My first job out of college I was a software engineer at a then-25 yo small-cap public tech company in Austin.
I worked on a floor with 200 engineers. Everyone owned homes in the area, had kids, dogs, backyard BBQs, a life. The floor was completely empty by 5pm daily, if not earlier.
I was 21 years old and my life was work. I loved it more than anything, it was my whole purpose and identity and brought me tremendous joy. I had a small apartment in the closest complex to my office and all I could see out the window was the office’s neon sign.
I worked 80–90 hours a week. Average day I would get in around 10am and work until 10pm or midnight, at high intensity. I only stopped working when my productivity level began to drop. When I had to go to the bathroom, I ran to and from my desk. I didn’t want to waste a single second that I could be working.
I earned $54k per year. My best friend worked at Microsoft making twice as much and working a third as many hours.
Not only was my dedication not enforced, or even encouraged, it was discouraged or even scorned by some coworkers. Maybe they thought I was breaking the curve, or I had unhealthy habits, or I was annoying, either way I struggled to find people I could relate to.
I would have loved to be surrounded by people like me, to be appreciated and normalized by my peers and leadership, to have late-night whiteboard sessions, and all of the other goodness that comes from highly motivated people spending thousands of hours a year building & learning together. For people like me, building is a religion.
A few years later, I started a startup on the side and ended up selling it to a larger startup in San Francisco and moving there. It was the first time I met people like me. At the time, circa 2009, that startup was very special, one of a tiny number of “unicorns” (the term hadn’t been coined yet) with high talent density. Today there are many more.
Over the years I met more truly obsessive engineers. One of them would hear a feature idea at Friday all-hands and by Monday he had built and shipped it. He went on to bootstrap a company that sold for $100m. Another one dropped out of college to come work for me then cloned our idea and launched it in China :) I don’t think engineers like this feel at home in most companies, which is probably why so many become founders.
Now I’m 42 years old. After a 10 year break from actively coding, I have been back for the last 2 years. Back to working 996, back to rushing through bathroom breaks and eating, and loving every minute. I sometimes work out of co-working spaces surrounded by young, “hungry” entrepreneurs but I’m usually the last one at my desk.
This lifestyle isn’t for everyone but there are many of us, especially younger, unattached developers, who truly love work. So the next time you see a 996 job posting don’t roll your eyes. It’s just not for you, and that’s fine.