When I was last interviewing for programming jobs in New York, only one of the places I interviewed at (and I looked at a lot of companies) wanted people working more than 40 hours a week, on a regular basis (they were a startup with a fixed runway). All the other places (a mix of established companies and startups) made it very clear that work-life balance is important to them, and that normal workweeks and generous vacation time was to be expected.
So I read these stories about people being asked to work 80+ hours a week, and I can't for the life of me figure out why anybody does this, when there are so many companies which don't ask for it. And it's not like the 80+ hour jobs pay any better, as far as I can tell.
What's going on here? Is it geographical? Industry-based? Do some programmers just not know any better?
I've seen this in a friend who has worked with some larger gaming companies through the years. When he first told me in high school that he wanted to make video games, I was skeptical. I had read many reports on the status of the games industry; the long hours, the high stress, the lack of respect from leadership. But I supported him.
Through the next few years, he got job offers right out of college from some larger studios. Eventually he picked a small, local studio that went bankrupt without releasing a single game. Apparently that took him by surprise, and he vowed he'd never be in that situation again. He took a job at a top-five company (where he was later laid off, proving some irony). He then went to another top-five, and he complained about everything I worried about for him.
When I asked him why he put up with this, why he didn't take his talents elsewhere, his response was romantic. He liked the games coming from these studios, and had always wanted to be a part of it. He liked the games from Maxis, and wanted to be where they were. He liked the games from Blizzard and wanted to be where they were. It didn't matter what the working conditions were, he was there.
It's taken him a few years to get over the romantic idea of working for the company whose games raised him as a child. It's much different on the inside, and it takes a while for that to sink in. I can't speak for the entire industry, but that was his perspective as I've seen looking through the small gap his life has left me peek through.
made it very clear that work-life balance is important to them, and that normal workweeks and generous vacation time was to be expected
What they tell you in the interview is very rarely what happens in real life. Every company says they have a dynamic environment where you work on interesting problems for 40 hours a week at above-market salary. The reality is often different.
When these people want to work on games, they want to work on games, not "at a programming job." You see phrases like "childhood dream" going around, and to people who spent their childhoods playing games, making games is much cooler than making any other kind of software.
It was my "dream job" to work in some big name game studio one day. Then, after reading studio horror stories and working in other normal programming jobs, I realized that I had all this extra time outside of work that I could use to make games on my own terms. That made the decision easy for me :)
No company in their right mind would formally "require" insane hours upfront. But if you wear fewer than 37 pieces of flair, you will find yourself under a lot of indirect, cultural pressure.
Most companies have reasonable employment policies on paper.
I've been living and working in NYC for several years now and my expereince with this has varied. It depends on what industry you're looking at. Making websites or apps for marketing and advertising firms will always demand more of your time per week. Startups expect a developer to act like a founder by living and breathing their work. Doing the same work for a financial firm will not so much (although the full timers at my last job were expected to work 10 hr days). I'm currently at a big bank and my hours are regular and with reasonable deadlines.
When I was last interviewing for programming jobs in New York, only one of the places I interviewed at (and I looked at a lot of companies) wanted people working more than 40 hours a week, on a regular basis (they were a startup with a fixed runway). All the other places (a mix of established companies and startups) made it very clear that work-life balance is important to them, and that normal workweeks and generous vacation time was to be expected.
So I read these stories about people being asked to work 80+ hours a week, and I can't for the life of me figure out why anybody does this, when there are so many companies which don't ask for it. And it's not like the 80+ hour jobs pay any better, as far as I can tell.
What's going on here? Is it geographical? Industry-based? Do some programmers just not know any better?