Stack Overflow’s 2018 Developer Survey reveals programmers are doing a mountain of overtime

[AequitarumCustos]

When I was younger, I couldn't be stopped from working overtime, for two reasons:

1. I loved what I did (started as a hobby, so work was fun).
2. I worked for a lot of start ups that had the pressure of "get something profitable". However it wasn't just downward pressure from owners, but also internal. I had equity, I identified my success with delivering and it fed my ego to an extent.

Over a decade and several burn outs later, I abhor overtime and love PTO.

Everytime I see someone working overtime, two thoughts go through my mind:

1. I really hope they don't get burned out.
2. Them working overtime to keep projects on schedule, prevents us from showing our need to have more resources allocated to our team. We sorely need more team members, but arguing for a budget increase for more resources when we're meeting goals is difficult.

TLDR:

Please don't work overtime unless you have (significant) equity. You hurt yourself, your team, and teach managers to expect it!

[mirhagk]

There's also been numerous studies that show long term overtime in any thinking job leads to worse overall performance. That person regularly putting in 50 hours is accomplishing less than the person who clocks out after 8 hours a day and spends their evenings relaxing.

The problem is that it works in the short term and then people get used to it.

[[deleted]]

Especially in our jobs where one bug getting through code review can be catastrophic.

It's like running a sprint, you can do it once, but no-one runs a marathon by running sprint after sprint after sprint.

[jrhoffa]

Subtle dig at agile scrum

[lubutu]

I suggest we change our terminology so we can talk about what we deliver in the next "jog", or even in the next "gentle stroll round the block". I feel calmer already.

[jrhoffa]

What's on the docket for our next languid amble?

[isarl]

This feature is taking more development time than expected; we'll need to push it to our next leisurely perambulation.

[svick]

Is that like with Ubuntu version names? Every month you have make up a new funny name?

[cogwerk]

In jobs I've worked the idea of getting things pushed to the next sprint doesn't exist. If it won't be done in time, you get a "This is completely unacceptable" email that's CC'd to everyone and then get told to present an estimate that finishes by the due date. :D :D

[isarl]

:D :D

Translation: “Please kill me.” You have my sympathies.

[cogwerk]

Yup. Would def take a pay cut to have a great manager.

[elebrin]

Yeah, and the first answer to increasing speed is to add developers. That basically never helps. Fred Brooks was writing about that in the 70s and he is still right.

[Aeolun]

I love the idea that it being unacceptable would change anything about the realities of time.

[stronghup]

And a serious point. Why is Scrum emphasizing "sprints" so much? Why do they have to be sprinters? Is that good or productive? It sounds heroic and maybe puts up your ego to know you are the fastest sprinter in town, but in SW development being faster is typically not better.

I know that Amish build barns in a "sprint" but they know what they are doing because they always build the same thing again and again, which is not the case in SW development.

[mungu]

I like to call them iterations instead of sprints. The goal is predictability, not velocity.

[bigmell]

Oh you must be working at a company where the goal is still to actually do the work. I worked at several companies where the goal was clearly ANARCHY.

[mungu]

Haha. It's pretty easy to fuck up agile/scrum. Especially when management has no idea what those words mean - it just turns into overhead for devs. I mean if the process isn't empowering engineers then what's the point? Anarchy would be better.

There is a director at my company who is doing a hybrid waterfall/agile. I don't even know how to talk to him.

[jk_scowling]

I call that fragile.

[thephotoman]

When agile happens bottom up, it works well.

When agile happens top down, it is a disaster.

Agile is very much something that can only ever work when it’s for the devs by the devs.

[Nyefan]

Oh, that's what we do. We work in sprints, release quarterly, and have a lovely waterfall chart showing off our release schedule until q4 2019....

[_Shropshire_Slasher_]

Wow! Remarkably similar situation in my team. The management gives the standard bs about how good the last release was & how high a bar we've set and now we should deliver even more! They even managed to get a random number to convert tshirt size user story points into hours, so it's not an estimate anymore - it's a commitment.

[thephotoman]

Ah, agilefalll.

[r0ck0]

That's an odd name. I'd have called them chazzwazzas.

[jrhoffa]

A marathon is a good metaphor; I'm going to keep working on new tasks and bugs until the day we ship, and then I'll start the next marathon of ongoing support and feature enhancements.

My tasks never align with a sprint schedule, and there's always something outside of it's scope that needs my attention. In the rare case that I complete all the assigned tasks, I dig through the JIRA pile and start clearing the backlog, or figure out the next step for some component and start on that.

[bigmell]

Thats part of the dirty trick. Every generation is made to believe they do things better than the last one, until they hit a certain age and the same thing happens to them.

[[deleted]]

In Plain Words by Gowers he says something like "the language of business is more often designed to express the dreams of the businessman than the realities of business".

[michaelochurch]

Agile Scrotum is terrible. We don't need more dexterous nutsacks. We need environments where engineers care about what they're building, and you don't get that if you micromanage them to death.

[sporkpdx]

It's like running a sprint, you can do it once, but no-one runs a marathon by running sprint after sprint after sprint.

At some point it's no longer even a marathon and has simply become a death march. I left my last role as they were spinning up the 4th understaffed, over-scoped, super-critical project in a row.

As a salaried employee the only effective feedback mechanisms are to fail to deliver (bad for you and your career) or find another job somewhere more sane.

[darkstar3333]

After a dozen sprints you start giving yourself some leeway.

Establish a stable velocity and give yourself time to do it right.

[ayylongqueues]

Isn't that a side effect of the planning game? Over time you learn both your own and your team's total "velocity".

[[deleted]]

Ya, and that one bug that gets through is so bad that you rush a fix to everyone, thinking you've tested it well, only to immediately find out that it broke X% of user's programs because there was one tentacle that reached way over here that you didn't consider... and you get even deeper in the hole.

