Hi HN, I work at a nonprofit as a full stack engineer. I've been doing this for about 3 years. The work is meaningful, but not very challenging anymore — and most days I’m done in 3 hours. Occasionally, around deadlines, I might work 5–6 hours, but that’s rare.
I work remotely, and while I’m happy to be productive in short bursts, I sometimes feel guilty or "behind" when I see peers or posts about people grinding 10–12 hours a day. I don’t have any side projects or startup ideas (yet), and I’m not sure what to do with all this extra time.
I’ve been doing LeetCode and have reached final rounds at a few big tech companies (Meta, Cloudflare, Amazon), but haven’t made it past the final step. I still feel a ceiling there that I haven’t broken through.
What do people in similar situations do to: Become better engineers? Feel more productive? Use their time in meaningful or growth-oriented ways?
Any suggestions or personal experiences would really help — I’m trying to navigate a bit of an existential crisis.
Thanks in advance.
al_borland•6mo ago
3-6 hours of deep work per day sounds very healthy and sustainable. I imagine the rest of the time is filled with various administrative tasks.
You can also take the time to make sure quality is high and add in quality of life improvements, rather than just getting to the point of checking all the boxes, so you can move on to the next deadline. My favorite parts of any project were the little things I thought up and added above and beyond the base requirements. I also really liked creating internal tools to optimizing how my team and I work.
kake25•6mo ago
But I definitely agree with you that longevity is important but sometimes I just feel I would work at higher paced or more stressful place given I am still a few years (5) in my career.
al_borland•6mo ago
It’s also nice having the freedom to choose your grid. When I was grinding pretty hard (60-100 hour weeks), it wasn’t driven by my boss at all. My boss actually didn’t talk to me for 2 years during most of this.
Some time after that my boss told me my team was so far ahead I could take 3 months off to backpack through Europe. I didn’t do it, but he was actively encouraging it. This was all from that self driven grind, looking for gaps and opportunities and addressing them. Not every company offers this level of autonomy, but if they do, take it.
These days all my work is driven by management. The priorities change every week… sometimes every day. It’s much higher paced, much more stressful, and it sucks. We actually get less done, because we waste so much time trying to figure out what is actually important. Be careful what you wish for.
andsoitis•6mo ago
It’s not really about the number of hours.
Saying you’re bored (i.e. not challenged enough), is saying you’re unsatisfied and not thriving. That’s worth changing.