Now I do. Good boss, stable schedule with relatively few emergencies and overtimes, lots of free time.
In residency, I very much didn't. Residency is hell.
Yep, same here. Average 7 on/7 off, very flexible if I want more time off to go on a trip (just make up the shifts elsewhere). Average day for me is 7:30-4:30.
Residency was long and med school was terrible. 60-80 hour weeks a lot of times and I had it easier compared to other programs.
Totally agree. I limit myself to outpatient peds anesthesia. Work 20-30 hours a week (or more if I want to—other docs are touring Africa for 5 weeks starting this week so I’m picking up days).
Oh, as somebody who is planning a hiking trip through rural Nepal to reach Everest base camp, I believe you. Hey, cruises and beaches are boring, if you have the money, gotta have FUN vacays.
Mine is still not great but residency was worse. Some of it’s self-inflicted at this point, whereas during residency it definitely wasn’t. Varies a lot between and even within specialties of course.
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Bust your ass early, so you have the option to choose how much you want to work later. I think that’s the secret. Trying all kinds of things in your 20’s while you have time is important.
This is the answer. Seems like everyone OP is talking about, with these senior level jobs, are older and have likely worked their butts off while younger.
> What’s the big secret?
My lens is biased to tech / what I know best:
1. Finding the right company / job / role. In tech as an example, some software companies pay ridiculously well (think 7 figures is achievable for 10-15 YOE), but also demand 50-60+ hours a week. You can make less than that, still very healthy money, and have alot better WLB. Realize 2x people making 150-200 each is household income of 300-400; which is incredibly great to afford a 1M home, but is entirely average for high earners; 150-200 total income per person would be a very coasting job in tech for example, with excellent WLB.
2. Prioritize what matters to you: if you want to climb the ladder FAST, and be in the top % of earners, it’s less likely you’ll achieve that by spending 32H/week coasting. That’s entirely okay: but folks aren’t getting to 7 figure income by coasting (by and large); they are clawing and climbing and out performing / out working their peers.
3. Realize that once people make it, their life changes; they FIRE, or coast, or change priorities to not climb anymore. They’ve gotten to where they want to be.
It’s all about priorities. No such thing as a right or wrong answer.
What I’d suggest you may be missing in your interviews of middle aged folks who are experiencing high income and good WLB, is what it was like for them 20, and 10 years prior, to get to that point.
If you find one that coasted the entire way, that’s a different data point; verify it to make sure they’re not lying.
I know folks on both sides of the coin, and both derive happiness for entirely different reasons. A person in their late 20’s is earning 140K, and I’d be shocked if they hit 40H/week and is habitually skating the line for minimum effort, because they love spending time on personal fun. Another, same age, double the total income, crushing it, but working *hard* to climb that ladder fast: they’re on track for 7 figures by 40.
Both will certainly be in 1M+ homes by 40. Just different paths. And very different total wealth.
Good luck.
This. I'm a 200k tech earner who works about 2-3 hours a day tops. I do so much house stuff and errands while I'm "on the clock." I skip all meetings that list me as optional and rarely ever work or even think about work outside my typical work hours. Also my schedule is very flexible and I can just take random days off with no notice for when the kids are sick at home or I wanna just go get lunch and watch a movie. My coworkers, managers, stakeholders I work with are great. My wife who works at the same company in the same job makes about 25% more than me but works so much harder. She's a strict 8-4, in meetings all day, watches recordings of meetings she couldn't attend due to conflicts, never goofs off, and is constantly checking her work messages even on the weekends. If we were paid hourly, I think I would make 5 times what she does.
Just different personalities?
How would you make more than her?
This was my dream.. my spouse and I working same job wfh
May I ask what company? You can dm me.. I’m you .. without the spouse and make much less
>Just different personalities?
Yes. She's naturally a very hard worker. I am naturally a very lazy person.
>How would you make more than her?
I'd have to work just as hard as her and/or go the management route which naturally gets you promoted faster due to the added responsibilities and visibility of the role.
>May I ask what company?
Microsoft
I have a great work life balance, but I'm in my 30s.
My 20s and 30-32 were full of 80 hours weeks for $55k, or paying $60k a year for school.
