Ask HN: Is a 6 Day Work Week the new norm? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is a 6 Day Work Week the new norm?

19 pointspain_perdu41 comments

I was pinged today by a recruiter from LatchBio. A well-funded (backed by Coutue and General Catalyat) Bay Area Series A startup. The role sounds great and the company seems to have a lot of traction but when I did some digging (the recruiter didn’t mention this) all jobs listed in their site state “We work six days a week (Mon-Sat) in person in Mission Bay, SF ”

Do any other junior to mid-level folks work for companies that require this? Is it worth considering if everything else about the company seems great?

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My first reaction is a simple: "Wtf, no."

Followed quickly by thinking that is exactly the kind of exploitative crap that nobody should put up with. Don't normalize that kind of environment by even considering it.

Seconded. Hard no.

No, and I don't know if the fact that everyone on their team page is wearing turtlenecks is a tongue-in-cheek joke or not but it gives off some real creepy Theranos vibes.

Even if I was willing to jump into this meat grinder, I dont think I could take it serious with those pretentious photos. This company screams "factory of sadness"

Lol I didn't notice that they photoshopped turtlenecks onto every employee's photo.

996 is fairly common in Asia, but most of the companies who do them are quite inefficient. They generally pay well. Much of that labor tends to go into documentation, tests, debugging tools. FE tends to be overdetailed, like you'd see a class called PrimaryButton8VerticalPadding6StartPadding.

I find that work in those companies are fairly chill because of this. Developer experience is a lot better. It's more drag and drop. Longer hours mean you see people in offices just hanging out until late at night. They'll scarf down a naan in 6.8 minutes, then head up to office, then watch something on their computer.

Companies with less hours are generally more stressful. You need to be pretty smart. Sometimes you have to find out where the docs are. Sometimes you have to read the code and not the docs. It's really up to what you're comfortable with.

What really sucks is the companies that work 6 days but think that they're actually working hard. It's a slider whether you want to work harder or work longer hours.

Is the job 996 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system ), or near-enough?

If you moved to Mission Bay, you'd have a load of sunk cost, to be more reluctant to bail when the job turned out to be not-so-good.

I'd tell the recruiter "Sorry, a bit of digging says they work 6-day weeks, thankyoubye".

Maybe they meant that the office is open on Saturdays in case anyone wants to take a weekday off instead?

If not, the company might be courting a discrimination lawsuit (IANAL). Requiring work on Saturdays as a condition of employment would effectively exclude Orthodox Jews and observant Muslims from working there. Cf Groff v Dejoy

What the recruiter said when I asked him to clarify was "Our understanding so far that is that it's FT on-site Mon-Sat."

"We work six days a week (Mon-Sat) in person in Mission Bay, SF"

https://boards.greenhouse.io/latchbio/jobs/4058387008

They are most likely trying to get permission to hire people from abroad (with the intention of moving them to the US). They may also be seeking permission to sponsor green cards for current employees. One of the first steps in this process is to get confirmation that they cannot find a specialist for this position in the US (for 30 days). To achieve this, companies use various tricks to discourage others from applying for these positions.

Loophole: their benefits page states that they offer unlimited PTO so just take every Saturday off.

lol, excellent idea.

I dropped a higher paying job for this current one because it offered substantially fewer restrictions and much greater personal time. Salary alone and/or flaky equity that could easily evaporate are not enough to move the needle for me. I won't even go back to JavaScript work for more money, much less be locked in some dungeon and ignored like a serf.

I really hope there is valid equity in exchange for those extra work hours. By valid equity the terms are more important than the percentage level. If the equity were right AND I had a title that provided some degree of autonomy/ownership of the work I could see myself working 60-80 hours per week. Otherwise max of 40 is all they get and I will not budge.

I've never seen this be the case in decades of software development (for employees). If you are a founder, it's a different story, but even then you should take some time off when you can.

> Do any other junior to mid-level folks work for companies that require this? Is it worth considering if everything else about the company seems great?

Depends on your situation. It's a tough market out there.

   - Do they pay 20% higher than comparables?
   - Do you need the job or do you have alternative options?
   - Do you need initial experience or to build a network?

I'd say no personally, but if I were in a different financial/life position I could see saying yes.

What exactly seems great? I ask because from what you have provided here, they seem craptacular to me.

Do they give you 6 weeks of mandatory vacation? Do they pay you 40% more than an equivalent job at a 5 days per week company?

Even if they did all the above it's still not worth it. Working 6 days a week leaves you with insufficient time to recover. It seems to me that the world getting ready to start considering 4 days a week and this company requires 6?

Even 2 isn't enough. 4 day workweeks should be the norm. CA had a bill trying to make the workweek 32 hours, but I don't know where it ended up. It would just be a continuation of how we've shortened the workweek from the 1800s, and a little social dividend seems warranted instead of all that productivity lining CEOs' pockets.

I agree and can't wait for that to happen, if it ever will.

Well apparently they have hundreds of customers which sounds pretty impressive for a young company and they have Tier 1 investors which is often a good sign. They seem to have a highly differentiated product with a large TAM in smart niche.

On the other hand, the founder/CEO is very young/inexperienced which could explain some of the unusual management style.

So these points address the "traction" part of your appraisal. What makes the role or working for them great?

They have one developer position open which has a salary range of $140k-$220k USD. This is not worth six days a week in office. They do offer "Team-wide science reading groups" though

I would consider it if you don't have kids and feel up to the presumably very intense work environment. I would want to be prepared mentally and financially to quit/be let go though, while at the same time viewing it as an intense, potentially lucrative, learning experience. It could be awesome and hard but fulfilling or a disaster. It is definitely a risk, with potential rewards. If you are just looking for an interesting job, then I'd look elsewhere.

I've come across two startups with 6 day work weeks. They were absolute garbage dumps, the both of them. They had an average employee tenure of 6 months, and neither of them could execute on anything more complex than a basic web API.

It's not worth considering. It's a clear sign that someone clueless is running the company.

Very interesting feedback, thank you!

In my circles in Berlin, everyone is working 5 days a week. Some work 4. 6 days is unheard of.

Is the salary also 20% above market?

Still, I can’t do it though! You will pay more in burn out and its long term toll.

No, the salary does not reflect the additional working day whatsoever.

Then why even consider it? You're giving up 50% of your weekend for nothing.

That should be illegal, unless laws changed since the last time I studied them.

What if they just allow to have one day off in Sunday and another one in any day? I would like to consider 4 day of work per week as a new norm, 669 is not Western thing.

Sorry to nitpick but for this to be "the new norm", it would require a lot of companies doing this. It's a single datapoint and I've not seen other companies doing that.

Well this was actually the point of my question. I have been an independent consultant for a couple years now so I don't really have my finger on the pulse of current startup trends. My question is indeed if a lot of new startups are doing this in which case perhaps it's worth considering or if this is a very abnormal requirement in which it's perhaps a red flag.

They will probably go under because they will have a hard time with recruiting and more importantly keeping employees.

no this isn't normal. I think there a couple VC backed companies that have inexperienced leadership cosplaying as high performing teams and it's going to backfire.

I often work on saturdays to kill some time solving a problem but I would absolutely reject anyone who mentions a six day work week.

Obviously a startup will require some weekends.

But required weekends on site is unconscionable

Lol, I'm at the point where anything > 4 days per week is a hard no.

“But why don’t you want to work on Sunday mornings?”

Lmao no what a clown show company.

lol

No.

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