I work at Amazon and the work-life-balance is pretty chill. I do my 35 hours a week (7 hours a day--8 including lunch) and completely disconnect outside of that. Manager has been chill so far, expectations couldn't be clearer and are pretty reasonable.
A lot of my friends work at FAANG and finance in SWE roles too and their wlb is pretty good as well, with most working under 40 hours a week--some well under.
And we're all 1-2 years out of college. I really don't get the whole 22 year olds wanting to work a lot thing. Doesn't seem to hold true in my friend group (~10-20 samples).
You really wanna ask yourself if you wanna go thru the promo circus. What I get after a potential promo at Amazon 1.5 years from now is gonna be less than what I can get if I Leetcode hard and interview with some financial firms and unicorns so that's the route I'm planning on going. Knowing this, I don't even really need to meet expectations or try to go beyond them.
Point being: if you're willing to spend a couple hours a week keeping your interview skills sharp, you can afford to just meet expectations or even perform slightly under and stop worrying about promo and just jump ship when you get a better offer. If you go into every job with this mentality, you won't become attached to your job.
Nobody counts how many actual hours you work. It's all about your impact and whether you meet your expectations. Some people are much more productive than others, manage their time better and so on... it's a double edged sword though.
France is 35h but for a SWE, there's no fixed schedule and you're not paid by the hour. You get 10 additional vacation days though (so that would be 35 days total).
A lot of my friends work at FAANG and finance in SWE roles too and their wlb is pretty good as well, with most working under 40 hours a week--some well under.
And we're all 1-2 years out of college. I really don't get the whole 22 year olds wanting to work a lot thing. Doesn't seem to hold true in my friend group (~10-20 samples).
You really wanna ask yourself if you wanna go thru the promo circus. What I get after a potential promo at Amazon 1.5 years from now is gonna be less than what I can get if I Leetcode hard and interview with some financial firms and unicorns so that's the route I'm planning on going. Knowing this, I don't even really need to meet expectations or try to go beyond them.
Point being: if you're willing to spend a couple hours a week keeping your interview skills sharp, you can afford to just meet expectations or even perform slightly under and stop worrying about promo and just jump ship when you get a better offer. If you go into every job with this mentality, you won't become attached to your job.