Do you work long hours?

Elessar · 29-10-2015 9:27am #1

Just wondering what kind of hours developers here work each day on average? I have a friend who is a web developer who recently got a new job with an american firm and he told me he's pulling 18 hour days atm. Are these kind of hours expected in permanent dev roles? I am considering a move into dev in the near future but if it means a life of slaving away for crazy hours each day then I'm having second thoughts. I don't mind putting in some extra hours where needed but not on a continual "we own your soul" basis. Does anyone here actually leave the office regularly at 5pm?

TrueDub · 29-10-2015 10:09am

I do, every day.

When the work demands it, I'll put the extra time in, knowing that it'll be appreciated.

L.Jenkins · 29-10-2015 10:18am

In 5+ years, I haven't encountered a situation where I've had to work beyond my 9-5 routine, unless I'm doing it wrong :P To be honest though, anything beyond 10-12 hours per day is a bit ridiculous and too much to ask of anyone. If it's a regular occurrence or requirement asked of an employee, then someone in the organisation has píss poor planning skills.

Creamy Goodness · 29-10-2015 10:21am

9ish — 6ish here, the odd time I'd do an hour here or there from the comfort of my sofa with a beer but it's rare.

intheclouds · 29-10-2015 10:26am

9-4.30 for a long time - the odd late night or weekend.

Currently 9-5.30 - think I had to stay til 6 one evening.....

wally1990 · 29-10-2015 10:35am

09:00 -17:30 at the moment but did 12 to 11 pm and 9 to 7/8 a lot of in the past and realised 'poos 'is your thanks because we are all only a number and when something goes wrong/mess something up all the overtime and extra work sometimes without pay or assistance is forgotten about

Manach · 29-10-2015 11:02am

A fairly constant 42hrs. The regular hours plus answering some emails in the evening. Books like Code Complete highlight both the folly of using hours as a metric of job performance and that work done after such hours is poor quality.

Raging_Ninja · 29-10-2015 2:30pm

The only times where I've worked late on a semi regular basis was in a startup where it was quite literally do or the company dies. Twice I stayed till 3AM to make sure something was ready for the morning.

After a while though I was able to return to 9.30-5.30/6. In my current role the longest I've stayed on was 30 minutes because the deployment was taking longer than usual to copy over to a server because of network issues.

That much overtime isn't worth it because your quality is lower, bugs are more frequenthan and you really won't get the reward (more money) you deserve - you're just working for free. You are not a martyr.

Wizard! · 29-10-2015 2:33pm

Personally, very rare and most of the times, it is scheduled days before (weekend release for example)
However, many colleagues of mine, work late and over the weekends, or skype meetings from home at 10pm.

brevity · 29-10-2015 2:37pm

I worked in a startup that required a lot of hours, remember working from home until 1 or 2 in the morning after doing 8-6 in the office that day.

Not good to be doing that long term through.

Where I am now is quite cushy - 9 to 5, flexitime etc...

Tar.Aldarion · 29-10-2015 5:45pm

Nah, 9-5 with one hour lunch and nobody is looking at the clock.

gargargar · 29-10-2015 6:10pm

I had jobs at the start where I was working 60 hour weeks. I did it for a while to get experience. Near the end I found that developing for more than 8-9 hours straight doesn't work. If you have a problem working into the evening doesn't make sense (unless its production issue). It actually backfires as you make silly mistakes and increases the overall work.

I found going home actually allows your brain to think it over on a deep level. I used to find I would fix the problem very quickly in the morning rather than sloglate into the night.

Wizard! · 29-10-2015 6:23pm

gargargar wrote: »

...Near the end I found that developing for more than 8-9 hours straight doesn't work...

And you are not the only one:

"The eight-hour work day is not as effective as one would think"
Linus Feldt, Filimundus’s CEO

Source:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sweden-introduces-six-hour-work-day-a6674646.html

Sheeps · 29-10-2015 11:45pm

Go through phases of working 9 till 9 and then I go through phases where I'm not busy at all and leave on time or early. Depends on what's going on really and how important it is.

14ned · 30-10-2015 12:06pm

Elessar wrote: »

Just wondering what kind of hours developers here work each day on average? I have a friend who is a web developer who recently got a new job with an american firm and he told me he's pulling 18 hour days atm. Are these kind of hours expected in permanent dev roles? I am considering a move into dev in the near future but if it means a life of slaving away for crazy hours each day then I'm having second thoughts. I don't mind putting in some extra hours where needed but not on a continual "we own your soul" basis. Does anyone here actually leave the office regularly at 5pm?