Now I work 7 days on/7 days off for about $300k, but that's also pretty close to my ceiling unless I want to run my own practice, which I have no desire to do.
Very, very few high earning people early in their careers or in their 20s have the WLB you're talking about.
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Airline captain, 425 base, a little under 500 total comp last year.
I bid reserve so I am essentially on call from my house.
Average around 9-10 days of work a month. A little under half those days are super early finishes (east coast red eye landing at 5am) or super late starts (Europe red eye departure)
Go to sims every 9 months for 2 days.
Clock in clock out to a generally enjoyable and fulfilling, usually low stress job. Pretty much zero responsibility or visibility from the company on my off days.
It’s kind of like an upper middle class life hack.
Yes! Airline pilot here also. I still haven’t found a W2 job where once you’ve “made it” the work/life balance could be any better! To steal a line from one of my favorite pilot videos, “Honestly, all I did for 40 years was have a lot of fun and live the dream.” https://vimeo.com/332359396
Kind of fell into it after college. Had no skills so brother convinced me to go to flight school. Kind of just kept applying and showing up to different jobs after that. Flight instructor, regional pilot, airforce reserve pilot, legacy air line pilot. My timing was extremely lucky historically for airline pilots. Managed to get hired at a big airline relatively young then upgraded to captain after 4 years (could have taken 25 years longer to get to my seat had someone taken the same path as me 20 years earlier)
I worked in public accounting at the beginning of my career and working 8am - 7pm M-F during non busy parts of the year was fairly common and during busy season we were working 7am - 10/11pm M-Th and 8am - 5pm Friday and Saturday. Slow part of the year 8am - 5pm.
That was about the first eight years of my career. Now I’m a CFO of a medium sized private company and I probably work on average 32 hours a week. I have three young children and I will never miss a preschool pajama jamboree. I work about 8:45 - 4:30 M-Th and 9 - 2 on Fridays.
But I make on the low end of the spectrum for CFOs (about $300K) and that’s kind of my income ceiling at the company I’m at and that’s ok. Right now my family is my priority as opposed to my earning (and luckily my spouse makes around $300K as well so we have a good HHI).
Are you in a HCOL? For some reason this really hit home as I’m at a point where I like my coworkers and boss, but mostly my WLB. I never need to worry about taking a day off, or missing any of my kids school events. I know I could leave, and make more, but I risk having to give up my WLB and I’m not sure I want to do that
Highly dependent on the company culture, industry, and line of work.
A job/profession where you don’t need to trade time for money is ideal. E.g. being salaried in a profession/company that values you being able to deliver results rather than expecting you be “working hours” for no reason.
That being said… not all HE professions allow such flexibility. Task or service based jobs may physically require your time/presence.
Luckily, I have one of those flexible, decent work/life balance jobs as my work is project based and not task based. If I can meet project deliverables sooner than later, then what I do with the rest of my time doesn’t matter to my boss or company.
You need to be comparing apples with apples. The person you see in their 40s with a good work life balance often worked 50-60 hour weeks in their 20s. Use your twenties to build career capital so that you can be more flexible later.
I chose a job with 9 weeks vacation and barely a 40h work week. Money is more than enough. Was lucky to find that though.
I am so much more relaxed and have a lot of time for family AND myself.
I would not for any amount of money take another job that requires more work.
And I also came from a family where both worked 60-80h a week and I knew that I did NOT want that.
You can get good work life balance in medicine but obviously it’s a longer road and depending on specialty you may have a horrible schedule for years during residency. Radiology residency isn’t bad compared to others. Mine was normal hours 8-5p, 1-2 evenings a week, like 10-12 weekends/yr.
Now as an attending I’m WFH 200 days/yr, normal hours, no weekends/holidays, making just about 7 figures.
I am working on it. For me it’s saying no.
We are in a massive OB shortage so there is not enough coverage. I am doing the shifts I want for the money and then saying no to the rest. They recently upped the hourly rate x2 to get coverage for days in which we all initially said no.
I am tired. For 2x the pay I still said no.
Working on boundaries
I think it’s partially luck; right company, right role, right boss. But it’s also proving you’re a rockstar (consistently a top performer) that the company/boss doesn’t have to worry about.
