CEO of Shopify says long hours aren't necessary for success

Active discussion here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21892492 (489 points/217 comments)

You usually are forced to work long hours when:

-management mismanages your project -Sales sells customers on a new feature within a vastly reduced time frame..without consulting the development team -Management decides to change around the current goals of your project, without changing the deadline

I once was brought on to a new project as a consultant that originally had a deadline of a year, this was reduced to 3 months after management dragged their feet, and I was expected to get it done..with the same amount of features in that new time frame.

I got it done in 6 weeks..but I had to work lots of extra hours to accomplish this. Luckily, I was able to bill them as a consultant...and not as a regular employee.

The crazy part is the company that gave me the project had a staff of salaried developers that only work on these sorts of death march projects. They charge a premium as a business..and probably do very well..but the stress of it has got to be pretty bad.

He's right. You really don't need to work long hours..when you have a good management team. But this is the exception to the rule in my experience.

I worked for a company where the product manager asked me to work into the evening to meet another deadline which he mismanaged (and which I flagged weeks before).

He was met with a firm no (which ensued some very strange plaintive messages from his side). I resigned about a month later.

I'm of the opinion that perpetually mismanaging deadlines, not only shows a lack of expertise - but also a complete lack of professionalism (in regards to the greater team).

Good luck convincing old school management on this. They measure productivity by how long they see you at your desk. It's sad.