Why don't people feel empowered to say no to this sort of thing? Is the market for engineers so bad that we have to tolerate these things out of fear?
That's not how you create great things anyway, that's just what naive 20yr olds think hard work looks like. Rushing things, not taking breaks, or ever disconnecting your brain vs creating a consistent high output rhythm over a long period by getting into the zone, and only slamming for legit emergencies.
Tech needs to be unionized.
It shouldn’t be systematically. But when I did a start-up, this was an opening that let us displace—in one case, put out of business—the competition: identifying the moments where working unconventionally creates asymmetric value.
Also, we’re talking about AI engineers. If you’re being paid seven figures and refusing to ever work weekends you should seek out a lifestyle role. (And to be clear, I have a tonne of respect for people who make that choice. You’re just not going to command a multi-million dollar comp package.)
if you have stock then you will be rewarded for your weekend work, otherwise you're a chump for working weekends absent an emergency like downtime or going out of business.
"Let's go look at the board. Which of these other high priority items in flight would you like to deprioritize? By the way, our back of the envelop discovery session shows this requested feature to be six tasks, which historical TEAM velocity indicates will be done much later than your requested deadline. Also our metrics for other past weekend heroics indicate that we're going to see a 20-50% decline in productivity for the next two weeks, so we should expect the following work to be late."
At least in my experience it's the best way to make stakeholders stare at the reality of what they're asking.
Of course, its also a great indicator for people who aren't willing to look at reality. I don't know what the solution to that is, but there are a lot of reasonable people out there when you find a good way for them to understand the forces involved.
A single person saying “no” just means they will find the next person to do it. In return, person that said “no” will face consequences. Impossible to complete work. Slightly more hostile work environment. “Evidence” the management will use to create PIP. PIP will probably be work that cannot be completed within timeline.
Shit like this wouldn’t fly in a union.
Personally, I wouldn’t give 2 shits. I would love to see the face of the douchebag that asked me this and I just left that person on unread.
In this market, AI engineers get hired easily. With recent ruling on non-compete clauses, this makes it much more easier to move between firms.