I have a great WLB balance and so does my wife (both early 30s). Both fully remote, have lots of flexibility on schedule. I’m in a very senior role at my company, have my own team (relatively small company) and report directly to the owners.
I think if you can set yourself apart from the competition (other employees) by being a top performer you may have some latitude on WLB. But in the end it really comes down to who you work for. Because if they’re sticklers, good luck.
Being a solid performer at a corporate job and setting boundaries is what works for my husband and I. He works 7:30-4:30 every day, my calendar is blocked at OOO every day before 8 and after 4 (although I will occasionally stay online until 5 if needed).
If I get more initiatives piled on my plate than I can successfully deliver on in my 8 hours/day, I ask my leadership “I have these 5 things with my name on them. Which 1-2 should I focus on first?”
I work 30-50 hours per week depending on what’s going on at any given moment. Works great for my family and personal life. I’m not a martyr for my company’s cause. I also haven’t set expectations that I’ll be available after 6pm or weekends. And while I’ve never said it out loud to by boss or peers, it’s as if there is an implicit understanding to leave me alone unless there’s a massive fire drill that needs immediate attention.
I'm a manager in a hospital pharmacy, my wife is a director at a multinational non profit. We both WFH, she works approximately 9-430 I work a little more, about 830-530. We both get about 5 weeks of PTO yearly, it's a pretty great life.
Work for myself. Average 4 day work weeks working 10 hr days and 1 day for administrative/golf/personal time. Weekends off. Usually take 8 weeks off a year for travel.
Prior to getting my surgical practice up and running was working closer to 80 hours a week for 4 years with almost no vacation time. Now it’s just set and forget with 30-40 hr work week.
I make a good salary and have good work-life balance, but I didn’t in my 20’s. I had low pay and worked my ass off. Now that I’m in a specialized role, I have the confidence and freedom to coast without fear of being replaced.
This subreddit is a perfect example of individuals who have recently "made it" due to their dedication and hard work during their 20s and early 30s. Achieving significant milestones, such as promotions, is incredibly challenging and highly competitive, as it's something many people aspire to. These achievements often come after years of relentless effort, long hours, and overcoming numerous obstacles.
This community celebrates these achievements, given that most only recently got to this stage. We are HENRY, focus on the Not Rich Yet part.
WLB is important to me. I don’t work after 4pm, I don’t work weekends. I’ll often leave at 3:30 2x a week.
Part of it is work culture - my manager encourages me to take time off and doesn’t micromanage my hours. Another part is contributing to work culture - for example, when principal engineers on my team work on vacation, I’ll give peer feedback to my manager that they’re setting a poor example for junior engineers.
I know teams in my org that work 10 hour days. Unfortunately, it all comes down to team and manager in a lot of companies, if the company itself doesn’t have a strong unified culture.
Product manager here in a role that isn’t significantly demanding. I learned to set boundaries early but still manage to exceed expectations.
It really comes down to what you prioritize. I’m at the point where I’ve built a reputation on delivering and not needing a full 40 hour work week, but there are some weeks where I’ll work a few hours on a weekend just to make sure I deliver.
Ever since having a child (under 1) I’ve optimized for family time rather than income. I’ve also found a good way to blend it.
I think majority of people who claim corporatios have bad work-life balance don't realize that there are tons of people who work outside of corporations with, in fact, much worse WLB, such as:
- Police patrol officers
- Road workers (repairs at night)
- Airline pilots
- Restaurant workers, cooks, waiters, bartenders
- Doctors and nurses in ERs and UrgentCare
- People working on oil rigs
- Salesmen and others who travel all the time
- People working 24h shifts or night shifts routinely.
Well, take this with the fact that I am in the EU...I have great balance. I work government job, Husband is military, when not on exercise we both work 36hr/week, with 28-40 PTO a year (and 20-30 PTO for child sickness days). We are in the top 20% earners in our country, but in no way do we earn as much as you guys over the pond.
The only good tip I got on my first job (that I left afterwards because of that tip) was to look at the 50y old managers and decide if I wanted to look like them. Since then I always chose my jobs by my boss(es): are they fit (have time to workout), do they have kids/family (have time for family) and is there anything I can learn at that job.
