Does a full time job make sense for a programmer? Labor productivity?

Question

PHP

In the office, full time (8 hours for example).
How effective do you think it is in terms of performance, rather than let's say 5 hours?
Which schedule do you think will give the highest labor productivity, or the best labor cost/efficiency ratio?
Website development, not complex scripts. PHP.

Answer 1

The question is extremely interesting. But I would put it in a different way - not how to make a programmer work longer, but how to make it so that he does more. Those. organize efficient work. From experience, it was possible to increase the productivity of programmers by 10 times, and analysts by almost 12 (!). How?
Firstly, after analyzing the process and eliminating all points where re-work is possible, reworking previously done work. For example, a weak analyst did not understand the requirements of the customer and dumped all this rubbish on the encoder. As a result, the contradictions in the head of the customer and the analyst led to contradictions in the code. How to eliminate? - upgrade the analyst, make the survey process formal, introduce BRD acceptance by a senior analyst.
Second, clean up your code. Periodically do a review, make comments, etc. i.e. it's all about the speed of finding information. Let the programmer not shy away from the office - asking if anyone knows something on the merits of the issue - but quickly find it in the corporate wiki or other portals.
Third, oddly enough, is the layout of the office. If a support, salesperson or analyst is constantly hanging on the phone behind the back of the programmer, he will constantly break down. Make a "quiet zone" or a separate place for shouting with the customer.
Fourth, the order of communications. Make it a rule - do not pull the programmer more often than 2-3 hours. As a rule, he thinks in the "tunnel effect" - decomposing the problem and entering the creation mode. This preparation takes 20-30 minutes. If you pull it out at this moment with a stupid question - they say, give me a cigarette or you don’t know where the production is - then again it will take half an hour ...
Well, fifthly, tenthly, etc. As a result, you will understand that a programmer often has "cycloid character" - i.e. periods of maximum intensity alternate with breakdown and apathy. And the manager's skill lies in inscribing the tasks of the project into these features of a particular person. Maybe there is no point in yelling and pulling - but it is important to give a person just a rest and gain strength. Why should there be recreation areas in the office?
Yes, by the way - the office is also an interesting thing. Experienced capitalists make the office almost homey for good reason. And they outsource small everyday problems of employees - such as taking linen to a dry cleaner, looking for a cheaper apartment, ordering a ticket to the theater or a place in a restaurant, buying groceries according to the list ... This allows you to keep an employee at work longer, catching several of his "peak performance". Moreover, the employee himself will be grateful to you for the comfort and solution of his minor everyday problems. And the employer will save a lot on overtime payments.

Answer 2

About those who work 10-16 hours. Such zeal until the age of 25, and then not yet married, no children, parents are alive and do not get sick, and thank God so to speak.
And then:
If you stay at work for 3 hours during the week, are you cheating on me?! (wife says)
If you stay 2 hours late and don't pick up the child from the kindergarten - you don't give a damn about the child! (wife says) + item 1
Can't you take the children to kindergarten and school? — in general, oh#$%? - You don't care about the kids! (wife says)
Why don't we go to the movies? — in general, oh#$%? - You don't care about me! (wife says)
What do you mean you are tired, and why did I just wear red underwear? + p.1
I went to work on Saturday and didn’t take my parents to the dacha - why don’t you respect and love your parents, son? (parents say)
You are busy on Friday evening ... mmm and on Saturday evening!?!, what kind of friend are you even to meet and have no time to break away! what have you become (friends say)
Not a complete list of questions that a person aged ~30 years and 5 years in marriage gets if something goes wrong at work.

Answer 3

I read an article on the link from hackernews that you can fruitfully engage in mental and creative work for no more than 4 hours a day, twice for two hours.
Personally, I noticed that it makes no sense to work for more than 4 hours, I start to get stupid, make mistakes, etc.
With doubt I read reviews about people who code for 10-12 hours in a row G)
Perhaps such an overdrive does happen, for a while, and then the traffic jams burn out.

