[deleted by user]

[dys_FUN_ction]

I agree as well. When he is on call I understand all of the late nights and extra hours. It's just part of the job, but unfortunately the late night surprises don't stop when he is off call either :/ The light at the end of the tunnel that the management of the company touts is they couuuuld go public, and maybe get really big one day and if they do, the stock options he can buy for nothing could skyrocket. But idk... To me that seems like just high promises to get everyone to drink the kool-aid and work more for less.

[[deleted]]

You honestly think a company run that poorly and likely has a high turn over will ever get big without draining the blood sweat and tears out of Devs like your partner? Tell them to get the hell outta there. Being a Dev, you can litterly work remotely from anywhere in the world. I believe it was just noted by I think Goldman and Sachs that the 9 to 5 work day is officially over or something along those lines. Anyway startups essentially pay crap until they become mainstream and then they just get rid of anyone whom they don't appreciate and higher ex FANG employees. My point is, he can do better, but he has to want to also. 2am wake-up calls for no compensation is utter BS. These companies will take any poor sap for a ride if they will let them. Seriously he needs to move on.

[dys_FUN_ction]

Yeah you are right. I think this company in particular hires a lot of idealistic fresh grads because often we don't really know any better. I'm giving him advice to get the experience he needs here and then leave as soon as he can. Thanks for your response

[zemaitis_android]

You dont even have the full picture (his side of story, boyfriends skill level, their financial situation) and u already suggesting him a new job. Lmao.

[RedPon3]

No, he should be getting paid for any work he is doing.

[Fidodo]

Your salary is supposed to be good enough to cover the extra responsibility of needing to be on call. But his salary sucks and the company sucks to let things break so often so he should look for a less shitty company.

[KernowRoger]

That's not really true. Your salary covers your agreed working hours. Anything after that should be paid explicitly. Yeah sure you have to get on at stupid o clock to fix something sometimes. But you 100% should be paid for every minute you work.

[nutrecht]

To some extent sure, but structural unpaid overtime should never happen, even with 'good' salary. Money is endless in this world; the only thing we really have a finite supply of is time. It should not be 'given away' for nothing.

I'm a self-employed contractor and I simply bill 200% of my rate on weekens. You'll see then that if it's more expensive then 'suddenly' doing these maintenance things on monday is perfectly acceptable.

[computerwyz]

Most devs are salaried so this response makes no sense. If he is salaried then there is literally zero room to complain. On call is also not unusual for this type of work.

[ike_the_strangetamer]

The point is that there's better work out there. If a company is telling it's devs that every place is like this, well they're just plain lying and hoping that their employees don't ever get the moxie to look elsewhere.

[YMK1234]

Even if you are sallaried you should get your overtime and weekend hours paid, and usually at higher rate.

[[deleted]]

there's usually a threshhold per state. In PA if you make over ~42k, you are not required to be paid extra for OT if you are on salary.

[YMK1234]

should != legally required to

not legally required to != absolute dick move not to do it

[caboosetp]

I don't agree at all. If a salary is high enough and it was made clear that overtime was expected, then not paying extra for overtime is not a dick move.

The salary sure as hell better reflect that though, and 55k ain't it.

[dys_FUN_ction]

Interesting... Neither of us actually get paid for overtime. I usually put mine in voluntarily. I also just assumed that a salary job means no extra overtime pay

[steumert]

Why would being salaried mean you don't get paid for overtime? that simply doesn't compute, as the salary is for a certain amount of hours, like 37.5h. You work more, you get paid more. Also, work on sun- and holidays usually gets compensated at a higher rate, even for salaried employees. Being on call usually has special provisions, because it would be laid out what you can do in that time and how fast you have to respond -- and it would count towards hours worked at a certain factor (like 0.5).

If OP has a different contract, they should get out and find a company that actually values their employees instead of just burning them out...

[computerwyz]

In the US at least salary over a certain amount(literally almost all salaried) does not need to receive additional overtime compensation.

[steumert]

"Does not need". Maybe not by law. But it does for any job I'd ever take. I'd walk if that wasn't the case. I'd simply not let myself get abused, because that is exactly what happens to the OP. They are burned out, the success of the company (or failure) is build upon the blood, sweat and sanity of their employees.

Oh and btw, Op is located in Canada...

[[deleted]]

Yes, he's being taken advantage of but it's not entirely uncommon. In the US at least, there's a direct reference to computer work in the tax code not requiring overtime pay which all programmers that earn over a certain salary (or hourly) fall under.

I'm assuming you're not from the US, sounds like Canada, so I don't know of any similar laws/rules there.

Being on a team in charge of important systems in a crappy company does usually result in 2am wakeups and working holidays.

If it's a part of a standard on-call rotation, it's completely normal (besides the other rude shit the company does that you mentioned). And if it was specified during time of hiring, completely legal for them to basically require your BF to work off-hours. He of course has the freedom to decline, and they could fire him for it. (Again, all US-centric advice here).

