Work Where It Works: Why Hours Aren’t the Lever

Early 2025, and here we are. Another week, another high-profile RTO memo lighting up my feed. Sergey Brin wants 60-hour workweeks. Andy Jassy says RTO or you’re out. Elon Musk is somewhere, not sleeping, pushing 120-hour weeks. No surprise, the WFH vs. office debate has become an arms race about productivity. This, if you really look at it, is just a proxy fight over whose grind counts the most. One side praises the heads-down focus of remote, the other bets everything on in-person collision hours. We keep circling the same old argument.

If you’re not physically present—or permanently online—maybe you’re not pulling your weight. The truth? How you make work work for you matters way more than where you do it.

I know you feel it, the pressure to prove value by showing up—literally and figuratively. The anxiety that comes from knowing your performance might be judged by face time, not outcomes, is real. But let me say this directly. It’s an old frame that doesn’t serve you; it’s time to adopt a mindset built for sustainable engineering career growth.

Here’s the narrative playing out, again and again. If you’re not grinding, you’re falling behind. You feel like the only way to be seen is to be constantly visible, always optimizing. The message trickles down—daily, in all-hands and 1:1s—until it’s just air we breathe.

Extreme hours have become their own weird signaling device. Last quarter, it was the stories about 120-hour sprints, and next week it’ll be the “hero” who answers Slack at midnight. But what’s actually happening? Output gets spotlighted, outcomes fall to the side. People optimize to be seen busy, not to be effective.

Here’s the flaw most people miss. You can be productive and still feel stuck. More hours don’t guarantee real growth—or visibility with the people who decide your next step. Just because you’re shipping doesn’t mean you’re advancing. A system built on endless grind can quietly turn into a cage, not a platform.

You can show up every day and still burn out. Ask me how I know. There’s a better way—and it isn’t about chasing more hours.

Success Isn’t Just About Productivity—It’s About Sustainable Engineering Career Growth

Here’s the practical shift. You can design a sustainability-first system that lifts your visibility with decision-makers, strengthens your core relationships, actually tracks what outcomes matter, protects your time to recover, and—crucially—lets you pick which days you need deep focus at home and which ones thrive on office energy. This isn’t theory. It’s a real, usable cadence you can build into your week.

Now, if you’re skeptical, you’re not alone. I used to think juggling all of this meant adding more complexity, more process—like I was turning myself into a project instead of a person. Maybe you worry this adds yet another time sink, or that “visibility” just sounds like politics with extra steps. Or that your boss only notices when you’re in their line of sight. I’ve heard all of it—and tackle those doubts head-on, promise.

Across this series, I’ll break it all down for software engineer career growth: how to maximize growth whether you’re home or in-office; why an output-only focus cheats your actual impact (and your health); how to track outcomes that make your work unmistakable; when WFH beats face time and vice versa; and how to take charge of your story instead of letting circumstances box you in. Each topic comes with checkpoints, real trade-offs, and the hidden costs I wish I had flagged sooner. You’ll get tactics for shifting from reactive to intentional, without losing sight of what you care about. If you keep showing up but feel stuck, this roadmap is written for you.

Ready? Let’s move from the why into the how. Next, we’ll design your weekly system from the ground up. Simple enough to run, powerful enough to actually lift your momentum.

Sustainability in Action: Build a Momentum System That Lasts

Let’s put sustainability on rails. Start with engineering career growth strategies that make visibility a habit, not a one-off push. Pick the two or three senior decision-makers (your manager, maybe a director, that architect everyone listens to) whose perception actually moves the needle for your growth. Then set a weekly cadence—ten minutes, max—of small, value-forward touchpoints. Shoot over a quick update, surface a recent insight, or ask a question that unblocks a decision. Don’t wait for official syncs. Proximity bias is real. Employees mostly working from home between 2013–2020 were 38% less likely to get a bonus than on-site peers, so proactive visibility matters more than ever.

Next, map relationships on purpose. Don’t just bank on “vibing” in a hallway or replying-all in a Zoom—practice deliberate relationship building at work. Keep a simple roster—your manager, one cross-team partner, a mentor or a peer—and set two or three lightweight catchups every week. Use them to swap context, avoid status theater, and stay top of mind. Sponsorship is about powerful advocates providing real career opportunities, and it only clicks when those with influence actively go to bat for you (source). This is your sponsorship engine. Use it deliberately.