Right now I do exactly 9.30am to 6pm on the dot with 60 mins lunch (during which I exercise) but I'm a remote working contractor, so I set my own hours. If I feel like a long lunch at the pub, I can do that as I'm the boss.

In the past some jobs I've had required the "death march" before a product release, and I don't mind that as it's simply the way it is in some software industries (games particularly). Good employers will return you the extra hours you gave them after the product ships by reduced hours for a few weeks or extra vacation days, bad employers simply create another crisis needing even more hours above your 40 hour contracted amount.

Startups tend to be less well managed than corporations, and tend to have more crises requiring above 40 hours extra hours. Smaller teams also means less available spare slack. Some companies are nothing but 60-80 hour weeks forever because it's always "the company will die" crisis mode. And finally some graduate recruitment programmes deliberately put trainees through ridiculous hours as a means of filtering out anyone without the desired commitment, and unfortunately that sort of mentality has leaked out into in sections of some big corporate employers with rank and yank schemes which strongly encourage long weeks - Enron and Microsoft historically, more recently Amazon (see http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html?_r=0 for an idea).

Basically, your employer is not your friend - you are a resource to be mined or invested in depending. I personally prefer the relationship to be written down every twelve months in a contract, hence I'm a contractor - if I work a single extra hour, I get paid for it, and that ensures that the client doesn't try operating in constant crisis mode (or if they do, I don't have to deal with it for free). But being a permie also comes with many benefits, and if you're in a good employer who doesn't abuse you and invests in you, I'd happily take a 30% pay cut in exchange. Sadly, such employers are rare, and even when they exist all it requires is a buy out or change in management for everything to go sour.

Niall

rainbow kirby · 30-10-2015 3:01pm

Pretty consistent 9-5 here, which I'm quite happy with. We have flexible start and finish times too so I'll be switching to a 7:30 or 8am start after Christmas to make my commute a bit less painful (I'm pregnant and have a cattle-grade tube commute every day).

BrokenArrows · 30-10-2015 7:26pm

9-5.30
Usually leave on time.
I work longer when I need to or I'm just in a groove.
I've rarely been asked to work extra and when I choose to its because I'm saving myself stress of being late on a project.

punk_one82 · 31-10-2015 5:56am

9-5.30 usually for me. Only ever work later than 5.30 when I'm behind in work and the deadline is approaching or if a bug is taking me longer than I feel it should to solve.

jester77 · 31-10-2015 10:56pm

I work 8 hours every day plus/minus whatever it takes to finish off what I am doing. I don't just turn off my machine when the 8 hours is up. This is the same for everyone in my team. It would reflect very badly on the PO and on our planning and grooming skills if we were always having to work longer than 8 hours a day.

John_Mc · 31-10-2015 11:03pm

I work about 40 hours a week, sometimes more than that if I'm approaching the end of a project. I don't mind though as I like that phase of projects where it's all hands on deck closing something out.

The odd bit of overtime is ok but if it's chronic then that's a sign of mismanagement. Over promising and/or under resourcing really annoys me and I wouldn't continue to work OT if I thought it could have been avoided by proper management.

NeutralHandle · 01-11-2015 4:41pm

39 hours with reasonable flexibility. Tend to work a little longer than that out of own volition just because I enjoy what I do.

matrim · 01-11-2015 4:43pm

I typically work 10 - 6.30 but have a lot of flexibility in terms of how I structure my hours. Some weeks I may do more hours, some less. Once the work gets done nobody really cares.

dazberry · 01-11-2015 6:18pm

9 to 5. Trying to balance old and cynical with duty and responsibility I try to do a good days work but keep it as close 9 to 5. Not beyond taking the laptop home and spending all day Sunday cursing at the thing - but from past experience - I'm not going to break my hole either!

I did work in a place a number of years ago where I generally worked an extra hour a day - I used to call it the golden hour, the phones would stop ringing and most people would have gone home - and it allowed me to comfortably stay on top of things without killing myself

D.