Answer 4

8 hours is fine. Someone even easily works 10 hours a day. Especially if the job is mainly writing scripts, and not developing the site / application architecture. The main thing is that the workplace is comfortable and there is a place to escape for 10-20 minutes from work and relax

Answer 5

With complex programming, the first half hour-hour is the entrance to work, then 4-5 hours of productive work, then 2-4 hours, which you can do in 1 hour the next day.
I have something like this.

Answer 6

Personally, I find it difficult to give an exact answer. Although he is a web programmer for almost 10 years. Sometimes it depends on the project. One project I want to do and do. First you do it at work, staying for an hour or two in the office, then you come home and after dinner, you sit and do it until late at night.
And sometimes, especially if stamping, even a couple of hours of work is already disheartening. Rescues when stamping, as a rule, a separate additional payment for each such stamp. And here there is already more interest in stamping.

Answer 7

Let's just say it really depends on the individual.
I will speak for myself - when I am fond of a task - whether it is administration, whether it is writing a method for a program - the time from 9 am to 10-11 pm can fly by unnoticed, and in such a way that you will simply forget to have lunch.
Someone shifts their schedule, someone works at night, someone is tied to the country of the customer with a shift of 5-6 hours to local time ...

Answer 8

Not the schedule affects productivity, but a well-established workflow, the scheme of interactions between roles in the company, the ability to work calmly without being distracted every five minutes, well, as serega_kaktus wrote

The main thing is that the workplace is comfortable and there is a place to escape for 10-20 minutes from work and relax

But well-established processes still require the presence at the workplace, and for me personally this figure fluctuates between 6 and 8 hours.

Answer 9

How effective do you think it is in terms of performance, rather than let's say 5 hours?

As already said, it depends on many factors - if you get involved, you can program for 8 hours or more. But do not forget that most programmers will not be able to pull such a schedule for a long time. In addition, sitting in front of a monitor for a long time is not the most useful thing to do, and if youth forgives this, then after a quarter of life (the average warranty period of the body), everything that has accumulated sooner or later starts to climb out :(

Answer 10

Everything is highly ambiguous.
I had a good programmer, I paid him $20 an hour, he read my blog and went to live in Thailand. And he stopped working for me.
And I went here to Vietnam and hired a programmer for $5 an hour.
And he works for me more and gets less.
And in terms of the cost of labor / efficiency ratio, the increase is large.
And my neighbor lives through the wall, works for 750 rubles per hour, Java programmer. And he prefers to work 10-16 hours a day. And at the same time, his performance is high, that is, he does not sit and stupefies in YouTube, namely coding.

Answer 11

As for the 8-hour working day, it is also interesting that for many people the biological regime does not coincide at all with the mode of work: it is usually best to work somewhere after 15:00, and before lunch, in general, productivity is below the baseboard. For many, the peak of productivity generally comes at 18-20 hours (or even later) - when the usual working day has already ended a long time ago.

Answer 12

If the main thing is the result, then the working day should not matter.
Personally no more than 4 hours. But sometimes there are flashes of conscience, then I can sit for three days.

Answer 13

Provide interesting tasks, normal working conditions, adequate employees, find a person who will be interested in working for this place - and a 20-hour working day will cost a penny. This is if you exaggerate.
In general, the length of the working day itself has little effect. But in the case of monotonous or simply not very interesting work, a shorter working day should theoretically be more efficient.

Answer 14

Do you mean 8 hours or 8 hours at the office? I don’t like to sit in the office - I work at home, and I come to the office once a week for six hours, mostly not to work, but to chat - that’s how inspiration comes.

Answer 15

del

Answer 16

from 5 to 7 in the morning the maximum productivity with clearly and correctly set tasks. after lunch another 3-4 hours of work. for another half an hour summarizing the work and thinking through the tasks for tomorrow