From my perspective, companies that expect employees to work overtime are doing something wrong.  But a lot of the time, that does not get through to people.  They think “hours working = features completed”. There’s a lot of scientific evidence against this idea, but it still happens at a lot of places.  So I’ve decided to take a different approach with the argument:  You should have a “no overtime” policy at your company as a marketing expense.

Despite what some may think, developers don’t like crunch time.  That means if word gets out that your company has employees working lots of overtime, it is going to be a less appealing place to work.  All other things being equal, a developer would never choose to work at the place with frequent overtime. Continue reading →