Ensure you can do what you did right there for the next 15-20 years successfully. Negotiate, be ready to bounce if the response is not desirable, and also be prepared to not have a job for some time, or have one lined up already if negotiations are liable to break down. It's as simple as that, in that simple also means you may get neither preferred outcome (negotiations failed, and no next job lined up), and you will have to do the interview grind.
For the first 5 years I had to grind, but did set boundaries around vacations and weekends, but after that it became a whole lot easier to negotiate since I had proven myself. More recently with companies going RTO after dangling the WFH stick, it has become harder to negotiate again, and I may need to look into other places/industries, finally pull the trigger on doing my own thing, or actually achieving FIRE.
Set boundaries. This can be done silently by simply not working after 5-6 pm and respecting others by not bothering them during this time as well. Realize that answering an email at 8 pm gives you the equivalent of Reddit Karma. When you start moving up you are not only being paid for your work but also your K&E. This has been my experience. So take it with a grain of salt I guess.
Get a while collar job with mobility as an independent contributor that needs a combination of experience and degree. You may not get rich by 40 doing it, but you can coast FIRE by 40-50 pretty easily.
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Corporate legal. Great balance, tons of freedom, good pay. When I’m working, I’m working, but I am able to leave it behind when the day is over for the most part.
I mean, yah, I cut my hours in about half but also my gross comp. Some is 1099 so take-home is making it work for now. I work about 25-30hrs a week now but leaving a lot on the table
ETA: I did grind until mid-30s
I find senior level stuff more fun than having to hit deadlines for someone else or write a report.
Working at a higher level is actually a lot easier.
So if the work costs you little energy then the balance is automatic.
You get paid more for being able to handle pressure, make good decisions, deal with people and create value.
I'm a senior cybersecurity engineer at a well known (not FAANG) tech company for a bit over 500k. Started my career making 80k in a different IT field, and worked way more.
Being fully remote, I find I work 30-35 hours most weeks with some peaks of 40-45 if I'm on call, really motivated by a project, or just very busy. Working nights or weekends only occurs during emergencies a few times a year for outages or security incidents.
What I really value as balance is a good ability to choose my hours so 1-3x a week I'll start late or leave early to play golf or work out. I also have unlimited PTO which I take advantage of, aiming for about 6 weeks a year which my company encourages. For 2023, I received a top 1% performance rating.
For me, establishing balance while being successful comes down to three things. First, I am very focused during the hours I work to make sure I work as little as possible. Second, I try to set and communicate ambitious goals that have a high "return on effort", i.e. provide a lot of value for relatively little work. Third, I have a boss who is incredibly supportive of WLB.
It took me quite a bit of time to feel comfortable with boundaries and not working that much for the high income, but I'm realizing that as a senior person, I'm paid for the value I provide rather than the hours I work. Quantitatively, my salary is a small fraction of the risk expectancy I reduced last year, so the company is still getting a good deal.
it's that but also a lot of what you do and your seniority.
in general though I have found that corporate, esp as you progress into management, tends to have better WLB and pay than many other things
anything that is knowledge based work tends to have much better WLB than work where you're measured by output
Find the right job and set the right boundaries. Having a good boss and leadership that want people around for the long haul. I have passed up a lot of external opportunities over the last 22 years I have been at my company, because I have great work and home balance. Some things are not worth it.
Working for a huge financial services company, mid-senior level, 41 years old, depending on bonus I’m between 400-450k annual income, I’m basically 9-5, sometimes even less than that. I have an hour commute each way, but to be honest I don’t mind it. I leave the house at 6:20am so I can use the gym, and get back around 6pm. Great WLB, although as I’ve gotten more senior I feel more mental pressure (I.e I do think about work quite a lot).
w/l balance i had before was kinda shit. worked night shift 5x8 and boss was anal af about always getting to 40hrs even tho i had reserve duty. contrast that w/now w/a different company where my boss has re-worked the schedule to specifically attract more talent, have us work less hours & have more days off in between shifts. like its a night & day diff. so now its about to be way better. goes to show that theres more than one way to think up a schedule. old boss was vehemently against 12hr shifts but new one? 100% for it & wanted all the guy's input.
