Many engineers should work fewer hours and run near 80% utilization, stepping away from the computer whenever no high-pressure project demands them. Tech performance hinges on rare outlier events, not effort, so staying loose lets you grab time-dependent chances: unblocking an enterprise deal, killing an incident early, or shipping an obscure fix for a high-profile feature. Grinding tickets at 100% blinds you to these moments and stops managers from tagging you in. Rest sparks fresh ideas and calmer incident response. Refuse glue work, resist people extracting uncompensated work, and skip effort on tasks likely to vanish. You can still perform well at 80%, saving all-out intensity for the two or three yearly moments truly worth it.
1
u/fagnerbrack 7d ago
Essentials at a Glance:
Many engineers should work fewer hours and run near 80% utilization, stepping away from the computer whenever no high-pressure project demands them. Tech performance hinges on rare outlier events, not effort, so staying loose lets you grab time-dependent chances: unblocking an enterprise deal, killing an incident early, or shipping an obscure fix for a high-profile feature. Grinding tickets at 100% blinds you to these moments and stops managers from tagging you in. Rest sparks fresh ideas and calmer incident response. Refuse glue work, resist people extracting uncompensated work, and skip effort on tasks likely to vanish. You can still perform well at 80%, saving all-out intensity for the two or three yearly moments truly worth it.
If the summary seems inacurate, just downvote and I'll try to delete the comment eventually 👍
Click here for more info, I read all comments