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Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

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Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#271

Post by tayo42 »

dlisboa wrote: post #255
ConfessionTime wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is interesting the number of people who see this as a problem that needs to be fixed. Since this specific comment is near the top, I might as well address that here. Why should I work more? How will that improve my life? My self-worth is derived from what I do outside of work to the extent that I don't prioritize professional validation. The primary reason I work is for money. I make enough money that I can live a…

Do you find that in the hours you're not working you're constantly worried that you'll be "found out"? If so the problem is those are wasted hours, you can't just sit down and read or travel because you're still supposedly working. Which means it doesn't really matter that you're not working, you're just not doing anything productive. That leads to doing nothing but mucking about on the Internet, not actually further…

Now that i work from home, i go to the gym, do chores, take naps, cook meals etc

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#272

Post by paxys »

jollybean wrote: post #247
cattown wrote: post #132

I've been a software engineer and managed software engineers for 20 years and worked in all kinds of businesses. This is both normal and mostly acceptable, in my professional opinion. Doing just as much work as your employer requires and no more is way less of a problem than employees who actively steal, commit fraud, bring drama and distract other team members, or are introducing defects because they've faked their…

" This is both normal and mostly acceptable, in my professional opinion. " It's definitely not acceptable. It's a form of White Collar / 1st World Corruption. Taking money from people with expectation of value, while not providing that value is Fraud. Just because we don't always have great oversight, does not abnegate our responsibilities towards trying to do a good job. This notion of 'I Can Get Away With It' and '…

Is there a quantification for the value you are obligated to provide your company written down in your employment contract? If not, on what basis are you throwing around words like "crime" and "fraud"?

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#273

Post by wonderwonder »

jollybean wrote: post #247
cattown wrote: post #132

I've been a software engineer and managed software engineers for 20 years and worked in all kinds of businesses. This is both normal and mostly acceptable, in my professional opinion. Doing just as much work as your employer requires and no more is way less of a problem than employees who actively steal, commit fraud, bring drama and distract other team members, or are introducing defects because they've faked their…

" This is both normal and mostly acceptable, in my professional opinion. " It's definitely not acceptable. It's a form of White Collar / 1st World Corruption. Taking money from people with expectation of value, while not providing that value is Fraud. Just because we don't always have great oversight, does not abnegate our responsibilities towards trying to do a good job. This notion of 'I Can Get Away With It' and '…

If OP is considered valuable by the organization and everyone is satisfied by their output then they are providing the value they are being paid for. If they feel they are overpaying OP for for the output he is providing then they would PIP him or at the very least say something. OP though has received promotions so they must feel he is doing a good job.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#274

Post by geijoenr »

Long time manager here as well.

I am fully aware of the amount of work developers do and never expect more than 50% of their time to be spent in full focus. But this amounts to around 20h per week.

The kind of behavior you describe amounts to me as medium-low performance, but as some other people mentions; there are other types of behaviors that are much more problematic because they disrupt the proper functioning of teams.

If you have low performance, but are not problematic and have other qualities that are positive; you won't be last in the list when thinking about salary raises nor first in the list when redundancies are needed. The other more problematic types will be instead.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#275

Post by cvwright »

paxys wrote: post #212
cattown wrote: post #132

I've been a software engineer and managed software engineers for 20 years and worked in all kinds of businesses. This is both normal and mostly acceptable, in my professional opinion. Doing just as much work as your employer requires and no more is way less of a problem than employees who actively steal, commit fraud, bring drama and distract other team members, or are introducing defects because they've faked their…

> However! I will say that this way of working and living comes with some significant hazard to your mental health. Doing something you don't like, care about, or believe in for decades long periods of time can really mess with your sense of self worth and happiness in life. Agree with everything you wrote except this part. I have worked jobs where I truly believed in the mission, worked hard, was paid a lot, achieve…

Just wanted to point out that this

> I truly believed in the mission, worked hard, was paid a lot, achieved great things and was overall very satisfied.

and this

> used to leave at 5pm sharp

are not mutually exclusive.

We have this weird thing in tech where we think that, to be passionate, you have to work yourself into the ground. But this is stupid. There's organizational psych research going back decades showing that teams who work 40-hour weeks will quickly outperform teams working 60 hrs / week. For one thing, they make fewer mistakes and thus have less work to re-do. Fewer bugs to fix.