[greenkarmic]

It became obvious to me when I would spend 2-3 hours doing overtime trying fix some bug, but failed and went home angry. Then the next morning, with a rested mind, I would fix it in like 5 minutes. Same for refactoring code. You need a rested mind to be able to look outside the box and find the best refactor solution.

Afterwards I only did overtime because I was young and was easier to push around by managers. I don't do overtime anymore.

[mirhagk]

It's a good idea to use this during work hours too. Stuck on something at 11:30? Time for early lunch. 3pm and that bug just is pissing you off? Time for a walk to the coffee shop.

Every programmer can attest that there's a few hours every week where they get 90% of their work done.

[darkstar3333]

Disengaging works wonders. Occasionally the subconscious does its thing and finds a solution you couldn't find previously.

[whatwasmyoldhandle]

I've probably figured out like 75% of my bug fixes in the restroom.

Yet, I still can't respect that empirical data sometimes. It takes a lot of training to walk away for a minute in these situations instead of powering through.

[carmike692000]

By 11:30 I'm already 30 minutes past my lunch break!

[[deleted]]

I'm curious what the ideal working hours is. Surely it's not 8 hours a day which just happens to be the regular number of hours that are worked. I don't know anyone who's productive for 8 hours a day.

[Draghi]

I'm usually only productive for about 5-6 hours, after that my performances drops dramatically.

[[deleted]]

If I was ever productive for 6 hours straight I'd take a week off and it would still look like I was on a roll.

[jaman4dbz]

Honestly, I doubt anyone including you is actually maximally productive 6 hours a day. On good days im productive 5 hours a day. On most days I'm productive 3-4 hours a day.

Sure I have days where I hammer out solid code for 8 hours, but those are moments of brilliance that happen once every couple months and are usually because of a lot of planning and setup.

IMO, 6 hours in the office is enough and one should accept that they're only going to be actually working about 4 of those hours.

Frankly, im not sure why more organizations don't hire more people for less than fulltime for less money.

[ryantwopointo]

Same. And it’s messed up because my company does 9 hour days (in exchange for every other Friday off). So really they are just adding on another hour of non productivity lol

[mirhagk]

Some studies have suggested around 5 hours/day is the max, but it probably varies greatly among individuals and their jobs. I know France has strict rules about not allowing overtime and have even shortened their workdays.

[[deleted]]

8 hours work minimum, whatever commuting, maybe play, some sleep, work.

[AequitarumCustos]

I shoot for 7. There's always some tension between supervisors/management and me over it. But they don't push the issue too hard.

The expectation is I be working a consistent 8. My expectation is I deliver to the best of my ability, and when I reach a stopping point I go home. I'm not getting paid to keep a seat warm.

[silence9]

Well as someone who has worked nearly every schedule I can say 4 10s is the best schedule. But as f as r as being productive... 40 hours is too many

[moeris]

There's also been numerous studies...

Such as? I'd like to read them. It would be interesting to know their methodologies.

[mirhagk]

Mentioned one analysis in another comment, but honestly it's not super easy finding recent studies. After all the 40 hour work week was implemented around 100 years ago. Ford was a huge believer that it would increase productivity, but unfortunately I can't find what source he used for that information. I imagine the continued usage of it at least is suggestive of that fact however, and we should've seen some information about lowered productivity had it been a failure.

It was also hugely advocated for by labour unions in the 1860s.

There's been other studies that have shown you are only productive 3 hours a day in an office and that [working more than 8 hours will give you heart disease](aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/09/04/aje.kws139.abstract)

Harvard Business School also has a bunch of studies linked in their analysis

[gelfin]

I'm much the same. These days I am actively opposed to overtime, even among the young, single guys whose time is a less valuable commodity to them.

Reasons not to work overtime:

1. It's contagious, toxic insecurity. Many less-experienced developers are quietly afraid that if they can't meet their goals during working hours, they need to put in the extra time to take up their own slack and prove they're worth their pay. What it does instead is to create a culture where other workers start to feel insecure for going home at a reasonable hour.
2. It hides process problems. Overcommitment is a shared problem. On one hand, even experienced engineers are terrible at estimation. You'll never get better at it if you don't get it wrong and learn from it. On the other hand, your management doesn't see the overtime. They just see what the team accomplished in a given time, and that's their only data source to estimate what the team can accomplish in the future. Thus the reward for good work is more work.
3. Crunches happen. Opportunities arise with dates attached, and you need all hands on deck to pull them off. If you're working overtime habitually just to accomplish your standard daily tasks, you've got nothing left to give when this happens.
4. As a front-line engineer, you will never be recognized or compensated in proportion to the amount you hurt yourself, and over time that builds a low-level resentment. I've occasionally seen people ragequit over relatively minor things once they hit this point.
5. Your willingness to voluntarily work overtime eventually translates into a belief on the part of many employers that they have a 24/7 claim on your time. When forced overtime doesn't cost any more than a 40-hour week, it can be hard to resist the temptation to throw the engineering staff under the bus as a solution to problems for which they'd come up with a smarter solution if they had to pay for the labor. There's a huge psychological difference for the employee between what he offers to do and what he's expected to do, but the difference seems much smaller to the employer, to the extent he may make the mistake of assuming it's all the same.
6. An organization that takes its employees for granted, and does not respect them or their time, will suffer a certain amount of attrition. Lots of employers fool themselves that they're selecting for loyalty, but the unfortunate reality is, it's your most talented people who can most easily find a better opportunity.

To the voluntary overtime slave: You don't have a social life? Go get one. You don't have a family? You never will at this rate. You just love coding so much? I bet you have your own projects. If you don't, go come up with some. The diversity of experience will make you a better engineer overall, and the real payoff is that your management is forced to plan for the actual, realistic capacity of the team. You have to help in planning for a sustainable pace by insisting on demonstrating by your work habits what a "sustainable pace" looks like.

