Always go for work, life, health balance. Most VPs and directors got there because of pedigree and years of experience, people who truly got supernormal growth in terms of career advancement have been entrepreneurs, early stage employees of a very successful startup, the rest don’t have such a huge difference between grade and compensation and that too would depend on if you have worked in marquee companies rather than putting in weekends.  
  
 So to summarise, career advancement have the following reasons ranked in terms of weights 
 1. Pedigree 
 2. Years of experience  
 3. Successful entrepreneurs  
 4. Early stage employee of successful startups 
 5. Working in marquee companies 
 6. You working on weekends

But my point is, all the VPs & Directors must’ve started somewhere, right? How did they prioritise their career early on?

Founder

Software Engineer

Data Scientist

Possible in West headquartered companies. Asian companies, no.

Analyst

Is it possible to balance WLB and have a good career growth? I don’t think people who are directors, VPs at Top companies might’ve prioritised WLB early in their career. But, I’m open to hear your ...

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

Is it possible to balance WLB and have a good career growth? I don’t think people who are directors, VPs at Top companies might’ve prioritised WLB early in their career. But, I’m open to hear your opinion if it’s otherwise.

Also, do you prioritise work or social life at this point in your career?

WLB or Career Growth?

WLB or Career Growth?- Grapevine

Welcome to Software Engineers's Private Community

Work-life balance, as I thought it to be in the start of my career is basically for me to work for a maximum possible part of my working hours and never any more than that. Life had a higher priority than work so I used to always involve is smart work and kind of planned "under estimate, over deliver". Rest of the "life" contributed to study and enjoy freedom alternatively.
I slowly started to feel, that's not the way. Currently, with a ~4 yoe, I partially think the "Narayan Murthy"s around us aren't wrong. WLB is subjective, at the very start of your career you should hardly look out for it (doesn't mean to work your as* off for the employee with peanut salary, no) but don't expect to work for 8 hrs a day and chillax the rest. To me, it comes in phases and I'm okay with it. There could be a month or few when you might work 70+ hours a week, and then there could be a month where there's hardly any work.
Just keep the smartwork going, but don't time yourself at the early stages. Learn and earn as much as you can, so someday you can gift your grandchild a few million ₹ as well.
Its completely my perspective, probably because I've been blessed with the my kind of work as a SDE.
Let me know, what's your take?

What is WLB to you?

Senior Software Engineer

Welcome to Business Roles's Private Community

I am starting as an Associate in a management consulting firm. From all the more experienced folks out here, would love to hear about your first job experiences. Things that you did that made it a better experience or things that you wish you had done (or not done). Really anxious about it, so any random experiences are also welcome!

Starting work in a month, would love some advice!

Management Consultant

Seen many reviews about companies having a good or bad WLB. As a fresher, I would love to know what experienced people consider a good work life balance and how important it is while judging a company? Any other factors to consider?

What is a good work life balance

Welcome to IT Company Discussion's Private Community

What can be the criteria to decide on which company to join.?

Team Lead

With my small experiences in the past, I haven't seen a good Startup with WLB for SDEs (0-3)yoe.

I want to know whether you work in a startup where there's WLB.

I understand that more work means more learning but I do not agree with this every time. There are way more SDEs working in very very small startups who have humongous learning with a pinch of money they are being paid.


For me WLB means enough time to relax and spend time with my loved ones and also less mental stress.

I have observed that the Leads/Managers will give any features no matter how complex they are, need to be built with 0 to no help specially for SDE-1 people.

And later they are blamed and scolded or they're put in PIP and ultimately thrown out.

What is your experience?

Are there any startups where WLB exists or it's just all about money and doesn't matter even if the employee is no more?

Software Developer

Hey everyone, 

I am a fresher out of college and I have an offer from a good company, with good pay and WLB. I was wondering that after joining the company, should I upskill myself continuously alongside my job (includes DSA, s
System Design etc) or just focus on my job and have a good work life balance? 

There are two different contradictory versions of me right now: one says it's necessary to upskill, the other one says to enjoy live to the fullest.

Confused between the need for upskilling and WLB

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

How do you define work life balance boundaries at work? Everyone in my team works 10-12 hrs daily, it’s business as usual for them. I joined recently and it’s very problematic for me, I literally get no time to do anything else. 
I fear, that if I highlight this I’ll be singled out. 
Some people even feel very proud in doing so which I don’t understand. Don’t they want to go back home to their family and spend time with them?
Please provide guidance on how to set these boundaries and am I thinking right?

WLB boundaries at work.

Product Manager

Welcome to Product Managers's Private Community

While I 100% agree that a PM at a company like Juspay that sells technical products needs to have good technical proficiency to the extent of understanding code as well, why are there no EMs? In a company that's as engineering driven as Juspay, it is all the more important to have EMs who bring in valuable 8+ years of industry experience and have the know how of guiding engineers on building reliable scalable systems and logic. I learnt that Juspay expects PMs to do it all. 
Questions to Juspay PMs : Do you conduct sprint planning meetings? Are you responsible for the Engg team's performance metrics like sprint deliverance ratio, production issues caused, bugs raised, etc. ? What's the importance and significance given to hardcore product work like doing quality product discoveries ? Do you do code reviews? Are you responsible for Engg downtimes? Given that you are donning multiple hats and doing more than one person's work, what's your WLB like? A good way to measure this is how much time do you get to pursue your personal hobbies, say like hitting the gym, on a daily basis ?