I've done more than one stretch of intense, focused programming and CS research work when I was a grad student. There was one period of two weeks when my buddy and I both put in about 116 hours one week and 118 hours the next week. I have basically no memory of anything that happened in those weeks, and I never have since like one month afterwards -- like a drug addict on a bender or something. I guess it worked out OK. We got our papers published. But our actual productivity in those last few weeks must have been absolute garbage.

In contrast, I spent last academic year on sabbatical building out my side project, and I don't think there was even one week where I put in more than 60 hours. Personally I can sustain 45 or 50-hour weeks basically indefinitely. But if I ever tried to push it above 55, there was a big price to be paid, and I was useless and braindead for the following day or two.

Be passionate, love what you do, but don't hurt yourself doing it.

There's a quote that I like: Most people vastly over-estimate what they can achieve with intense effort over the span of a week. And they vastly under-estimate what they can accomplish with sustained, moderate effort over the course of a year.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#276

Post by agagrgar »

OzzyB wrote: post #260

> Harvard I wonder how much this plays into your being left alone and not being challenged by your co-workers. My guess is a lot. I'm sure the cachet of being an "Harvard Guy" has deterred many from even trying and simply assume you know what you're doing etc.

I think OP was saying they're not Harvard, and thus not coasting based off those connections alone.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#277

Post by alunchbox »

blunte wrote: post #19

In my lengthy career, most of my jobs have demanded significant and intense amounts of effort and attention. With very few exceptions, I have certainly put in 6+ hours of focused work on average per day. If I were your manager, we would have a talk about what motivates you and what you need to be productive.

how do you stay focused for 6+ hours? Is it spread across the day in multiple small sessions?

Meetings are horrible and even then a lot of times I find my work also ties in with many other individuals that cannot proceed without communication and often time blocked.

I'd love to be more productive throughout the day but the current org doesn't feel it's possible.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#278

Post by vlunkr »

ghostoftiber wrote: post #172

> Are most of us secretly lying about how much we are working? Yes, but I would venture it's the other way - most of us are probably working our butts off and thinking we make a decent wage for 40 hours a week when we're putting in 60 hours a week. I didn't really notice this until I had a family and started bumping into family activities. At first, I was really pissed off that something was getting in the way of wor…

> putting in 60 hours a week

I would just get a new job. Unless you're volunteering for it and getting paid overtime, that is unacceptable.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#279

Post by Nextgrid »

notJim wrote: post #103
syspec wrote: post #55

> Do people regularly run into coworkers like me during their career and simply ignore it because they find it too awkward to criticize them? Yes exactly this, especially at larger companies. I know a few of those developers, and they sit right near me... They find a way to make any task take forever... If it was a smaller company they would be called out, but at my [very, very] large company - its very hard to get f…

> I know a few of those developers, and they sit right near me... In fact, this is so common that I can name the exact people at several jobs I've had. And I could mention them to my coworkers and they'd know exactly what these people's reputation are. Our feeling toward them is a mix of being impressed and being embarrassed. Impressed because there's something to be said for someone who works the system to their adv…

What’s the point of building something cool just so your CEO can have all the credit & profits while you’re stuck with a shitty market rate salary and some stock options if you’re lucky?

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#280

Post by 2-718-281-828 »

wonderwonder wrote: post #267
2-718-281-828 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well put! I work in consulting for a large corporation and they pay for me more than 1000 Euro per day. I don't see much of that money but I can't really complain about my salary. It's pretty good (not SV-good, though). Now on average I'd say I work no more than 4 hours. Some days even less. Occasionally I feel proud of that and even brag about it to friends. But deep down I feel how this is just not making me happy.…

It appears we live much of the same life. I work 3 to 4 hours a day at best, and part of that is the standup. Wife works hard for 8+ hours a day and makes a third of my salary. I want to be productive but I just cant seem to do more hours than that. Even those hours of work are broken up. "his mental state comes with an inability to use the rest of the work day. I spend it procrastinating - which is actually more tir…

of course, the obligatory thing to consider is AD(H)D - which I do suffer from. anyway - interesting that you "really like your employer". do you also like the product and the work environment? looking back though it didn't seem to matter much for my productivity either. liking my employer can even complicate things further because then I feel guilt.
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