[cosmodisk]

It may not be popular,but it's an opinion nonetheless. I don't disagree with working extra hours on stuff per se, especially if one is passionate about it. However,this is often abused.What is one man's passion,is other man's nightmare. These things are also very hard to balance from the management point of view. Also,60 hours a week of pure work is a lot and unless it's your own business,I would neither want anyone to do this in my own team nor myself. I'm a fan of "work smarter" not "work harder,aka longer hours". Even if you are out of school, there are many ways to shine and develop portfolio without grinding long hours. The company that is not worth working for isn't the one that allows people,who have a lot of time and motivation to do extra hours, to work longer,but one that finds it's not normal to become pregnant or go on paternity leave. Aa for paid paternity:I imagine you are commenting from the US perspective,while I do it from the European,so this needs to be taken into consideration,as on tbis side of the pond is not an option not to get it, it's more about what company can offer on top of statutory pay. As for consulting, I'm in a very similar situation,only my daughter is much younger, that's why I'm having a job that pays substantially less compared to what I'd get in consulting. And no, the requirement to travel doesn't make the job bad,even though business travel is a tiring experience,but,as you said,it could be a perfect fit to a lot of people.

[scarface74]

I’m thinking more of working harder as in one person wearing too many hats because a company can’t/ doesn’t want to hire more people. I’ve worked up and down the stack over the years from the front end all the way down to infrastructure (AWS/Dev ops) and have had to be my own project manager doing Statements of work during the last days of a dying company. No matter how smart I work, if I am stuck doing a job of more than one person, I’m going to work more hours.

I’ve also worked extra hours voluntarily to work on new to me technology to build my resume.