Anesthetize · 01-11-2015 6:30pm

I usually go 9 to 6 with a 30 to 45 minute lunch and a couple of breaks for a coffee and a smoke. I stay on late sometimes in the evening if I need to get stuff done before a deadline or if I'm doing on-call customer support.

gherkin · 01-11-2015 7:11pm

9 to 5:30ish, sometimes stay a bit longer only because I enjoyed it.

c_man · 02-11-2015 11:27pm

8:30ish to 5ish. A decent lunch thrown in. Of course the odd time I'll put in the extra mile to get a product release ready. No respect for people bragging about how many hours they put in. If you're constantly doing 60+ hour weeks, there's something wrong*. Always funny working on a long term project with the yanks when they start to cop on to the amount of days off, times we work :pac:

*Of course that might be different if you're working for yourself

yes there · 03-11-2015 2:27am

40 hour week. Sometimes an hour less. Flexible too on times.
When I work I work though, I see a lot of people working at a stroll. I only take 30 min lunches.
I see quite a few work >40 hours only because they aren't able to do the job in the time they should.

EdenStudios · 05-11-2015 12:44pm

I was doing from 9am to 9pm regularly for the past 2 years-ish but I'm self employed so maybe that's different?
Can't pretend mid-day I didn't grab a coffee somewhere etc

If I was single, I'd probably work until 2 or 3 am most nights as that's when I feel I produce my best work. The phone isn't ringing, I've the music on etc.

MyPeopleDrankTheSoup · 10-11-2015 1:33am

i'm *in front* of my computer about 70-80 hours a week according to rescuetime. productivity score is usually around 40% so 28-32 hours a week of pure, actual work either in jetbrains, notepad++, stackoverflow, etc. i think that's pretty good, i doubt most office workers actually put in 40 hours of work.

but i'm a lazy bástard, i'm sure most people have a higher productivity score

Gordon · 10-11-2015 7:07am

I'm in UK: 9-5 weekdays, hour for lunch.

The odd late work for an hour or two to do crucial updates, maybe once a week (paid overtime). Once a month release code into live environment for ~3 hours late at night (paid overtime).

JigglyMcJabs · 20-11-2015 10:58am

Where I work now, there are a couple of devs with a ridiculous work ethic. They come in early and stay late every day, they bang out unholy amounts of good code.
This has developed into a culture of everyone else starting early and working late to keep up, because management can see some tasks consistently flying ahead of others. It's a pain!

Elessar · 20-11-2015 11:01am

JigglyMcJabs wrote: »

Where I work now, there are a couple of devs with a ridiculous work ethic. They come in early and stay late every day, they bang out unholy amounts of good code.
This has developed into a culture of everyone else starting early and working late to keep up, because management can see some tasks consistently flying ahead of others. It's a pain!

That's insane. Time for a new job methinks. Good to see the majority are not like this. I was of the impression programmers always work unholy hours.

JigglyMcJabs · 20-11-2015 11:30am

Elessar wrote: »

That's insane. Time for a new job methinks. Good to see the majority are not like this. I was of the impression programmers always work unholy hours.

Already got a new job, start in 2 weeks. I'm strictly 9 - 5.30 for the remainder of my time here :-)

Wanderer78 · 20-11-2015 12:08pm

move on op! more to life than work or maybe you d like your employer to hold your hand when theyre sticking you into the ground in a box!

L.Jenkins · 20-11-2015 2:24pm

Wanderer78 wrote: »

move on op! more to life than work or maybe you d like your employer to hold your hand when theyre sticking you into the ground in a box!

I do remember working ridiculous hours for a Company, trying to catch up with work and on the job training. It wasn't a Development role, but it was supporting a large Enterprise Application. With little assistance after 6 months and inadequate training, I became so stressed, that I began to sink, leading to bad health. A trip to an Emergency Room after coughing up blood for an evening and a visit with a Psychiatrist, I took stock and I no longer work for that hole of a Company. There was bullying involved when I discussed with internal recruitment that I felt the role wasn't for me, especially from 1st line Management.

I'm not bitter in the slightest. I learned the hard way what I do and do not like, picked myself up, dusted off and moved on. While I do not condemn working long hours to prove your worth, over doing it "could" fuck your health up considerably and no one will pat you on the back for your efforts, because like me, everyone is replaceable.

Phoebas · 20-11-2015 2:29pm

Also around 9:30 - 5:30ish.
I might do a bit of backlog grooming at home watching tv or have a quick check of email, but that's about it.

