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Comment by dkersten | Hacker News Reader

> Im sorry but 30 to 35 hours a week, especially at a startup is just not tenable for any company except a small lifestyle company

You're right, its still too much. If you want the best engineers to do their best work, I'd put 30 hours as the upper limit.

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And im sure that when they work 30 hours they are cutting 30 minutes off of their lunch break and spending less time in the bathroom and on reddit.

You feel you're paying X for 40 hours a week, when a lot of engineers are of the opinion you should only be getting 30 hours for X. Some companies will offer you X for 30 hours, and the rest of companies will have to compete against that (for now) or deal with it when regulation enforces it through labor law (eventually), similar to how unions brought us the weekend [1].

[1] https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/sep...

I have never been paid by the hour. I get paid for producing acceptable code by the deadline.

So, when you produce the acceptable code faster you can go home earlier? No more work in a week? If not, you are paid by the hour, you just wish you would be paid for producing acceptable code by the deadline (me too btw).

Yes, technically I could. But in reality, I have more than one task on my plate and a well-managed company will have figured out how to set the deadlines to maximize the amount of work they get for their money.

However, this is one of the things I ask about when I'm interviewing for a position -- if the company keeps track of hours rather than paying for work product, then it's not likely to be a good fit for me. So, my experience is not random chance and may not be representative of the industry as a whole.

Maybe not, but if you offer better than the competitors, then you get people who are a lot, lot better and, in my experience, one of these people is worth much more than the average person working much longer hours. If you want the BEST people, you have to offer better than the alternatives.

“Why is it I always get my best ideas while shaving?” – Albert Einstein

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