#Help #WebDeveloperLife #WorkLifeBalance
Guys, I need your advice 🆘. I’ve been in the web development game for about 5-6 years now, mainly focusing on frontend work with a sprinkle of Node.js and express here and there. I’m currently working for a Big Tech company and making a decent salary.
But here’s the thing – I feel like I’m losing my mind. 😵 The deadlines are strict, the hours are long, and I’m running on fumes. Last week, I pulled an all-nighter until 4AM to finish a last-minute task, and this week has been nothing short of 10-12 hour workdays to meet important deadlines. And guess what? I’m not alone in this. Almost everyone on my team is burning the midnight oil.
My manager means well, but there’s a disconnect. When estimating a seemingly simple task like building a popup with 2 buttons and calling an API, I suggest 4 days for completion. Manager says 2 days max. But in reality, it’s more like 6-8 days with all the testing, code reviews, and unforeseen challenges that pop up.
I can’t keep up with this pace. I have no time for myself, let alone for personal growth and learning. I’ve talked to my manager multiple times, and while we manage to meet the deadlines, it’s at the cost of my sanity and personal time.
What should I do? How can I find a balance between work and life? Any advice or similar experiences would be greatly appreciated. Let’s chat 🤔.
Does this Big Tech company have a fast-paced environment and Elon Musk-style management? That right there is the problem.
You want to move to a more lax, boring industry like insurance, government, or energy. I work at a big insurance company and I pretty much goof off 4+ hours a day regularly, my job is remote 5 days a week, and the managers barely even attend our meetings. I can literally take a 2-3 hour lunch at my favorite steakhouses during work hours, get pissed drunk, and no one will bat an eye. I also make six figs. Having no wife and kids also helps
I think you have to stop working 12 hour days and work 8 or fewer. That’s the problem with doing a job faster; that becomes the new expected standard, even if it’s unrealistic. I don’t know what’s going on with your team members and them encouraging a work schedule that promotes burnout.
There is the fear of layoffs, but if you burnout then you may just end up laying yourself off, so doing your job sustainably is definitely important.
Try to have a conversation with your manager and tell them that they can have it in 2 days, but the code quality will be poor, there will be no testing at all, and no QA. If you want the bells and whistles, then they need to pony up and allot more time for the feature.
Being a developer isn’t a good counter argument to why a feature doesn’t deserve the necessary time it needs to be built. If your manager doesn’t want to consider your input and point of view, you have a toxic manager.
No amount of money would make me do this. You have limited time on Earth. You push back and set boundaries. You establish reasonable deadlines based on what you can accomplish in an 8 hour day. If they don’t accept that then you quit or get PIP’d. You’ll be better off either way.
Sounds like your manager is technical in the sense that they know how things worked and theoretically should work, but not technical enough to know that developer practices and requirements have evolved to a point where there’s a lot of overhead and slog. I’ve witnessed a few managers do this where they hear of this great cool paradigm/best practice and introduce it to the team every month or two, but fail to experience how it actually feels like to adhere to 24/7.
You have a manager problem. Estimates should be done by the whole team, not over ridden by the manager
Genuine question: what aspect of web dev requires 10-12 hours a day to do?
Your manager is shit. Quit this job ASAP. Are you getting paid very high salary to deal with this shit ?
Been a software engineer for a looong time and companies and careers go through phases like this. As a starting point, it’s important to realize that working this way is not sustainable over the long run. You and your colleagues will burn out and that is not in your or your manager’s interest.
What to do about it? There are no easy answers (besides changing jobs). Perhaps transition to estimating in hours instead? Then you can separate the size estimate from the working hours discussion. 24-hour task? Yes, I can do that in two days, but three days is more realistic unless it’s an emergency.
Work 8 hours per day. Period.
If you can’t finish the task you simply say it’s going to take more time. What you’re doing it’s not sustainable so if the company expectation is to work you to the ground then let them lay you off.
Just don’t do it.
It’s ok for estimates to be wrong. It’s OK to miss dates. Nothing is as critical as you OR your boss are telling yourselves it is.Â
In 20 years I’ve had TWO times where what you’re doing was justified. In one case there was an FDA audit that would shut down the company. In the second I was brought in to save an ecommerce system that was bleeding 750k per DAY weeks before the Christmas shopping season.Â
In BOTH cases I was given at least twice the time off that I put in. Literal months of time off.Â
Are you dealing with existential emergencies like that? Are you being given the time back plus interest?Â
Then what the heck are you and your boss doing? Â
At this point you’re undoubtedly delivering SLOWER than off you had only worked 40h per week. You’re not even making your employer more money than if you were more disciplined.
Learn to be a professional. A professional knows how to manage their time. How to estimate. And how to communicate slipping dates. That’s just as much a part of the job as coding.
Log off right at 5 and start applying to other jobs. If you get fired you get severence. Win win
By any chance, does this company’s name start with a K? Although I didn’t personally see stuff like this happen there, I can absolutely imagine it would occur…although I guess the problem of management realizing that they can keep more and more impossible-to-reach deadlines because they know that their ~~slaves~~ developers can reach it is not limited to them alone.
What would happen if the estimates end up taking longer than expected, that is, if you worked the regular 6-8 hours a day instead of the 12 you’re taking?
Also, are your hours tracked in any way at all? I dislike filling out timesheets but this is absolutely something that you can use to point out how ridiculous this entire situation is if you’re making use of those.
Manager is a joke, but it also sounds like you are not setting clear boundaries or conveying just how close burnout is. These hours are unacceptable. You know it, your team should know it, and your manager should know it. At a certain point you just need to stop going “above and beyond”. It’s not doing anything for you, and you can find somewhere where this isn’t the expectation if needs be.