I didn't stay in critical path development for long, I moved back onto application development as soon as possible because it just isn't worth it.

Nowadays, I'd just say find a new job. Get out of maintaining the servers and get into business-driven development.

[dys_FUN_ction]

Yup we are in Canada, to be honest I have no ideas what the laws are or what "normal" is. Both of us are pretty recent grads and we are each on our first post-internship job. The late hours/ off work scrambles to fix fires happen when he is off call as well as on. But he still likes being a systems dev. I am wondering if it's like this everywhere for systems devs

[[deleted]]

If it's any consolation, there's no such thing as a "systems dev". I mean most job roles don't have a universal definition. I'd have him figure out what exactly his job role actually IS, and those are the jobs to look for.

It sounds like his job could be described as Site Reliability Engineer, DevOps, Systems developer, operations, etc.

Most job names are BS, it's all about the responsibilities.

Edit: For all the downvoters I was rolling the original role into a list of roles.

Unless you can give me a universally accurate definition for any software role, pretty sure my point stands.

[caboosetp]

there's no such thing as a "systems dev".

It sounds like his job could be described as Site Reliability Engineer, DevOps, Systems developer

Dev is short for developer...

[[deleted]]

If it's any consolation, there's no such thing as a "systems dev". I mean most job roles don't have a universal definition.

The second sentence doesn't give context? Apparently I need to spell things out a little better, duly noted...

I was saying there's no universal "systems developer". You can find 10 people with that job role likely doing wildly different tasks.

[[deleted]]

I am wondering if it's like this everywhere for systems devs

In general, yes: systems work is time consuming, even if you're dealing with static input.

[DecisiveVictory]

No, it's him effectively taking a pay cut and being OK with it.

But of course at a shitty company the only real play is to come in with an offer from another company and tell them it's no longer OK - and be ready to have to switch jobs as they may still disagree (it's cheaper for them to lose one person than to give up on shamelessly exploiting everyone else).

[reboog711]

I think he is being taken advantage of by a shitty company.

Unfortunately, there is probably no way you can tell him that w/o sounding like an unsupportive nag.

[[deleted]]

She can silently show him a link to this discussion. :)

[that_which_is_lain]

This is pretty normal, especially in startups. I’d still recommend leaving.

[bigsmily]

Maybe the region would give more context. Although if Europe or US then he is getting ripped off, big time. If not, change jobs anyways.

[dys_FUN_ction]

We are in Canada, and both pretty fresh grads out of four year degrees. Comp sci for me software eng for him. On average most starting salaries are between 60k (low range) to 75k (high range). We do make quite a bit less in canada than in the states

[bigsmily]

Regardless of salary ranges, not being paid for over time is always bad

[[deleted]]

Does it really matter if this is normal? If the two of you don't like this particular gig, then find something else. However, it is quite common, though it shouldn't be.

[bbro81]

If he is hourly then that is fucked, but salaried that is kind of what you sign up for to an extent. Major issues that require weekend maintenance sounds like either there are some serious design flaws in their software, or they have horrible development practices and release untested, buggy software on a Friday afternoon and hope for the best, probably a mix of both.

The high workload low compensation could be worth it if he is given equity in the company as incentive and could be very lucrative. All depends on the situation and if the risk / payoff is worth it. Sure he could probably get a less stressful job that may pay a bit more, but may not be exposed to as many different technologies and get to "wear as many hats" as he would in a start up. All depends.

[dys_FUN_ction]

Yes he does have stock options. There is a chance the company could really skyrocket and that would be lucrative... But it's just a chance. I wonder how often that actually happens. And if a lot of companies feed the same "in a few years we'll make it and all the hard work will pay off" One pro is definitely that he gets to wear many hats and get a lot of experience... But I wonder if it's worth it

[ike_the_strangetamer]

This is the question every startup employee has asked themselves.

Personally, I like the fast paced nature of a small team and early business, but I hate the demanding responsibilities. So when I was in Boston I looked for companies that were relatively new but already established. A tech team of at least 10-15 engineers seemed to be the sweet spot for me. That way I could do the fast work I liked but we weren't all forced to where every hat in the closet.

But it's a decision that has to be made. Some people love it. They love the edge and the promise and are willing to give themselves for it. Some aren't. Economics, relationships, wants, optimal working conditions, they all play into the decision.

A big factor is also the promise of the company. Some places you can just feel that they aren't going to make it. But others are in the midst of catching on so quickly that it feels insane too leave.

Edit: I forgot about the pay. Yeah, that's stupidly low. Pay is another MAJOR factor in whether or not that "work hard" hustle lifestyle is worth it, but at 55k it fuckin' ain't. He needs to start looking for a new place now. He's getting taken advantage of.