Why does Juspay not have EMs?

Investor

What are my exit options after 1 year of strategy consulting with Big 4. Looking for a better wlb

I ak literally unable to decide between product management and management consulting, i am i last year of my college , i want to build a great career ahead.  layoffs and recession is going on, i talked to product managers and they say it's not that much glamourous as folks on LinkedIn present it and even  you are in a startup  , devlopers first build the core then role of PM comes into play . I talked to few management consultants as well they say WLB is not that great but it's okayish most of the times . I am literally confused, i know the grass is always greener on other side but my long terms goals are money and growth in my early to late 20s and upto early 30s  , the priorities might be change after that.

Guys please help me out to choose better as I have still some months left so I can upskill myself accordingly also it would be great if you could present the future scopes ,growth and ROI in both the fields with the boom of AI.
I am open to suggestions :)

Product management vs management consulting

I see a lot of posts about WLB, I want to know what do you consider as a decent WLB. I will go first.

1. Leave early if the work for that day is done
2. No pings and calls post work hours, there are always exceptions and thats okay, should not become a norm
3. Respecting when someone is in vacation and not disturbing them.
4. Not rejecting leaves 

I will add more in comments If more comes to my mind.

Work Life Balance

Rule of thumb  
 If you get work thoughts outside 9-6 or weekends, it's not WLB.

Software Test - QA

Computer Operator

Not sure how many anime fans are here, but I was recently watching this new anime called “Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead”, which basically shows how a corporate employee is so fed up with his messed up job, that the first thought he has, when zombie apocalypse hits is, “I don’t have to go to work anymore!”, and he’s out to do things that he always wanted to.

Anyways, in the new episode, its shown how a toxic leader/boss/senior behaves. And man, was that so accurate!! 

It shows how these leaders make you work like hell, belittle you, and misbehave with you. Even if you think of leaving the job, they make you believe how hard it is to survive without your current job, and how the work you’re doing is nothing, and that you can be easily replaced. 

And in the end, after fucking up your mental peace, they will come and show a little bit of sympathy, telling they how they just push you for your own sake. Acting like some wise old “mentor you never had”.

And you know, what the worst part is, since all your colleagues are living in the same environment, since everyday you go through the same toxicity over n over, it becomes normal for u. Your brain adjusts, and it seems to think that this is how the world is. 

Moreover, if you are a fresher, and you don’t have any prior experience of work culture, you seem to believe thats how work life is, and will always be. 

I’m ranting this out, since i wasted around 1-1.5 years of my life in such startup, and it wasn’t just the time that was wasted, it also took my passion, my energy, my motivation and my goal with it. 

To all the folks who might be in a similar situation, I just want to say, I know it’s hard and I know you probably can’t leave due to some financial situations or other issues. But BELIEVE ME when i say that nothing in this entire world comes above your mental health. Save that first folks. Be selfish, saving others can wait!

Traits of a toxic workplace

So, me and my good friend were casually discussing how crazy the job market is and how we are unable to get into a good job, especially when she has over 3YoE and is really good at frontend web development.

She then casually asked me "Should we be really trying this hard to get into a job that we like, as I feel that AI will take over a big part of the IT workforce in the next 5 years?"

Though we did have a friendly argument, I strongly believe that it still needs more time than that bcz IT jobs, especially we developers, are not just limited to coding. And given the fact that OpenAI is learning off of GitHub repos, which are basically code examples are averagely written code, not well written proficient ones. 

But, in General, what do you think about AI and how it is gradually dominating the IT sector ?

Do you really think AI will take over in the next 5 years ?

Hi All, what can help me join an early stage startup and grow up to the top close to the founders within a year? I want to be in the middle of the action 

Has anyone here done it before?

How do people climb up/become more important in startups as employees?

If they have the right culture then showing excellency in your role, helping out others in the team, having opinions on decisions taken (not just for the sake of it) should help you get closer to the decision makers. 
  
 Remember that at an early stage startup, everything revolves around the product, and you will be rewarded for aligning with that. 
  
 Speaking from experience, you will be involved in "the action" in a team of 30 people either way

Business Development Manager

Welcome to Data Scientists's Private Community

Joined a startup as a fresher now about to complete a year. Joined in thinking of good learning and growth. But now I'm suffering from a very poor WLB.

Any company leads for a switch? Or things which I can do.

Good in NLP, Statistical modelling and also know about LLMs.

Poor WLB; needs advice

genz

And at work 
  
 + the endless chase for the mirage that is wlb 
 + if anything isn't per their expectation, its toxic

Sales Manager

Hi all, I have noticed that the experienced senior people around me [ ICs, EMs, etc ] have too much work and they are always in a work mode. 

Seeing them makes me wonder whether I would want to be like them in the future.

All the senior experienced people here, how stressful / hectic / difficult is your work life as you move up the corporate ladder? 

Is it even worth it to chase meaningless numbers, and promotions, and grow up the career ladder?

WLB or Career Growth?

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