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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?

#311

Post by PragmaticPulp »

ConfessionTime wrote: post #242
ineptech wrote: post #168

Long time manager here. I call this "work-shy" and it is neither ubiquitous nor rare, I'd guess about 10%-20% of all employees, and it's certainly not unique to software or even to white-collar work. You should think of this as a problem. Even if it's not for your boss or your teammates (and it will be, eventually), it is for you. It is soul-crushing to fill up the hours. Two pieces of advice: 1) The "good" solution…

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…

The OP wasn't asking about working harder. They specifically said that they BS their way through standups to deceive their peers and manager into thinking that they're working, while often doing zero work at all:

> There are literally days in which the only time I spend on my job is the few minutes it takes to attend the morning stand-up. Then I successfully bullshit my way through our next stand-up to hide my lack of production.

At that point, it's not about grinding harder or going above and beyond. This is a problem of misleading everyone around you.

It's not just the company that suffers. These situations usually result in the rest of the team having to pick up the slack to get things done. The person doing little to no work is taking advantage of their peers' productivity.

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

#312

Post by whateveracct »

People are saying you're doing a disservice to yourself. Not necessarily.

Remote work + my maturation as an engineer has gotten to the point where I can have OP's lifestyle, and it has allowed me to reorient.

I now have personal goals. Some are semi-professional (side projects, e-commerce, art, music, etc), some are financial, some are personal. In a way, OP is probably close to a coast FIRE in general - can't criticize that!

So if I'm giving less to my employer and spending my remaining daytime in My Goals..am I doing myself a disservice? Of course not - in fact, giving more to my employer would be the real disservice to myself.

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

#314

Post by repomies69 »

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…

> It is a huge pay cut. I also am happier than I have ever been in my adult life because I'm learning something challenging and helping people instead of

While I congratulate your career move and I am very happy for you, I want to point out that there are tons of jobs in Software Development that genuinely help people and make society go forward.

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

#315

Post by notJim »

cvwright wrote: post #275
paxys wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

Exactly this, I've believed in (to varying degrees) the mission of every place I've worked, and still feel passionate about the projects I'm working on, and enjoy the work I'm doing. I've also rarely worked more than 40-45 hours a week, and fairly often work less than that. If I ever worked somewhere that actually required more than that I would find a different job, because I am not built for working many hours per week.

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

#316

Post by ClumsyPilot »

nostrebored wrote: post #217
methyl wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this way of working and living comes with some significant hazard to your mental health I can relate to that. I used to work not more than it was required for being perceived as a very productive person (10-15 hours / week), but at some point I couldn't stand it. I co-founded a startup and for first two years I easily crossed 60 hours/week on average, yet I was much happier and had more energy than previously. Of c…

60 hour workweeks are absolutely sustainable? Desirable maybe not, but I’ve known lots of people who have worked ten hours a day six days a week. Especially if they don’t have other commitments.

I think 60 hours of debugging a compiler is different than 60 hours of wining and dining executive clients.

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

#317

Post by [deleted] »

almost_usual wrote: post #192
cj wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is both normal and mostly acceptable, in my professional opinion. Perhaps at large companies? I would hope people applying to jobs at small 5-20 person startups aren't bullshitting and lying about the work they do. Or to reword the same sentiment, I hope people looking for the easiest possible path target their job search at companies with lots of bureaucracy where people not doing your job is more easily tole…

At a 5-20 person startup there are probably like 5 engineers, there’s no time to waste and everyone knows what everyone is doing.

[deleted]

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

#318

Post by throw54679 »

ConfessionTime wrote: post #242
ineptech wrote: post #168

Long time manager here. I call this "work-shy" and it is neither ubiquitous nor rare, I'd guess about 10%-20% of all employees, and it's certainly not unique to software or even to white-collar work. You should think of this as a problem. Even if it's not for your boss or your teammates (and it will be, eventually), it is for you. It is soul-crushing to fill up the hours. Two pieces of advice: 1) The "good" solution…

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…

>Why work more?

I founded a company and we were successful, but we really tried to continue the momentum. We had a group of 7-10 engineers, built over time and strenuously recruited and managed. And we have plateaued over the past 5 years. Now looking back I realized that probably a lot of the engineers had an attitude similar to what you describe. So they really ended up damaging their co-workers, because less growth at the company means limited advancement and less money all around, some layoffs during tough times, worse company culture, etc. It also wasted some of my professional time, because I am passionate about the industry and want to accomplish something in it.

Do you feel bad when the Product Manager is eagerly contacting you and trying to pull together all requirements and engineering estimates for the next sprint, or whatever, that you are sandbagging that person's career?

Now, I know what all the HN burnouts will say, "Screw them! If I can trick somebody out of a wage, that's my right!"

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

#319

Post by breakpointalpha »

Viliam1234 wrote: post #235
DarrenDev wrote: post #93

58 minutes after posting, your post has 134 points and sits at the top of Ask HN. I think that answers your question a lot more clearly than the comments themselves. What you've said is clearly resonating with a lot of readers, even if they may not say so in the comments.

> What you've said is clearly resonating with a lot of readers, even if they may not say so in the comments. The way it resonates with me specifically, is that I am curious how does one get a job like this. Is this company hiring? Do they allow work from home? Don't get me wrong; I am a lazy person. If I had an opportunity to work like this, I probably would do it, too. But I don't know how. For example, it happens t…

1. You need to look for a team/project with more developers. It's hell to be a solo developer when you don't also control the "promised" features and timelines.

I've worked 6 positions for 5 different companies over 12+ years. Two of those as a solo developer. Neither had upper management promising things I could deliver on deadlines. I was still fairly stressed out because I was always afraid I wouldn't be able to solve problems by myself. I can't imagine how torturous it would be to have someone with little understanding of code or my personal output making promises that I would have to keep! Look for an out, ASAP, in my opinion.

2. If you target very large organizations, you'll tend to have a lot more slack in delivery pace.

Nearly everyone that works in the Fortune 50 or at a major US university works slower.

I've worked for both, the feeling is just different. I think it's because everyone expects delays, paperwork, and process bureaucracy at every step. This gives you lots of breathing room to take a more pastoral approach to what's considered "productive". I think the work from home revolution has further enhanced that. I can say for sure in the 7 years of being a "senior full stack engineer" at a major org, I've worked after 5 pm less than 10 times.

This isn't a bad thing, as typically you can trade time for less risk to the company. "I need an extra day to make sure this won't embarrass us / leak data / hurt customers / etc."

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

#320

Post by ConfessionTime »

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…

I would be lying if I said there was zero "I'll be found out" stress and that was part of the motivation for this post. Hearing that other people do this too would reduce that stress. Although this has never been a particularly big stressor for me. That is especially true over the last couple years in which the world has presented us with so many bigger concerns. I also know that most companies aren't going to fire someone for poor performance with zero warning and I have never received any type of warning about performance in my career. I don't consider the possibility of being fired as an immediate concern.

I mentioned in another comment how working remotely has been a big productivity boost for those non-working work hours. Similar to tayo42 in another reply, it provides me the opportunity to do a lot of things that I previously did outside of work hours. One example is that I used to wake up an hour earlier to get exercise in before work. Now I sleep in and get that exercise in during the work day.

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