I'm kinda surprised that most people here work normal hours because anecdotely devs work stupid long hours.

Wanderer78 · 20-11-2015 3:08pm

Itzy wrote:

I do remember working ridiculous hours for a Company, trying to catch up with work and on the job training. It wasn't a Development role, but it was supporting a large Enterprise Application. With little assistance after 6 months and inadequate training, I became so stressed, that I began to sink, leading to bad health. A trip to an Emergency Room after coughing up blood for an evening and a visit with a Psychiatrist, I took stock and I no longer work for that hole of a Company. There was bullying involved when I discussed with internal recruitment that I felt the role wasn't for me, especially from 1st line Management.

Itzy wrote:

I'm not bitter in the slightest. I learned the hard way what I do and do not like, picked myself up, dusted off and moved on. While I do not condemn working long hours to prove your worth, over doing it "could" **** your health up considerably and no one will pat you on the back for your efforts, because like me, everyone is replaceable.

I 'll keep this short. Well done on turning that corner. Take note folks! Major life lesson above!

Berserker · 21-11-2015 12:37am

JigglyMcJabs wrote: »

They come in early and stay late every day, they bang out unholy amounts of good code.

I would love to see that code. I eat, sleep and drink code reviews in my role and the quality of code reduces greatly when people work beyond their normal core hours. I have seen a few cases of people working crazy hours, over a sustained period of time and each and every one of them ended up with serious case of occupational burnout.

TrueDub · 22-11-2015 1:00am

Phoebas wrote: »

I'm kinda surprised that most people here work normal hours because anecdotely devs work stupid long hours.

Some do, but usually IMO in badly-run companies, or at least badly-run projects. It's getting rarer, and a lot of it was part of the macho coder vibe.

Berserker wrote: »

I would love to see that code. I eat, sleep and drink code reviews in my role and the quality of code reduces greatly when people work beyond their normal core hours.

Agree 100% - on the one or two occasions where I've had to stay overnight, the code I've written was barely sustainable. Task number one on the next day was to review and re-write, especially as a fire-fight fix is rarely the solution you want to deliver.

Eugene Norman · 22-11-2015 1:04am

If you are working late fixing crises all the time, you or the guy you took over from didn't design the code properly.

L.Jenkins · 22-11-2015 4:44pm

Eugene Norman wrote: »

If you are working late fixing crises all the time, you or the guy you took over from didn't design the code properly.

It's not that difficult to develop something that requires constant firefighting to maintain. The real challenge is putting together a very good team of designers, developers and testers to ensure that, down the road, someone isn't fixing problems constantly. If you can accomplish that, then you wouldn't have to work beyond 40 - 45 hours per week.

MillField · 25-11-2015 2:00pm

Pretty much a consistent 37.5hr week. I work 8:30-4:30 Monday to Friday. Sometimes I get caught in meetings or with a code checkin that is needed but so far all fine. Some of the higher ups (like the design team or BSAs) tend to work longer hours alright.

Smoggy · 26-12-2015 7:22pm

Here is what I have learnt after many years...

If you find your self doing overtime its down to poor planning. If the planning is your fault, suck it up and learn from it so you don't do it next time.

If the overtime is due to someone else's poor planning. If you're doing overtime all you are doing is covering up someone else's mess. They don't learn from it and you will find yourself in the same situation next time.

Do yourself a favour and don't do overtime.

Graham · 28-12-2015 2:11pm

Smoggy wrote: »

Here is what I have learnt after many years...

If you find your self doing overtime its down to poor planning. If the planning is your fault, suck it up and learn from it so you don't do it next time.

If the overtime is due to someone else's poor planning. If you're doing overtime all you are doing is covering up someone else's mess. They don't learn from it and you will find yourself in the same situation next time.

Do yourself a favour and don't do overtime.

There are many valid reasons where overtime may be asked/required/expected often for reasons outside the control of you and/or your employer. It's not normally an issue for most people unless the overtime is excessive and/or extremely regular.

Smoggy · 28-12-2015 6:57pm

I agree there are valid reasons.

But most the time I find its down to poor planning.

But if a project is well planned, the need for overtime is minimal. A good plan has contingency built into to it, so when **** does hit the fan, there is time to deal with it.

The times I find myself doing OT is when someone said the impossible can be done in a week, leaving developers to pull a miracle out the bag.

Do you work long hours?

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