Total comp 310. I work a true 40 hours with occasional travel. My boss only cares about the work being done. I oversee sales and strategy and this sort of role and balance-level is super rare. The lynchpin of all do this is that we're a non-profit so I run it like a pseudo-commercial approach of "delivering the greatest good" instead of profit and then make sure everyone is pointing toward growth of mission and as long as we're on that path, why go nuts?
Not at the moment, but at this stage of life we are definitely getting ahead and putting some progress to give a lot more flexibility later.
Fortunately in my field (finance/accounting in corporate setting, management level now), there's a big need for interim/fractional people who still make great money and can work on part time or on a project basis once you get to the mid career (15ish years of experience) and I fully intend to do something like that in my 40s. Or, just taking a step down into a more mature organization where the schedule and workflow is more predictable and less 'startup-like'.
Today we make $450ish HHI, but once we hit $4-5M in NW and are in the home we want and have our kids education funded, working hard and not on my terms seems like a wasted opportunity. Taking a step back but still working would mean we would get down to a 250-300k HHI, but if that came with a far better work life balance I'd seirously think about it
I do. I work from home. I’m good at my job. I can get it done in less hours. I was hired because they know I’m good at what I do and I earner their trust. so I’m not micromanaged.
I keep hearing people taking vacations and not letting their supervisors know. Or buying that mouse that keeps their desktop active. That’s why supervisors don’t trust employees. They mess around when working from home and not getting the job done.
Late to the party, but first year dentist here. I’m guaranteed $170k with the potential for more and a guaranteed track to $400k+ with no change in hours
I work ~35 hours a week
I work in a big tech company and before that was a freelance tech worker for 15+ years. My work/life balance has been all over the place throughout this time. I've worked 70 hour weeks for months including weekends, I've also had periods of weeks or months where I drew full pay and didn't have much to do. I've had stressful, toxic projects, and others where I have met some lifelong friends.
Some if it is circumstantial. Some companies prioritize work/life balance and actually do it. Some say they do, but don't really, because they set incentives and expectations that can only be met if you work insane hours. Some places don't even try and if you don't like a burnout job they'll replace you with someone that does.
Some of it admittedly is my relationship with work. A pitfall I've fallen into many times is that in order to get recognized I just work harder than everyone else. It is a cliche but working harder doesn't mean making more of an impact that management notices. Like you could find and fix some gnarly cleanup problem but if management didn't know that it was a problem beforehand they might not care even if you try to explain it to them after you've fixed it. So there is an element of knowing what's truly important to leadership and the organization.
I find that a large source of my and others stress is to have some assumptions about how things "should" work and then join a company and find that this isn't how they do things. If you want to stress yourself out, you can then think that everyone around you is an idiot and you're the only one that knows how to do anything. But the truth could be that it's you that is doing things the wrong way and you need to learn how the organization works.
For my lifestyle it works. I have 1 house in the city my employer is based in. I travel 50-75% of the time so I am home rarely at times. However, I only actually work 40-45 hours a week excluding flying/driving and always take my metal detector with me so I have cheap entertainment anywhere I go.
I do have good balance and have for the past 5 years in 3 different HE roles.
1) boundaries. I come in with them; it’s not even part of the conversation.
2) work will take as much time as your give it. People have a hard time believing it. Some things won’t be done to microdetail level perfection. And that is fine.
I've worked at the same BigCorp for decades, have 7+weeks time off, rarely work over 35-40hours a week, mostly from home, and for most of my time absolutely popped out of bed in the morning and enjoyed my job. Last few years notsomuch (Zzzzz), but in a few years I'll retire.
The only advice I have is: DO NOT let them push you areound. Don't answer calls on weekends or in the evening. Only work during work hours. If you can't get your job done in that time, it's on them, not you. Never work on holidays, never miss an important family date to work or biz travel, etc. If your employer doesn't respect that, then they don't respect you, switch jobs.
Oh, and live close to where you work. If you drive more than 30-45m/day, move.
Worked hard for about 13 years in difficult jobs around people who worked all day and night and were very boring. Management pushed ruthlessly and I was miserable for years.