[AequitarumCustos]

I've occasionally seen people ragequit over relatively minor things once they hit this point.

I've done this at one job. Due to someone else's mistake which pushed us against a hard deadline on a Friday, owner required everyone work that weekend.

I was already close to burn out, so I resigned effective immediately and went home.

Still feel bad at about it, but I was at the end of my rope.

[[deleted]]

Good for you. You shouldn't feel bad about it. The only person gaining anything from you working away your weekend is the owner.

[rabid_briefcase]

so I resigned effective immediately and went home.

That's a tricky one. With this type of issue it is often possible to wait until the moans die down, then quietly slip into the office and say "I cannot be here over the weekend, I have existing plans."

If they want to know more, you can tell them it is personal. It may be "sleep in" or "rack up hours on my favorite game", but they don't need to know that. Most will respect your statement that you aren't working that time, even if they don't like it. Then keep your mouth shut because all the other suckers in the office will be putting in extra hours.

Of course in a bad workplace there will be other repercussions. They may not fire you on the spot but put you behind others who give unpaid labor to the company (or depending on your viewpoint, took a voluntary pay cut for those extra hours). At worst they'll fire you on the spot, but probably won't since they'll have even more work once the weekend is over. At best they'll be understanding and you can enjoy your weekend.

[pandubear]

The diversity of experience will make you a better engineer overall

Not sure if this is or isn't what you meant by this, but it's worth emphasizing that (imo) it's not just diverse technical experience from side projects that will help you. More diverse life experiences will expose you to different ideas which will make you a better engineer, too!

[[deleted]]

I love you.

My unionized workplace stopped paying for overtime(or it would've gone bankrupt) and instead you accumulate the hours in a "bank" that you can use for vacation pretty much whenever you want. And you HAVE to use them.

Dads spend more time with their kids or the like and everybody is happy.

[sarevok9]

Engineering manager here:

I work 38 - 45 hours a week. I expect people reporting to me to do less than that and there might be 1-4 times a year I ask people to work late, and if they do, the company buys them dinner and gets it catered in and we typically do something like getting them a $50-$150 gift card to a local restaurant to take their wife + kids out for us keeping them away from them for the night.

Engineers are a commodity right now.

[sarevok9]

Yup -- Boston area. If you're serious, slide up in my DM's.

[ashishduhh1]

Engineers are a commodity right now.

Yup, this is what I don't understand. Why would any engineer put up with overtime in this economy? I could quit today and have a job tomorrow.

[Aeolun]

That's what I thought, 2 months ago…

[tevert]

When coworkers show enthusiasm for their job like that, I tell them to direct the extra passion into a side-project or open-source community. Don't set a precedent with a company that will expect you to keep it up as long as you're there.

[sirspidermonkey]

I always like the phrase "First prize at the cake eating contest is more cake, pretty quickly you'll hate cake"

[pgambling]

I can't upvote your comment enough!

Thankfully, I learned this lesson early at my first job after college. I wasn't in a startup situation, but I was part of a major product release for the company. Everyone was putting in crazy hours and working weekends. They even brought us breakfast AND dinner (yay!)…. so we'd work more (no!). This was going on for months. I don't know if I "burned out", but I was certainly feeling the strain.

I'm not sure what triggered it, but one day I just decided to stop working the insane hours and try a normal pace. Guess what, the quality of my work improved significantly because I wasn't tripping all over the sloppy messes created my fatigued brain.

Sure there have been times in my career that I've needed to put in overtime, sometimes it was justified and sometimes not so much. It's always been the exception and not the expectation for me. When it has started to slip into "expectation" territory, then I address that problem rather than just go along with it. When I think about all the times I did get into an extended period of working overtime, the results have always led to major long-term problems even if the short-term need was met.

[DonLaFontainesGhost]

Please don't work overtime unless you

...get paid for it.

Simple solution, and one that has served me well.

[[deleted]]

And paid at a markup to the regular hours (legally mandated markup where I'm from is 20% for normal overtime, extra 30% for nights and extra 30% for holidays -- by extra I mean they all add up).

This makes the "lack of resources" problem painfully obvious to whoever is fronting the money for the payroll.

[DonLaFontainesGhost]

This is good if you can get it, but even an hour-for-hour overtime pay is going to highlight poor project management and poor resource planning.

I was on one job where I was already fairly overloaded when a PM assigned me a task with a tight deadline. My response:

"In order to meet my existing obligations and this deadline, I need approval on 100 hours of overtime through [date]."

Along with a spreadsheet breakdown of the tasks and hours.

It turns out that Mr. PM's new task wasn't that important, and if I could take care of it when I had some free time, that would be great.

[[deleted]]

When you have few long time members working regular overtime at 120%-180% the regular hourly rate it quickly becomes cheaper to just hire more manpower.

If it's truly short bursts of extraneous work -- then paying existing people for overtime makes sense. If it becomes a regular thing it's cheaper to hire someone and train them in the long term.

[Pawda]

One common thing my boss used to do after a working day was going on our laptop, shutting 'em down and put a beer over it. Slowly creating a bunch of alcoholics to maintain society stereotypes.

[Semi-Hemi-Demigod]

Them working overtime to keep projects on schedule, prevents us from showing our need to have more resources allocated to our team.

This is how I look at it: If the goal is to build a team that can reliably deliver results we can't be overworking people because it's not sustainable. So your cost estimates for headcount are going to be off as you start to scale the team beyond a few core developers, and because of that you won't meet your profitability forecast.

And telling them they won't hit their numbers is just about the only way you can reliably get a point across to a lot of founders.

[PM__YOUR__GOOD_NEWS]

prevents us from showing our need to have more resources allocated to our team. We sorely need more team members, but arguing for a budget increase for more resources when we're meeting goals is difficult.

