I Am a 9 to 5 Developer (And So Can You) | Hacker News Reader

I Am a 9 to 5 Developer (And So Can You)

exceptionnotfound.net

47 pointsjoeyespo16 comments

Is this hard to achieve or something? Most developers I know work relatively low hours.

Personally I have too many ops responsibilities. I'm essentially always on call and work anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours a night after I'm done with the 9-5. Usually 1-2 nights a week are 2+ extra hours.

Please ensure you’re getting paid for that time, or find a new job. You should be paid for the hours you work, including on call time.

Well, I’m salaried, so I’m not really being paid for it. The salary is good though, given my lack of college. I’m not the only one doing this sort of thing though and to be honest I’m more upset that we can’t solve this problem for all of us than I am about the time I spend on it personally.

Don’t sell yourself short because of a lack of a degree. The labor market is extremely tight right now, and you have bargaining power as long as you have the skills.

Moving to security architecture from infrastructure/DevOps with no degree, I doubled my compensation.

I don’t get it either. I’ve been a developer in Chicago for 6+ years and have always worked from 9 - 5, aside from the times I did some contracting and was paid to work overtime. Most developers I’ve worked with came in to the office around 9:30 or 10 and left at 4:30 or 5.

And if you don't know how to get to 9-to-5, I wrote a book that can help you get there: https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/

Good for this guy. I've never been a 9-5 developer because I'm not a great developer who can get everything done between 9-5. I've always found I have to put more hours in just so I can get stuff done.

If you can do it, do it.

As I said in the other comment, it really goes the other way: there's a bunch of skills involved in being productive, but most of them learning one way or another how to prioritize, and what work not to do. So starting with attitude of "I have too much work to do" will result in working long hours, starting with attitude of "I have limited time" will allow you to work less, once you have the relevant skills.

Example skills:

* Working from goals (https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/08/03/stay-focused/)

* Knowing how and when to ask for help (https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/12/07/asking-for-help/)

For this to work, you first have to get yourself into the mindset than when you are working, you're kicking ass. I'm having a lot of problems with this.

Other way around. If you work less hours, you end up becoming more productive because you value your time more and learn how to prioritize better.

https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/11/10/work-life-balance-so...

If your high-priority task takes N hours, and you only work for N-k hours, you won't finish your work. You can't just magically do more with less.

Working longer is a proven way to finish work that takes more time. Prioritizing only lowers N, not k.

That sounds like your manager's problem to me, but I got laid off recently so take that as you will (not even mad cause i copped a fat severance check and got admitted to a great graduate program, and the job was sort of subpar with poor management)

That is true, but somewhat tautological. You're making the following assumptions:

1. There is only one way to solve the problem. Often there is more than one way, and the proposed way is just one of them, and not necessarily the fastest.

2. The whole task needs to be done by deadline. Often only part of it does.

3. The task actually needs to be done. Often it's not actually high priority.

Etc..

The assumptions I'm making are:

1. There exists, for many tasks, some indivisible, minimal unit of value created by work. If you need your car today, but your mechanic left an hour early with the engine disassembled, it doesn't matter that they finished 95% of the work. The value of that 95% to you is zero.

2. In practice, how your work is thought to be divided into value-units (by whoever is assigning it) matters more than than how you think it is, or how it optimally could be.

3. Whether the demands on you are self-imposed, or reasonable, or whatever else, not meeting them has consequences.

It isn't tautological to say that, even after finding all the better ways to do it, there are things you have to do and there exists some minimum amount of time you need to do them (N). If you work k fewer hours than required, you won't finish work that takes N time. This is just an observation of a fact.

I work contract. I work 9-5 and I get as much done as I can. If that means missing a client deadline, it means missing a deadline. They should have planned ahead, and it’s simply not my problem. If that means losing a client, I’ll have another one tomorrow. I won’t, however, be able to repair damage to my personal life or relationships if I constantly allow my schedule to be dictated by clients - been there, done that, burned out, never again. I’m simply not desperate enough for money to work as a slave, and I’m not foolish enough to act as though I am.

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