[dev_jim]

"Working for free" after 40 hours never resonated with me. It comes out of hard fought labor battles, but an assembly line is difficult to relate to when I'm eating free snacks in my comfy Aeron chair and working on things that generally interest me.

I think the biggest issue here is misaligned expectations between boss and worker. Personally, I've always gone into a job understanding what it was going to take to be successful. My comp expectations are adjusted accordingly. In trading bonds, which is nearly a 24 hour market, it does require >8 hours on the trading floor. At the end of the year my boss doesn't really care about my hours as long as our customers are happy and I've produced PnL.

[throwaway092834]

I agree with your overall perspective.

I'd like to add that the statement "If you’re salaried, you’re working for free" is inaccurate in two very important dimensions:

1) Equity stake. The 40 hour workweek was invented for laborers, not owners. Would the author admonish a business owner to only work 8 hours a week? At what level of ownership stake does it become acceptable to work more than 8 hours?

2) Compensation increase through recognition and achievement. Working extra hours may not increase one's immediate paycheck but after many years in this business I feel comfortable saying that consistent hard work generally results in rather substantially increased compensation and opportunity in the long term.

[consultant23522]

I had the opposite experience. Working long hours never got me a raise or promotion. Successful projects got me raises and promotions, but I generally don't need to work even 40 hours to make that happen. Once I lifted my head up out of the code and started taking a more business approach to my work rather than engineering approach, that's when my value and income skyrocketed. The guys I know that rack up those 50+ hour weeks every single week get the same 3% raise they've always gotten and most of them are pretty bitter about it.

[Patrick_Devine]

This is why hitching yourself to the wrong boss can be extremely detrimental to your career. A good boss would compensate and promote any 50+ hour rockstar performer for making him look good. As the organization gets bigger, the manager with the most senior people often wins, regardless of competency. If a boss is not giving out raises and fighting for promotions, he is going to have to play out more political capital in order to get anything done, or to cover his ass when shit doesn't get done.

[throwaway092834]

Of course working smarter is more important than working longer. I think that goes without saying.

[Iftheshoefits]

Working any number unpaid hours is working for free, no matter how you spin it.*

1) Business owners aren't laborers. They work, and they may draw a salary for tax purposes, but they cannot be placed in the same bin as "employee," which is what "laborer" means in this context. As a matter of opinion on your aside, I'd argue that the "level of ownership" required would be one sufficient to imbue the equity holder with the significant responsibility, authority, share of the profits that other "major" equity holders have.

2) That compensation generally rises with recognition and achievement is: a) not in dispute; b) not relevant to the point, because it doesn't address unpaid hours worked.

* There's a certain argument that exempt salaried employees are paid for their expertise, not their time. Therefore, the hours they work merely divide the salary they earn, so that their effective hourly rate decreases as hours worked rises, but is never zero. Of course this isn't applied symmetrically--a salaried worker who completes his tasks "early" in the week is unlikely to be allowed to take the rest of it off without a reduction in pay (or, more likely, suspicion and being marked for termination).

[throwaway092834]

In regards to #1 I understand your point. I am suggesting that a large portion of software developers in startups do have significant responsibility, authority and share of profits. Even at a large company: Consider a scenario of a Principal/Architect earning $150k salary and $150k in equity grants and working on a flagship product. Even at an extremely large company it appears to me, based on my own experience, that a meaningful connection exists between effort and reward.

In regards to #2, I don't think you can wave away this point. A raise is, in fact, compensation.

[Iftheshoefits]

If the "Principal/Architect's" equity grant affords him a definitive say in the direction of the company, then he's an owner, not a worker. If it doesn't, then the grant is indistinguishable from an ESPP with a larger discount, in terms of raw compensation, and any hours he works over 40 is unpaid (i.e. 'free' work).

With respect to #2: A raise is not, in fact, compensation. It's a promise of future compensation based on future work. Calling it anything else is, frankly, less than honest.

[throwaway092834]

Any equity stake is improved by work in the company. Your argument seems to be that the work isn't sufficient, but you're not being clear about where you draw the line.

WRT #2, the impact on income when viewing a career over a long period of time is clear. It appears you're being dishonest by refusing to acknowledge this rather obvious fact. You can say "it's not compensation" until you're blue in the face but at the end of the day people who do more will on average earn more.

[Iftheshoefits]

I think the line is somewhat blurred, but I object to the notion that I'm not being clear: if the equity stake doesn't give a person the same, or comparable, authority and take of the profit as "major" shareholders, the person is an employee, not an owner. To take one specific case as an example, if a person can be fired by the "real" owner/equity holders, he's not an owner. So the "Product Manager" in your example, if he doesn't get paid for every hour he works, is working for free for some hours, regardless of the particulars of the ESPP program he's participating in.

You're conflating "compensation in year N+1" with "being paid for hours worked in year N." The compensation you're talking about is dependent on work done in year N+1, and is not some sort of "back pay" or "built in, amortized pay" for the work done previously.

A simple example may help illuminate what "working for free" means in the context of this discussion.

1) You earn $1000 per week in salary compensation. 2) You work 45 hours during a given week. 3) You are paid $1000 for work done that week.

It doesn't matter whether you get a raise the next week, or what the amount of the raise is. For the week you already worked you contributed 5 hours of unpaid, free labor to your employer.

[dev_jim]

> that consistent hard work generally results in rather substantially increased compensation and opportunity in the long term.

I agree. I don't think I'd be in the same place in my career today if I had a "working for free" attitude. Sometimes it was more hours and sometimes it was just a genuine curiosity about taking on challenges that are completely foreign to me.

Getting increases in comp is always a long-term game. There's no road map (i.e., work 2 more hours building this to get that experience which will increase my market value by X) and you'll go down a lot of wrong roads that will add zero to your market value. More importantly it requires delayed gratification. There can be a long delay between the work you put in and the payoff.

[chrisgd]

But as well as your comp expectations, your comp is also adjusted accordingly through a bonus program. I am not sure the advice provided applies to those with a bonus and equity incentive.

[dev_jim]

Bonus is part of an overall compensation package. Its not payment for 'overtime'. Its just a different risk/reward calculation then only salary. The key point in all of this is to have a mutual understanding of expectations with your manager.

[elwell]

When it's your startup, it's not "working for free"; it's "creating value".