If you’re a top engineer (or any similar senior position) for a western company, you ain’t working 40 hr/week. 50-70 hours a week is going to be the norm for that type of position in the west as well.
Well the work takes 20 hours per week in any case. It’s just a matter of if the hour sheet is getting 40/50/60/70 marked in
I don’t know what tech companies you worked for, but when I was working for a software company, I was averaging 45 hours in a client IT position, and all the software devs/engineers were definitely working at least 55-60 hours. And that was during normal periods: things definitely went into crunch mode around version releases and client go-lives. As far as I can tell, this is true across the broader industry.
That’s the expectation but apparently according to scientists, and easy to verify empirically, human cognitive levels decline after some four to six hours of deep focus depending on individuals and unique situations. So the ones grinding for 60 hrs all the time basically don’t get anything more or better done. It’s just time sheet theater.
Crunch can be an emergency situation kind of thing but that’s not sustainable and all and needs its own recovery.
