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You are right: expecting software engineers to problem solve for 8 hours a day is counterproductive. As a software engineers' manager I expect my subordinates to problem solve 24 hours a day, including weekends and holidays. This is not a fugure of speech, this is how creative mind works. When software engineer is banging crap out of the keyboard - it is not a problem solving, it is writing down a solution. Before writing first line of code an engineer should have the whole structure imagined as a draft and a particular module/section - as clear and real as if we can touch it. Now, working hours is a matter of comminucation. The time when the software was written by individuals is over, today's business-valued software is written by teams. To be a team, group of people should communicate. Most effective type of communication is face to face, next best thing is videoconferencing and it is about 3 times worse in terms of information shared and remembered. It's a pity, but it is fact. So team of software engineers should meet face to face a lot, and this is why we are working in offices, have some mandatory hours (like 11 to 17), and have so many meeting rooms here :) The last, but not least question is discipline. I've met people who can churn out problems' solutions at a constant rate regardless place, daytime and even climate and timezone. Those are rare brilliants. Most people left to themseves would beclome less productive, it is another sad fact. Office hours and teammates is a best known work motivation to date, order of magnitude better than hefty salary, stock options and money/stock-bound KPIs. Now to you, if you don't mind. Thru my career I've met about dosen of engineers who asked for more relaxed hours and/or (part-time) remote. It never worked out as a productive boost, just more pain for me to control and motivate those lads. Most of the time they were just plain tired and/or unhappy, but thought it was something about they commute routine or office aura. It was always symptom, not a cause. I believe you are just tired and/or unhappy too. We are living in times when being a skilled software engineer means ability to choose company, product, location and team to be bouncy sparkling ball of ideas every morning. If you are not this ball, ask yourself - why? |