[tmoertel]

> There's nothing wrong with this choice [to work extra hours to get promoted].

But if there are limited slots for promotion, and that's generally always the case, the resulting competition among deserving engineers makes the extra hours more or less mandatory. Say that Amy is a better engineer than Jim and gets a third more done per hour. If Jim puts in 60 hours instead of the expected 40, then Amy isn't going to beat him for a slot unless she also starts working extra hours.

In the end, promotion becomes more about grinding than being effective. That's not great for company culture or retention of top talent.

[pc86]

That doesn't make the promotion more about grinding because the company doesn't care about how much work you get done in a set unit of time compared to other employees in the same set unit of time. The company cares about how much you get done, period.

If the only differentiating factor between Amy and Jim is quantity of work done (this is never the case in real life), most companies will prefer a Jim that works 60 hours to an Amy that works 40 if Jim is producing 5% more.

[wiseowise]

> most companies will prefer a Jim that works 60 hours to an Amy that works 40 if Jim is producing 5% more.

What happens in reality is that Amy produces 10% more in 40 hours than Jim in 60 hours, but she's not a team player because she leaves at 5.