How common is this 55+ hours a week thing, really? I've only been a developer for 2.5 years now, and I spend some of my own time, say an hour a day (3 hours a night, once every three nights usually) working on side projects, and another hour reading technical articles or tech blog posts.

But I've never had a manager ask or pressure me to work more than 40 hours a week. In fact, they opposite is true, they've actually often discouraged me from working outside of core work hours because they don't want their developers to get burned out. Maybe I'm just fortunate that I'm smart enough, and productive enough, to get everything done in the 40 hour work week and I should feel blessed to be as smart as I am? (generally in the top 3-5% on all standardized tests throughout my life)

But to the best of my knowledge, my coworkers weren't being pressured to work more than 40 hours a week either. Or maybe they felt ashamed of having to work more than 40 hours to keep up and didn't mention it? Maybe the pressure wasn't direct pressure from management, but an indirect pressure just to keep up with everyone else?

Maybe it's the benefit of working in the Midwest?

I don't honestly know. But I can say that in my (short) time at both companies I've worked for, I've only met one developer that reported being asked or pressured to work more than 40 hours a week. So it just seems so strange to me to keep hearing it as a truism on here.