AI is so hyped by the higher-ups, i'll get my well-deserved chops.
that didn't happen. my performance rating? meets expectations. i later found out that company-wide the stock compensation was reduced by 20%, whereas mine stayed the same, so technically, that was my recognition. thanks, i guess?
my main point is that you shouldn't work hard unless you are going to get the monetary outcome proportional to the work you put in. if you're going to work your ass off, you need to be getting paid proportional to the amount of effort you're putting in, otherwise you need to find a new job where you are. startups are a great example of this. sure you get less benefits, and have to work more. but at the end of the day, you're working for your own financial outcome, not the amorphous blob that is wall street, which is a great way to lose all fulfillment in your work.