Do Software Engineers inflate the reported hours they claim to work?

3 points

6 years ago

Every now and then I hear a Software Engineer (often from the Bay Area) report how they work or are expected to work "60 to 90 hours a week", for example this guy: https://youtu.be/dvdL-21o3GM?t=224

60h/w is 12 hours a day 5 days a week and 90h/w is almost 13h a day 7 days a week...

I cannot imagine how you can stay productive during such extended period of time, not to mention any time to sleep, commute, self-care, basic house chores, family, games etc. Yet still, my impression is that plenty of Bay Area engineers are staying up-to-date with various Netflix shows, computer games and contribute to open source projects... this just doesn't compute.

Probably one of the largest surveys of IT professionals on how long they work (still self reported) is the Stack Overflow survey, which shows that the average is actually more like 42h a week in the US: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#work-_-hours-worked-per-week

0. Are Software Engineers inflating the reported hours per week they claim to work?

1. Why would they do so? Doesn't this contribute to a worse, unhealthy working conditions overall for everyone?

Thoughts?

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