[syndicatedjelly]

IMO, WLB is least valuable immediately after getting out of school. Now's the time to put your head down, get some work done, and advance your career. The difference is only 15 hours a week, but after a year or two you'll have put in several thousand more hours than the version of yourself with better WLB. Especially if your goal is to get into a major tech company or FAANG.

"Enjoy life after uni" - you've just started, welcome to the real grind. There are real rewards to be had out here, in any way you desire, if you "work" hard. The fun part is, you can define what "work" means if you play your cards right

This is probably one of the few comments you'll get like this, most people will tell you "enjoy life, etc", so just keep this in mind whatever you decide

[s0rr0wskill]

How does WLB change over time for most people?

At some point if I transition to FAANG/something closer to my ideal, I'd definitely like to grind so I doubt I would have time for much outside of work.

[syndicatedjelly]

    At some point if I transition to FAANG/something closer to my ideal, I'd definitely like to grind so I doubt I would have time for much outside of work.

If you want to make that transition, you're gonna be competing with people who work hard from day 1, and not just when it's time to make the jump to FAANG. It's really hard to beat people who put in the time for their craft, in the long-run

You don't have to work at a "name-brand" company to have an enjoyable, challenging and rewarding career. Most people don't. Ignore everyone who tells you that the name of the company you work for, or length of your title are what matter in life

    How does WLB change over time for most people?

I think for a lot of people, they tend to have the fewest commitments immediately out of college. Life responsibilities tend to pile up as you get older, which makes it nice to have "banked" a bunch of good will, hard work, and connections from earlier in your career

[lizzas]

I have no faith that the extra 15 hours of grind is worth anything. Let's compare for example:

55h/week job because time sucked up by lengthy meetings and status reports.

40h/week job then spend 15h/w spare time learning algorithms and design interviews.

[sky2224]

Both are still 55 h/w of grinding. Worrying about WLB and not keeping your head down would be, "I'm off the clock, no more working on anything related to work in any capacity today".

Prepping for interviews outside of work would still very much count as "grinding" in my opinion.

[gordonzhu]

I was going to say this as well. If you haven't done competitive interviews, it's easy to underestimate how much prep / skill is required.