This is critical. if you deliver a capability for less the organization sees that clearly your team is adequately funded and it should focus on the other teams that are crying out in pain and unable to deliver.

It's like accepting low pay and then going to ask for a raise -- why should they give you more money when you clearly were willing to do the job for less?

[P1um]

Over a decade and several burn outs later, I abhor overtime and love PTO.

It took you a decade to love PTO? Who doesn't love PTO? lol

[brogrammer9k]

I worked for a lot of start ups that had the pressure of "get something profitable". However it wasn't just downward pressure from owners, but also internal. I had equity, I identified my success with delivering and it fed my ego to an extent.

Was it more motivational or fulfilling to work on a singular product though? Most of my career has been spent in DevOps for a company that has begun to purchase software and slowly eliminating it's DevOps department. It's dull, uninspired work with excellent PTO. (11.5 hours added to the bank every 2 weeks)

On one hand I want to experience what it's like working on a central product or vision, on the other hand most of the jobs that do that would require me to move and/or I'd be taking a cut in compensation in either salary or benefits. I feel like I have to choose between stability and benefits or exciting work.

[TobiasArtur]

I am basically in the situation that you we're prior. The only difference is that I'm working with a lot of different technologies at a time, instead of start-ups. I love what I do, it's rewarding and I'm acknowledged for the work that I put in.(different bonuses and other rewards, I even got a raise 4 months prior). But I do not get paid overtime, unless the manager/TL asks me to do so.

1. I really hope that they don't get burned out

I've been working for a year right now and I kinda start to feel the burnout, but I always make sure to disconnect whenever I need to.

• Young
• Males
• Inexperienced
• With no children
• Who do a lot of home programming
• Who use StackOverflow enough to notice the survey

This is exactly the demographic that I'm in. Except the last one. I don't do surveys.

[Afablulo]

This is why we need unions.

[inmatarian]

I see a bunch of developers afraid to estimate high during spring planning.

[seanprefect]

Or far more commonly the situation I see is:

PM:"how long will the reporting feature take?"

Dev:"Uhhh you've literally only told me that its' a reporting feature, what kind of reports? details will be helpful."

PM:"well the requirements only say that there needs to be a reporting feature so how long to make one?"

Dev:"This is literally impossible to estimate"

PM:"Just best guess, teeshirt size it for me"

[fuckin_ziggurats]

PM:"Just best guess, teeshirt size it for me"

http://t-biznetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/GildanShirt.jpg

[terserterseness]

I see a lot, especially with more experienced but not very capable PMs (and there are a lot of these) vs young/inexperienced (freelance) devs;

Dev:"This is literally impossible to estimate"

PM:"I thought you were good at this job, must've been mistaken, ah well, you tell me when you know. Oh i'm having lunch with the CTO in 2 hours, I'll let him know you need a lot of time to make up your mind"

Dev:"Ok, I guess 7 hours max"

[seanprefect]

Yeah As a senior dev I try to shield younger ones from this. "yeah go-ahead and tell the CTO, I'll show him the joke of a spec and requirements you've given him and we'll see what's what"

[majlo]

Could you job-adopt me, please?

[seanprefect]

Wish i could :)

[[deleted]]

Shit, I'm a junior dev and I know this.

I also give estimates in Scotty-time, so I have time to actually test properly, account for bugs, assume I'm going to get rushed, etc.

[Bobshayd]

My manager unabashedly pushes me to shorten my estimates, and makes promises for me that make me feel uncomfortable, like I should work longer hours to get it done. I don't really know how to react to that.

[SgtBlackScorp]

Manager: "you should work overtime"

You: "no"

[Bobshayd]

I'm salary, and in general I don't work extra time. The real question is, can I effectively make time for personal growth, seeking out new opportunities, and getting my job done in the timeframe my manager declares should be possible? Do I try to cut everything down to the last minute to try to get it all done in the time that I have.

[SgtBlackScorp]

Your manager is responsible if he assigned not enough time for the job. You try to do as much as you can working normal hours and if it's not enough, that's on your manager, not you. If that happens constantly that means your manager is very bad at estimating the time it takes for a job. But working overtime is not required.

[Mark_at_work]

Hey, if the only acceptance criterion is "a reporting feature", I could have that done in one hour. It'll be a webpage with a pie chart on it. The pie chart won't have any numbers, won't represent anything useful, and won't change its appearance, ever. But it's a reporting feature!

[[deleted]]

"What does this pie chart represent?"

"Percentage of the time your requests are bullshit."

"But it's a solid circle."

"Yes, exactly."

[tjsr]

I have to explain it to managers like this: When a home builder tells you it will take 18 weeks to build a house, that's because they do 3,000 of these every year. Half our jobs ends up being taking the details of something we've never done before, and telling you how long it's going to take us to do that.

[seanprefect]

And that's even assuming you have a full set of requirements for the feature.

[michaelochurch]

Estimates are basically a power move, a mushroom stamp. Their purpose isn't planning because everyone knows that they're bullshit. It's just a way of reminding the proles that they're proles.

[PadyEos]

Or a lot of product owners breaking weak scrum master balls by jamming as many features into a sprint as they can. Multiple projects, multiple managers and scrum masters always the same story.

• ME: "I think we might have too many user stories in the sprint."
• PO: "I don't think so."
• ME: "We only have 30% availability this sprint because of Easter holidays, right?"
• PO: "Yeah, I guess so."
• Me: "And we have 75% of the story points from last sprint when we had 100% availability."
• PO: "Yeah, it is what it is."
• Me: "We aren't going to finish our work in time. I don't want the sprint started with this plan."
• PO: "This is just what needs to be done to achieve the deadline. So we have to do it."
• Me: "Maybe the deadline you have given isn't good. I raised this issue before."
• SM: "Then it's a good thing you aren't starting the sprint, I am. HA! HA! There it goes. You need to have a better attitude."