Now, let’s talk metrics. Shift your scoreboard from busywork to business impact. For every project, define the problem solved, call out who benefited, and what changed for the business or user. At the end of each month, share a quick digest—email, doc, Slack post—that summarizes outcomes, not just tasks completed. That step alone flips the script. You make progress legible, even when you’re not in the room.

There’s a coffee shop I worked from every Thursday—a warehouse-turned-cafe, with outlets that only sort of worked and a menu that changed on a whim. One afternoon the Wi-Fi died halfway through a stakeholder sync, so I packed up, rushed home, and ended up finishing the meeting on my phone in the rain outside my apartment. I don’t recommend it, but after that call, the director messaged me directly—“Thanks for jumping through hoops to unblock this.” Was it efficient? No. Did it matter? Turns out, yes. Sometimes the small, scrappy moves add up to more momentum than you’d think.

So reframe visibility as a service. It’s not about self-promotion; it’s clarity that helps leaders decide. Forget the extra all-nighter. Two short check-ins a week plus one outcome share outpaces another round of grind, every single time. Start here, and you’ll feel the momentum build—without burning out your future self.

Make Every Setting Work: Convert Location to Leverage

Let’s get concrete. When my calendar’s mine to shape, I run Tuesday/Thursday in-office for relationship touchpoints and visibility updates—career visibility tactics built from quick syncs, face-to-face clarity, or a “did we unblock the right thing?” chat. Monday/Wednesday stay remote for focused build cycles and outcome narratives. Friday is for recovery and digest: wrapping the week, summarizing what shipped, catching my breath. That simple cadence grows momentum instead of burning energy.

Mandates still happen. Six months ago my team got hit with a “three days minimum in office” policy. Some weeks, you’ll hear the hardline: “If you don’t like the office, quit,” Jamie Dimon style. If you’ve got to be there, aim your presence at decision leverage—not just clocking hours. Anchor your days to prepping for big reviews, unblocking cross-team work, or driving a decision to closure. Make face time count, then let it go.

If your manager prizes visibility and expects face time, here’s the switch. Pre-wire decisions before you hit the meeting, float outcome memos after, make every step legible. You’re not just filling time—you’re making progress visible, converting minutes into momentum. That’s leadership, not politics. Use the system, shape the story.

Protect Recovery, Track Outcomes, and Bet on Real Progress

Recovery isn’t a luxury; it’s essential to avoid engineer burnout. If you sacrifice sleep, skip breaks, or jam every slot with back-to-back meetings, you’re not building momentum. You’re burning through bandwidth. Block out “no meeting” time, carve out restorative chunks of your week, and guard your off-switch like it actually matters—because it does. Self-awareness here isn’t just wellness fluff. It’s technical survival. The fitful recharge isn’t worth it if your cadence drains you down by Thursday. Give yourself the honest space to step back, and you’ll see the compounding effect in your work, not just your mood.

Next, build an outcome ledger. Think simple, one page per month that lists problems you actually solved, decisions you unblocked, and real-world effects you moved. No more hunting through Jira or scanning ten Slack threads to piece together your impact. Every other Friday, take ten minutes to share a boiled-down version with your manager: these are the outcomes, this is how the business shifted, here’s who benefited. Remember that coffee shop story from before? Even the messy weeks—maybe especially those—can become part of your narrative.

Here’s what I know. You’ll probably doubt the time commitment, or worry it’s just another box to check. Honest admission—this system takes maybe fifteen extra minutes a week, tops, and the compounding payoff isn’t hypothetical. Visibility isn’t politics if it helps decisions get made. And the managers who say “face time matters” still respond to clear, outcome-driven narratives—prove it weekly and you’ll watch the difference stack up.

So close the loop. Location is just context, not the core lever. The system—cadence, recovery, outcomes—does the heavy lifting. Run it, protect your bandwidth, and let the momentum compound for you. That’s what actually moves your career forward.

If I’m being real, I still wrestle with whether the output treadmill ever really goes away, or if I’ve just gotten better at jumping off before it speeds up too much. Maybe that’s fine. For now, the working system is better than waiting for the work to make sense on its own.