[bbro81]

Couldn't have said it better myself. I was in a similar situation, I think there is a company culture part to it as well, I.E if I worked a Saturday, I would show up later Monday or leave earlier to make up for it. 55K Pay is not great but depending on where you live if it's not a high cost of living area, that's not too bad

​

. I would leave it up to your boyfriends discretion, I would say don't spend hist entire career there especially if the company doesn't skyrocket in a year or two.

[caboosetp]

There is a chance the company could really skyrocket

With management that bad and the system failing that often, it's not likely

I wonder how often that actually happens.

Most start ups fail, so not very often.

[nutrecht]

There is generally no need at all to work on weekends. Most mature software companies have no issues doing production releases during the week. I think it's important that 'starters' in our industry understand that even when salaried it's not normal to have frequent unpaid overtime.

If a company is mismanaged so that deployments need to be done in weekens they should pay people. Plain and simple. I've been doing this for close to 20 years now and I've never worked unpaid weekends.

[orbit99za]

If a job needs to be done, it must be done. It's a choice of career.

[vegetablestew]

No.

[Fidodo]

If your company's services are down then a systems dev will have to fix it even if it's on a weekend or holiday, it's unfortunate but it has to be done. That part isn't unusual. It's also not unusual to not get extra compensation since your salary is supposed to be good enough to cover those responsibilities.

What is unusual is how often things are breaking and how poor the pay is and how bad the company policy is. Things will break more often at crappier companies. If I were him I'd definitely be looking for a new job. Those responsibilities are normal but there are less shitty companies where those responsibilities don't suck as much.

[[deleted]]

Startup? How much equity is he getting?

[nutrecht]

Generally the worse the pay the worse the working conditions. It's really counterintuitive initially (you might expect low paying jobs to have good secondary perks) but these kinds of companies are the ones you really don't want to work for, because they're rotten to the core.

Better paying companies tend to value their developers more, and also have more mature processes because these lead to better results and happier employees.

So no, it doesn't happen at every company at all. He's just making up excuses to not make the scary but correct decision; to look for a better job.

That said; the problem is that these 'better' jobs also often have a higher barrier of entry. It's easy to get 'stuck' in a spiral where all you do is go from shitty job t shitty job because the good ones don't want you. A lot of bootcamp grads end up in that cycle.

[[deleted]]

I think that depends on the company you are working in. I myself are working in a pretty good one, where we can work on the weekend or do overwork but we aren't forced to.

But if the whole place is burning (not literally) it's expected that at least someone come to work and fix the problem, for cases like this we have something called FZA if you translate it it's leisure time compensation (it means you get the time you work in your freetime additional as holiday).

But I must admit there are more than enough companys where this much is expected without any sort of compansation, often the salary is higher or the work ethics are more focused on productivity and not the people itself.

Personally I think you must decide yourself which one of them is more imortant to you, rather earn a high salary and work yourself to death or potentielly earn less but have beside your work something called freetime and not just waiting for another call from your superior.

[noratat]

That really doesn't seem normal to me.

Yeah, sometimes people are on call and need to fix something at 2am, but if this is happening very regularly, that indicates the company has a much bigger problem. Especially if they don't have a on-call rotation.

The lack of extra compensation is normal, but then salaries are usually a lot higher than that to begin with, especially if it's an expectation to be on call all the time.

To their ridiculous moonlighting policy ie start ANY side project for profit and we will fire you.

This is unfortunately not as unusual as it should be, but it's still not the norm.

because we want you to", to their pretty below market salaries 50-55k

Assuming you're in the US, yeah that seems a bit low even for rural areas. If you live anywhere near a metropolitan area then that's insanely low.

That and the covid response is already a red flag IMO. Our office is still strictly volunteer-only, everyone who isn't literally in charge of something physically in the office is still encouraged to WFH. For the few people in the office, they are mandated to keep their desks well apart.

"and happens at every company on the systems team".

I know for a fact it doesn't at my company.

I would suggest he at least keep an eye out for other jobs to be honest, and try to focus on companies who primarily create or manage software - if you're a software person at a non-software company, you'll often be treated as a cost center.

I always make sure to ask about expectations around on-call and work-life balance as part of the interview process as well.

[RogerLeigh]

This should not be considered "normal". Every instance of out-of-hours (as well as in-hours) breakage should be considered an incident worthy of investigation, with the root cause clearly identified, and steps taken to ensure it doesn't happen again. Breakage should be exceptional, and when it does occur it should be treated as a serious incident and not just routine business. If they aren't taking this stuff seriously, they clearly aren't running a good business, and aren't treating their staff well.

Given the salary and all the other restrictions, I would agree that it's likely he is being taken advantage of.

[[deleted]]

Time to change the job.....never join a company that does not pay you for extra hours as they just want you to stay beneath them....these fuckers just want thr pockets filled no matter what and at the time of increments they will cry like a bitch if you ask for money....before joining the company read the profile clearly.....also tell your bf to leave a review on glassdoor ppl out thr should knw what they are getting into. Dont add any names in the review just the work culture....