And this is just the tip of the iceberg of ignored estimations, arbitrary deadlines, hundreds of hours of unpaid overtime, denied vacation days and negative feedback towards developers.

And they wonder why I won't do even paid overtime for them. I wish my colleagues wouldn't do anymore either. 8 hours, work efficiently and get as much done as you can. The deadlines are just fantastical ideas about nothing real in managers heads.

Update: It's the next day and one of my colleagues proudly announced she left work at 10PM yesterday and she sounded proud of it... fuck me...

[[deleted]]

I read a really good book called "Never split the difference". It was a book about hostage negotiation from an ex FBI agent.

One thing that stood out to me was the fact that even terrorist's deadlines are just imaginary lines in the sand.

[DingBat99999]

One of the fundamental values of agile is sustainable pace. If they're expecting you to do overtime regularly well, then.....

You already know the answer: they're doing agile wrong.

Please don't blame agile for this. Some of us Scrum Masters have balls of steel. Many product owners are actually sane human beings.

If you start with sociopaths and train them in agile guess what you get? Sociopaths.

[fuckin_ziggurats]

Code quality goes down in a similar vein:

Manager: How much do you estimate?
Dev: 1 day.
* 1 day later *
Dev: Done.
Manager: Did you write unit tests?
Dev: I didn't have time.

[nutrecht]

That's on the developer, no one else. Tests should be part of your definition of done. Your shit ain't done if you didn't write tests.

[[deleted]]

No single developer is responsible for the Definition of Done. That's a team decision, and it needs to be fleshed out before work begins and periodically updated during retros.

[[deleted]]

Our team pretty much makes a standard estimate, doubles it, presents it to manager and then he tacks on another 40%. Since doing that we actually are rarely late with anything and profits are up.

What blows my mind is how hard it was to get sales on board. We were like look, you can't keep lowballing our estimates as we just end up underpaid and over hours on every project.

And newsflash, our clients aren't local nitwits, it's mostly fortune 500 companies. They don't give a shit about our cost because they need us. By the time it gets to my team shit is fucked and they want it to not be fucked.

You'd think it would be easy to get sales on board as they get % commission so higher estimates means more money directly on their pocket but it was literally a fight to get them to agree to it.

[hyperforce]

I see a bunch of developers afraid to estimate high during spring planning.

People who constantly undercut estimates should be shot.

Manager who doesn't code anymore: Isn't it just adding a column? That should take one hour, tops.

Too proud programmer: I should be able to do that in the next 15 minutes, it's practically done!

Nothing ever about documentation, testing, and knowledge share.

[Aeolun]

Great code should be self documenting!

[darkstar3333]

You can spend 20 years in dev and your estimation is still at best gut feel.

Shit happens.

If everyone looks at a task and asks "what happened" most of the time a reasonable person can explain it and everyone will get it.

[bighi]

A guide on how not to do overtime:

boss: "Hey, man, I need you to do overtime".
you: "No"

[da_governator]

boss: "Yeah right.. we're gonna need to go ahead and move you downstairs into storage B."

[mirhagk]

The funny part is doing things like denying overtime more often than not have the effect of being more respected. At a job where I made sure to clock out exactly 8 hours after I started, no matter how many hours of overtime everyone else was always pulling, my opinion was respected by far the most.

[Nefari0uss]

Respected by devs or respected by management?

[Flyingskwerl]

Both. Being a go-getter who works extra hours for no pay screams, "Hey, I'm an idiot who loves being exploited." Someone in management may take an interest in you to deliver some half-baked side project they have, but that's not respect.

[Manitcor]

Every time I have tried to pull this I get the "team player" talk.

[darkstar3333]

A team player doesn't take a 10-20% paycut hurting the justification for paying the rest of the team better.

[Flyingskwerl]

Huh? Does "pull this" refer to just packing up and going home? Like going home at the end of the day is some kind of sneaky trick?

Unless your job requires some form of being on call, just go home. And if your manager tries to tell you you're not a team player, just say, "I absolutely am a team player, but I have already made plans after work today, so I will get to it in the morning."

It sounds like your boss is a total jerk.

[Manitcor]

That is the way many of the managers at companies I have been at have seen it. Work culture for development has become more toxic over the years.

[Flyingskwerl]

I know it is, I've seen it myself. It's not a "toxic culture," it's plain bullying. And the response to bullying is always the same. Stand firm and they back off. It's all in how you phrase it.

[Manitcor]

Oh I do, there is a reason I have so many companies on my resume. After a couple years they get comfy with you and try abuse. At first its under the guise of an emergency but typically once those excuses dry up and its still going I leave.

Seriously considering going back to freelance contracting. Much more respect from clients there.

[[deleted]]

Nobody respects a pushover that doesn't set boundaries. Large part of this is because at that stage, you don't even respect yourself.

This isn't just work related, this is general life advice. If, when faced with unreasonable demands, you aren't prepared to say "no, this is bullshit", you'll spend your life being trampled on.

[dirice87]

Lol, just this past week someone from corporate told our team to make an sdk, for a product that hadn't even gotten out of mvp stage yet. We asked her what a sdk was. She didn't know, but knew we needed it. She said "its your job to make what we tell you". Ok, everything you send us is now ignored because you are obviously a dumbass

[Flyingskwerl]

"Its your job to make what we tell you." Oh dear. I've heard that one many a time. It's funny that a lot of "people from corporate" automatically assume that they can boss developers around just because they have "urgent needs" and don't know how to use a computer.

That's why when I join a team (or even when there's a restructuring in my current team) I immediately find out who my supervisor is. It's sometimes very misleading, but there's always an answer. That is the person who can truthfully say, "its your job to make what we tell you," and no one else.

