Developing as a Professional
Does anyone here work as a professional developer/software engineer/architect/etc? I have recently been reading a ton of articles and talked with people who say they work just grueling hours for at least half of the year. Like 80+ hours is common. So no personal life. This sounds incredibly depressing and definitely not what I want to do for any extended period of time. I understand working extra hours on occasion, but having that be the norm sounds awful. Makes me kind of rethink what I want my career to be, but I've spent the last several years thinking what I wanted was to be a professional developer. But not at the cost of my entire personal life.
Anyone here able to give some insight into the professional developer's life?
Anyone here able to give some insight into the professional developer's life?
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It differs from company to company.
Going by my personal experience:
* well-established mid-size OS development company - 9 to 5, except for maybe a few days a month when working on-site with the clients
* aggressive embedded startup - plenty of kick-back days with ping-pong in the office, most days 6-3 or 9-6, but once or twice a year there was a week to a month of hard work - nights, weekends, whatever. Plus occasional work late night when something breaks.
* very large finance company: ~8:30 to ~6:30, a few times a month working a n additional couple hours late at night from home.
A lot has to do with what you like - I actually like the jobs where I must be 24/7 on-call.
Going by my personal experience:
* well-established mid-size OS development company - 9 to 5, except for maybe a few days a month when working on-site with the clients
* aggressive embedded startup - plenty of kick-back days with ping-pong in the office, most days 6-3 or 9-6, but once or twice a year there was a week to a month of hard work - nights, weekends, whatever. Plus occasional work late night when something breaks.
* very large finance company: ~8:30 to ~6:30, a few times a month working a n additional couple hours late at night from home.
A lot has to do with what you like - I actually like the jobs where I must be 24/7 on-call.
I wouldn't mind being on-call as much. Working from home late would be entirely fine. Your personal experiences seem to be much better than what I've read about. If you don't me asking, what was the location you worked (geographically)?
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