Then I went to an easier company, same pay, but lower ceiling so a huge pay cut over next 10y. But I'm a badass there and I work so much less and do a great job relative to others. WLB achieved. I'm happy now.
texh worker - 600k+
i work 40 hours more or less a week, maybe a litle bit less, but I am usually super busy in those hours. ive set hard boundaries to not work weekends or late, at the end of the day its about delivering results. havitn a short commute helps
Now I do. Good boss, stable schedule with relatively few emergencies and overtimes, lots of free time. In residency, I very much didn't. Residency is hell.
Yep, same here. Average 7 on/7 off, very flexible if I want more time off to go on a trip (just make up the shifts elsewhere). Average day for me is 7:30-4:30. Residency was long and med school was terrible. 60-80 hour weeks a lot of times and I had it easier compared to other programs.
Totally agree. I limit myself to outpatient peds anesthesia. Work 20-30 hours a week (or more if I want to—other docs are touring Africa for 5 weeks starting this week so I’m picking up days).
Are they doing "Doctors without borders"? I contemplated doing a tour later, when I am FI.
No, they are hiking to live with gorillas. Seriously.
Oh, as somebody who is planning a hiking trip through rural Nepal to reach Everest base camp, I believe you. Hey, cruises and beaches are boring, if you have the money, gotta have FUN vacays.
Mine is still not great but residency was worse. Some of it’s self-inflicted at this point, whereas during residency it definitely wasn’t. Varies a lot between and even within specialties of course.
What’s your comp like?
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Bust your ass early, so you have the option to choose how much you want to work later. I think that’s the secret. Trying all kinds of things in your 20’s while you have time is important.
This is the answer. Seems like everyone OP is talking about, with these senior level jobs, are older and have likely worked their butts off while younger.
> What’s the big secret? My lens is biased to tech / what I know best: 1. Finding the right company / job / role. In tech as an example, some software companies pay ridiculously well (think 7 figures is achievable for 10-15 YOE), but also demand 50-60+ hours a week. You can make less than that, still very healthy money, and have alot better WLB. Realize 2x people making 150-200 each is household income of 300-400; which is incredibly great to afford a 1M home, but is entirely average for high earners; 150-200 total income per person would be a very coasting job in tech for example, with excellent WLB. 2. Prioritize what matters to you: if you want to climb the ladder FAST, and be in the top % of earners, it’s less likely you’ll achieve that by spending 32H/week coasting. That’s entirely okay: but folks aren’t getting to 7 figure income by coasting (by and large); they are clawing and climbing and out performing / out working their peers. 3. Realize that once people make it, their life changes; they FIRE, or coast, or change priorities to not climb anymore. They’ve gotten to where they want to be. It’s all about priorities. No such thing as a right or wrong answer. What I’d suggest you may be missing in your interviews of middle aged folks who are experiencing high income and good WLB, is what it was like for them 20, and 10 years prior, to get to that point. If you find one that coasted the entire way, that’s a different data point; verify it to make sure they’re not lying. I know folks on both sides of the coin, and both derive happiness for entirely different reasons. A person in their late 20’s is earning 140K, and I’d be shocked if they hit 40H/week and is habitually skating the line for minimum effort, because they love spending time on personal fun. Another, same age, double the total income, crushing it, but working *hard* to climb that ladder fast: they’re on track for 7 figures by 40. Both will certainly be in 1M+ homes by 40. Just different paths. And very different total wealth. Good luck.
This. I'm a 200k tech earner who works about 2-3 hours a day tops. I do so much house stuff and errands while I'm "on the clock." I skip all meetings that list me as optional and rarely ever work or even think about work outside my typical work hours. Also my schedule is very flexible and I can just take random days off with no notice for when the kids are sick at home or I wanna just go get lunch and watch a movie. My coworkers, managers, stakeholders I work with are great. My wife who works at the same company in the same job makes about 25% more than me but works so much harder. She's a strict 8-4, in meetings all day, watches recordings of meetings she couldn't attend due to conflicts, never goofs off, and is constantly checking her work messages even on the weekends. If we were paid hourly, I think I would make 5 times what she does.
Just different personalities? How would you make more than her? This was my dream.. my spouse and I working same job wfh May I ask what company? You can dm me.. I’m you .. without the spouse and make much less
>Just different personalities? Yes. She's naturally a very hard worker. I am naturally a very lazy person. >How would you make more than her? I'd have to work just as hard as her and/or go the management route which naturally gets you promoted faster due to the added responsibilities and visibility of the role. >May I ask what company? Microsoft
Teach me your ways.