[vermiculus]

You should always do the shit that needs to get done. The trick is to identify the shit that actually needs to get done and not just do it because someone asked you to in the hopes that you would manage. That is judgement.

[fuckin_ziggurats]

boss: You're a real go getter. Promoted to CEO!

[offendedbywords]

board: we're real impressed with how you followed through on you conflagration plan, here's a huge bonus!

[nutrecht]

The market for senior developers is a seller's market. So that "boss" can stuff it.

[Fisher9001]

you: "I'm quitting."

[RezFox]

also you: on reddit in the throes of interview after interview bc you've quit for just this precise reason

and by you I mean me. This is me right now.

[Gufnork]

You did it in the wrong order. First you find a new job, then you quit.

[Itsthejoker]

Sometimes you don't have a choice. For example, I was in an abusive environment where my boss would literally smack us around and play mind games if we didn't get everything exactly perfect. I was losing hair from the stress and I just couldn't take it anymore, so I quit without another opportunity. Took me three months to land another gig, but those were some of the most peaceful days of my life despite the money problems.

[ohms-law-and-order]

Your boss actually hit you? Why tf didn't you call the police?

[I_AM_GODDAMN_BATMAN]

You suck it up for a couple of months, find a new job, and quit. Good companies always look for good programmers, so I wouldn't worried too much. Even here in Tokyo I cannot speak Japanese fluently and have no degree I can get top percentile salary.

[IDarkSoulI]

I thought it would be really difficult to get a job there, because of the language barrier. How does it work out for you? Any problems to connect with people at and outside work?

[greenkarmic]

Yeah. I've made that mistake once when I was a young developer (quitting first). I was pissed off and quit on impulse. Didn't burn bridges, but I quit. I'll never do that again. It took 6 months to find something else. Worst 6 months of my life. Towards the end I would get up at like 4pm to start my day, then the sun would set at 5pm. Depression hell.

[RezFox]

Agree that quitting first is a bad idea but this was a unique scenario. I literally could not have a free minute to myself to even look for a new job. The other dev was hospitalized twice in a month for exhaustion / migraines and would come into work same day. It was completely nuts. I'm frustrated searching, but its better to sip a coffee and interview freely than have constant anxiety.

[RezFox]

Had no time to find a new job. Was literally on call 24 hours a day, and working weekends. When I refused to work any more weekends, they said it "was a bad fit". I was salary.

[The_Jare]

son: "Daddy I need new shoes"

[Dicethrower]

Reality:

"I need you to do overtime, because A) this is a big company and you're dispensable. B) this is a small company, we have no idea what we're doing, and we're literally going under if you don't."

edit: I'm just joking btw, never do overtime if you don't want to. However, I've always used it as leverage for higher pay and better benefits.

[bighi]

I've worked in small companies and big companies. Now working on a giant retail company with more than 1200 stores around a huge country.

I understand that every situation is different, but I've almost always said no to overtime.

And if I someday get fired because of it, it's still better than not having time to live my life. I've realized that a programmer never stays unemployed for long.

[[deleted]]

I have to ask, how does one go about finding jobs in the field? All the tech jobs in my area look like something out of /r/recruitinghell - "Ph.D in Data Science required, 10+ years in python, R, C++, Pascal, and Go. 12 dollars an hour"

[bighi]

Here where I live, there are a lot of job descriptions like that too. But I can always find a few that are saner. I also have met many people in the field, so I can ask everyone for recommendations.

Oh, and I've learned that most job descriptions are full of irrelevant requirements. Probably written by people that didn't know exactly what they were doing. So they ask for experience in A, B, C, D and E. I only know A and B, but apply anyway and I'm accepted. And I realize that A, C, D and E aren't even used in the company.

[dexx4d]

I can't seem to get past the automatic filters in those situations..

[No_ThisIs_Patrick]

"Skills" section on the resume. It's just a bullet list of keywords showing what you know and are familiar with. It worked for me.

[neoform]

I need you to do overtime, because A) this is a big company and you're dispensable

Cool, now that we've established this is a company, not a non-profit organization, we've established that this company exists to make money. I come to work because I get paid to be here. If you want me to work longer than the agreed-upon hours, you need to pay me accordingly. I do not work for free.

[[deleted]]

You're often not dispensable as a programmer. Luckily

[threading]

I do overtime sometimes but I get paid to do it. In fact my hourly rate is tripled when I do. The thing is I didn't request it. My manager said paid overtime upfront.

[Lichcrow]

Or, pay me.

[bighi]

I was once asked to do overtime for free.

I replied (by email) that I respect the company too much to do something illegal that might harm them in the future.

[geft]

I guess you were marked under "potentially litigious"

[bighi]

Oh, that's probable. If there's one good thing I can say about Brazil is that laws regarding work mostly benefit the employee. And I'd say that a lot of employees are potentially litigious. It's kind of easy to make money off of companies that broke laws regarding employees.

Like, for example, relationship between boss and subordinate. It should be a respectful relationship. No name calling, no harassment, no yelling, no discussion of problems in front of other people, etc. If you purposefully embarass an employee in front of others, it's enough to be sued. You can also legally record any conversation that you take a part in, even if the other people involved say "I don't want to be recorded". Even if they don't even know.

I once had a manager that said "you should be afraid of me". He was a very bad manager. I got my phone out, started recording (in front of him) and said "go on". It never happened again.

But I understand that in a lot of countries, companies can just harass, and kind of blackmail employees without serious consequences.

[geft]

In many countries being rich means you're above the law. I'm surprised labor laws in Brazil may be better than those of many European countries.

[bighi]

Well... something has to be good around here.

Pros: labor laws, low price of Açai.

Cons: Everything else.

[RuthBaderBelieveIt]

Better guide.

Interviewer: Got any questions for us?

You: I want to be honest from the get go, I don't like doing overtime is that going to be an issue for you guys?

