How many hours do Software Engineers work?
Software Engineers typically work 40 hours per week, but other software engineers may work for up to 60 hours or more per week.
Some Software Engineers may work on holidays, weekends, or late in the night to meet deadlines or resolve technical problems.
Generally, the number of hours that software engineers work varies from one company to the other and from one country to the other.
Many Senior software engineers tend to work for more hours to manage their teams, oversee product design, and provide leadership.
According to the 2020 Stack Overflow Survey, 62.9% of software engineers work 40 to 49 hours per week. 7.3% of software engineers work for less than 30 hours per week and about 1.8% work for more than 70 hours per week.
There are many factors that influence the number of hours that software engineers work. Some of the common ones include
COMPANY WORK CULTURE
Different companies in different industries and countries have different work cultures and rules. For example, software engineers who work for government agencies and departments have a standard 8 hours of work per day in many countries.
On the other hand, software engineers working for startups tend to work longer hours in order to quickly get the product to market or grow the company.
For other software engineers, their work hours are influenced by the stage and progress of the product that their company is working on. They may work for a few hours this week and more hours the other week.
Other software engineers are given more time by their companies to work on their personal projects. For example, Google has the famous 20% time (80/20 rule), where every developer is given 20% time to work on innovations of their choice.
JOB POSITION AND ROLE
The higher you climb the corporate ladder, the more likely you are to work for many hours, this is especially true for software engineers. As you advance in your software engineering career, you will assume a lot of responsibilities.
Senior software engineers have the additional responsibilities of managing their team, overseeing product design and growth, meetings, and more. This will result in more hours of work than usual.
WORK-LIFE BALANCE
Having a good work-life balance is the dream of every employee. This desire to have a great work-life balance has led to what others have called the Great Resignation. Employees have realized that more need to be done to make their lives better.
Including having a good schedule for working hours. This has led to a reduction in the number of hours that software engineers are required to work in some companies.
The result has been the introduction of remote work in many tech companies. Remote work helps many software engineers to work for less than the traditional 40 – 49 hours per week.
SHORTAGE OF DEVELOPERS
After the great resignation, there has been a shortage of software engineers and other developers. This shortage of talented developers means that the available software engineers will end up working more hours than normal to cover up for the shortage.
It is no surprise that after the great resignation, many employers become creative to keep their talented software engineers and began to offer many amazing perks and benefits. It was no surprise to see many companies paying developers to interview.
CONCLUSION
Many Software engineers typically work 40 – 49 hours per week. However, depending on the company that a software engineer works for, they may work for less or more than 40 hours a week.
Many Senior software engineers tend to work for more hours than their junior counterparts.
