[tacostakohashi]

At this mid-late career stage... this is a real gotcha with being an employee software developer at BigCo or wherever.

We work on writing code M-F, 9-5, when managers and customers are around so we collaborate and troubleshoot together then and stuff, fine.

We need to deploy, rollback, do checkouts, etc. _after hours_ so it doesn't affect the business. Sometimes it's deploy on Friday night... then some problem is found first thing Monday morning of Sunday night (from Asia Monday users) that requires "urgent" attention, so you end up with both a late start and an early finish to the weekend.

Deploying software is a standard, predictable, part of the job/business hours, so it should really be done during regular hours, or otherwise hire some dedicated "second shift" people to do it after hours / during their _normal_, agreed hours. I don't mind being flexible / "going the extra mile" sometimes... but when it is most weekends, it's a big ask, it's basically working 1.5 jobs for 1 salary.

In practice, usually some staff member who wants to "go the extra mile" will volunteer for this thankless task as a way to get noticed... but instead they end up getting burnt out and jaded, and then quit and find the next sucker to saddle with it.

[everforward]

Do they not do comp time? Last time I worked at a BigCo, they didn’t hand out comp time by default but didn’t fight if I asked for it.

I just pointed out that it was effectively slashing my compensation per effort, during times I especially didn’t want to work. I proposed either comp time, or bonuses amounting to overtime on our “hourly rate” (salary divided by work hours in the year).

My manager opted for comp time, because he could do that without needing to involve HR and all the pay related people. Apparently no one had ever bothered to ask about it, and had just been working nights and weekends for free.

[tacostakohashi]

To some extent - an "on call roster" or "comp time" help a bit so it's not just a 24/7 job... but even "comp time" is the kind of thing they'll not explicitly say no to (as you found), but also its not something they'd be doing as a norm, and it would make anyone asking for it seem like less of a "team player", a good candidate for the bottom of the promotion / top of the layoff list.

It just seems like a real double standard / unspoken rule of software at BigCo that it's very difficult to contain to 9-5 M-F like the other jobs, since it's salaried or exempt and they're not tracking hours. To some extent the relatively high salaries compensate for it, but it comes at a real toll over the long term compared to a true 9-5.