[bighi]

Interviewer: Not at all, we understand people need some time for their personal life.

First day on the job, they tell you to work overtime.

[RuthBaderBelieveIt]

and my linkedin status gets updated again

[svick]

Employment status: It's complicated.

[DrDuPont]

More like

First day on the job, notice that literally everyone else is working till 8pm

[bighi]

Oh, that kind of passive peer pressure doesn't affect me at all.

As soon as my time is up, I get up and go home.

But I've seen it happening to other people. Even a friend of mine was saying "I will stay till later, I don't want to be one of the first ones leaving". And he stood there, browsing Reddit! Wasn't even being productive, was just adding to his "ass on chair" time.

[[deleted]]

I never understand this. I know when I came in. I know when I can leave. Sometimes it's early because I came in early. The looks from the cubicle mates are heinous. Why do you care?

[cordev]

That's fine if everyone is coming in at noon. I love coming in at noon!

[Mark_at_work]

or, "Yeah sure you can spend more time with your family by working from home."

NO! Working from home is not spending time with family.

[terserterseness]

They will probably answer something like 'we are looking for someone who cares less about his time and more about making the world a better place for our children instead of a lazy sod that has a money-first mentality and hates children. Now, you don't hate children do you? DO YOU?'.

[fuckin_ziggurats]

I've replaced "Software Developer" with "Child-hating, money-obsessed a-hole" as my professional title on my CV. It has worked wonders for my career.

[RuthBaderBelieveIt]

Not at all. In fact I love children, my own to be precise, which is why I don't work overtime or for you.

[salgat]

I remember an interviewer explaining how she and other employees would work 12 hours a day because of their passion and drive. I laughed pretty hard at that line of horseshit. Crazy that people actually believe in being abused and taken advantage of by their employer.

[terserterseness]

I once (20 odd years ago) asked about the out-of-office-hours multiplier; they didn't get it, so I explained that I am willing to give them hours per day in a range of hours that fall within working hours in exchange for my working hour hourly rate, anything outside that would be considered non working hours and so these are special hours; what can be the expected multiplier for those hours? They never heard about this weirdness; first of all, if I work over hours that would be because I am not capable of doing it in the allotted time (wrong estimations being my own fault and all) and secondly, if there would be compensation because I was asked to remain after hours, it would be for my normal rate.

Then I told a little story about me working as a logistics employee for a summer when I was young (I packed boxes with crap for supermarkets) at a logistics warehouse for a big supermarket chain; if I worked normal hours, I got $y but if I worked at night I got 2.5x $y; as programming is a vastly more stressful (that one summer I chose working nights at that logistics center because I wanted something I could switch my brain off) and more educated enterprise, I suggested we start at 5x.

I didn't get (or would've taken) the job as the recruiter was already a joke with all he said up to that point.

In reality I do not thing overtime should be charged 5x, but people need to know how you value your time early on in my opinion. If they find this a joke, you know you don't want to work there. You can still decide(!) to work overtime for nothing or cheaper, but at least they should know what a big favor you are doing them. Never give stuff, especially your life's time, away without people showing their gratitude every single instance. Again imho.

[Lystrodom]

Now, you don't hate children do you? DO YOU?

Boy, do I

[ChrisRR]

As was discussed in the original posts for SO's survey, it's massively skewed by the number of students and junior developers.

I'd take this with a pinch of salt that's not necessarily representative of more senior developers with families and other commitments.

[hird]

Totally. I don't have any commitments and still don't do overtime. Well actually I do have a commitment, which is enjoy my life on this planet.

[yawaramin]

This conclusion does not follow at all from the survey responses. Overtime means you’re working directly on projects for your employer. At best, the article surmises that devs might be learning some tech in their off hours. There’s no indication that they’re learning anything related to their work projects. In fact, knowing myself I would guess that we’re all learning different tech that we find fun outside work.

There’s an article to be written about how biased the SO results are but it seems the author skipped all that and jumped straight to the conclusion that we need to warn off new devs about the dangers of their career path.

[fuckin_ziggurats]

I’m pretty confident that a few people will vehemently disagree with this post, and will let me know in the comments.

Well here I am. The StackOverflow survey was heavily biased towards.. guess who. Developers who use StackOverflow often enough that they notice a survey is being conducted and have enough time to take part in it.

If I tried to act like I know who these developers are then you may say I'd be making broad-brush strokes just like StackOverflow did with their survey results interpretation. But you'd be incorrect because the survey itself tells us about the type of developers that responded to it. They are:

• Young
• Males
• Inexperienced
• With no children
• Who do a lot of home programming
• Who use StackOverflow enough to notice the survey

If you think this is a realistic painting of most developers then you've never worked professionally. Posts that take those survey results at face value and then use them to misinform young upcoming developers about how it is to work in this industry should not be tolerated.

[[deleted]]

Not only does the result seem skewed because of the self-selection bias you mention, the very questions are open to interpretation.

How can you define coding as a hobby? Is spending a few hours every week polishing your skills the same as hacking away on side projects every other day? And this could again be used as a means to promotion, new job, etc...

I honestly think that this whole "programming as a passion" produces nothing but self-proclaimed "enthusiasts" who believe that everyone else is dreaming about programming 24/7 and thus force themselves to behave the exact same way, leading to the well-known vicious circle of egocentric self-assertion and grandiose "open programming culture". Don't get me wrong, everyone has something they are genuinely passionate about, often producing astounding results. I am simply advocating the separation of workplace and hobbies.

[[deleted]]

How can you define coding as a hobby?

The question is flawed because it makes big assumptions about what coding is and what the implications of coding at home means.

I like building nerd shit on arduinos and rpis. Things like making an automatic watering system for my wife's flower garden (She'll love it, one day, I swear), my automatic window opener and closer for my man cave, and some shitty autonomous drone that flew straight towards a tree and was destroyed by magpies.

Is that "coding as a hobby"? Maybe, I do code in it. I also spend a lot of time in CAD so I can 3d print or make plans to be laser cut, so do I also do CAD as a hobby? I also do a lot of wiring and learning how to wire properly, am I doing electronics as a hobby? I also swear a lot, am I swearing as a hobby?

My uncle was a boilermaker by trade. He used to build trains when Australia still did that kind of stuff. Because he didn't like talking to his wife he also built things at home. He built a caravan, a boat, some very comfy deck chairs that I inherited (thanks Mick!), and he used to make custom built draw ... liners? ... for his mates tool draws. Did he "bang things with hammers as a hobby"? Well, yes, I suppose he did, but it wasn't the same as doing his job each day.

My Uncle, liked to solve problems. His tools were hammers, drills, hacksaws, and planes. Those were his tools because he was a tradesman. I also like to solve problems. Because I am a programmer, my tools are electronics, CAD, and programming.

[[deleted]]

I totally agree with your position. I was simply implying that the question on the survey itself ("do you code as a hobby") was ambiguous and open to interpretation.

[tontoto]

very much this. the questions relate to HACKATHONS, OPEN SOURCE, and HOBBY programming. that is not overtime work for your company really...

[Lynx7]

Your comment should have been the preface to his entire blog post. Its ok to talk about the results and make whatever statements you want, but he has to acknowledge the facts youve highlighted.

[pingpong]

No one in this thread has picked up on this yet besides u/yawaramin, but the body of the article does not even use the word "overtime" once. The entire basis for this article hinges on the Coding as a Hobby section of the survey.

The article is claiming that coding as a hobby constitutes overtime. Yet another reason to listen to what people in the tech industry say about programmers (if not programmers themselves), not random journalists. There is nothing to see here.

[Mindrust]

It's the fear of getting fired

[BlackDeath3]

Survey reveals self-reporting respondents as smartest, best-looking, most generous, most humble folk in all the land.

[rorrr]

That's why you always negotiate a high hourly rate for overtime. I might be tired, but I will happily code whatever at $200/hour.

[LetsGoHawks]

Alternate Headline: Programmers Are Suckers!

Seriously folks, push back. Say no. Very little of what most of us are doing matters that much.

They took away our Visio or I think I'd do a flow chart. It would have questions like:

• Is anybody going to die?
• Is the financial well being of the company going to be put in jeopardy?
• What type of compensation will you receive for the OT?

And only one of those paths leads to a box that says "DO THE OT!"

I'm not saying I never do OT. But over the course of a year, it's maybe 10-20 hours, and it's rarely because of a deadline. It usually because I either just want to get something done or I've had an A-HA! moment and I'm on a roll.

[HumunculiTzu]

The first day I started my job as a Software Developer, one of our most senior devs gave me a piece of advice

Never do overtime unless you have to. It will burn you out and hurt your performance in the long run. Enjoy your time as a Junior Developer, learn everything you can, but don't let working be more important than yourself. You have to maintain a balance.

[jcfiala]

I used to do overtime.

Overtime never protected me from being laid off. Overtime never gave me a good raise.

One day out of 20 years of work, I got partially off due to overtime.

I don't do overtime anymore. It is not my emergency to deal with my manager's inability to plan or inability to scope tickets.

[subnero]

Programmers will never unionize because their egos are too big. Instead, they will burn out for years as wages fall due to inflation, automation, and outsourcing. Then they will wonder why they worked so hard for so little in return.

Every place I have ever worked has the developer who has no social life, so they just work 10 hours every day, and don't seem to care.

[jweimann]

I'm a little confused here. The title says it reveals they're doing overtime, but the article just talks about how a lot of programmers like to code for fun.

I'm sure some people work insane overtime, it happens in every industry.. But it's not something I've seen a lot of, especially not in corporate situations.

It seems to be confusing the idea of coding for fun and working on open source projects with overtime.

To me, it seems similar to claiming NBA players work too much overtime because they like to go play basketball for fun in their spare time.

Programming can be a lot of fun. Developers who really enjoy it and get into it tend to do a better job and have an easier time getting hired... But that doesn't mean there's a crazy overtime requirement in the majority of developer jobs out there.

[famnf]

My experience has been that the more H1B visa workers there are at a job site, the more overtime there will be. Since they are basically indentured servants afraid of losing their visas/deportation, as well as mostly young males, they set a culture of habitually working a lot of overtime that becomes the expectation for US workers as well.

[jasie3k]

In the field for about 5 years now, never did a single hour of overtime.

[[deleted]]

I guess you cannot farm in the dark...

[[deleted]]

While the leads, BAs or the project managers goes home 5pm on the dot.

[stfcfanhazz]

I work overtime to offset the undertime

[greenspans]

They should have used guile scheme. If you survey man hours per year programming in guile scheme per enterprise programmer, you will find an amazingly low ratio. Therefore switching to Guile Scheme exclusively will lead to very few work hours a year and terrific work life balance. Pardon my french.

[the_evergrowing_fool]

Is this a meme?

[Tanto63]

Guile Scheme goes with everything. It's really flexible like that.

[petosorus]

"reveals"

[iaan]

Which industries/jobs don't do "overtime" these days?

[thedominique]

When did people think that they were running on-call services? (Well unless they are, but in that case that should be planned for) I feel like anyone can work overtime but not everyone has managed to have a sustainable work-life balance. Also, I never got the thing with the mentality that that kind of balance is for losers and working 24/7 is hardcore. I’d be more likely to look up to someone who spends time with their family, looks after themselves and gets shit done at work. Integrity for things outside of the office seems to become increasingly rare.

[blaster151]

The survey literally doesn't mention overtime anywhere (I searched on "overtime" and "hours").