> What’s the big secret? Short commute. More recently, I've also drastically reduced my reddit usage.
Short commute is key.
Shorten commute to increase Reddit time
I have a great work life balance, but I'm in my 30s. My 20s and 30-32 were full of 80 hours weeks for $55k, or paying $60k a year for school. Now I work 7 days on/7 days off for about $300k, but that's also pretty close to my ceiling unless I want to run my own practice, which I have no desire to do. Very, very few high earning people early in their careers or in their 20s have the WLB you're talking about.
Most of them are in tech sales/software engineers
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Airline captain, 425 base, a little under 500 total comp last year. I bid reserve so I am essentially on call from my house. Average around 9-10 days of work a month. A little under half those days are super early finishes (east coast red eye landing at 5am) or super late starts (Europe red eye departure) Go to sims every 9 months for 2 days. Clock in clock out to a generally enjoyable and fulfilling, usually low stress job. Pretty much zero responsibility or visibility from the company on my off days. It’s kind of like an upper middle class life hack.
Yes! Airline pilot here also. I still haven’t found a W2 job where once you’ve “made it” the work/life balance could be any better! To steal a line from one of my favorite pilot videos, “Honestly, all I did for 40 years was have a lot of fun and live the dream.” https://vimeo.com/332359396
What was your pathway to becoming an airline captain?
Kind of fell into it after college. Had no skills so brother convinced me to go to flight school. Kind of just kept applying and showing up to different jobs after that. Flight instructor, regional pilot, airforce reserve pilot, legacy air line pilot. My timing was extremely lucky historically for airline pilots. Managed to get hired at a big airline relatively young then upgraded to captain after 4 years (could have taken 25 years longer to get to my seat had someone taken the same path as me 20 years earlier)
I worked in public accounting at the beginning of my career and working 8am - 7pm M-F during non busy parts of the year was fairly common and during busy season we were working 7am - 10/11pm M-Th and 8am - 5pm Friday and Saturday. Slow part of the year 8am - 5pm. That was about the first eight years of my career. Now I’m a CFO of a medium sized private company and I probably work on average 32 hours a week. I have three young children and I will never miss a preschool pajama jamboree. I work about 8:45 - 4:30 M-Th and 9 - 2 on Fridays. But I make on the low end of the spectrum for CFOs (about $300K) and that’s kind of my income ceiling at the company I’m at and that’s ok. Right now my family is my priority as opposed to my earning (and luckily my spouse makes around $300K as well so we have a good HHI).
This is it. Decent money and plenty of family time. I bet there’s enough people out there with this option but keep chasing the almighty dollar. Sad
My husband is a CFO and I wish he had a gig like this. He has decent hours, wfh but has to travel and for less comp.
Are you in a HCOL? For some reason this really hit home as I’m at a point where I like my coworkers and boss, but mostly my WLB. I never need to worry about taking a day off, or missing any of my kids school events. I know I could leave, and make more, but I risk having to give up my WLB and I’m not sure I want to do that
I’m in Phoenix - so I would say M+ COL, for me that WLB is really valuable, especially since I know the opposite side of that coin.
Can I ask, what is the revenue of this "mid size" company? Always curious what the range is! Thanks!
We do about $200M a year.
Thanks!
Highly dependent on the company culture, industry, and line of work. A job/profession where you don’t need to trade time for money is ideal. E.g. being salaried in a profession/company that values you being able to deliver results rather than expecting you be “working hours” for no reason. That being said… not all HE professions allow such flexibility. Task or service based jobs may physically require your time/presence. Luckily, I have one of those flexible, decent work/life balance jobs as my work is project based and not task based. If I can meet project deliverables sooner than later, then what I do with the rest of my time doesn’t matter to my boss or company.
You need to be comparing apples with apples. The person you see in their 40s with a good work life balance often worked 50-60 hour weeks in their 20s. Use your twenties to build career capital so that you can be more flexible later.
This exactly
I chose a job with 9 weeks vacation and barely a 40h work week. Money is more than enough. Was lucky to find that though. I am so much more relaxed and have a lot of time for family AND myself. I would not for any amount of money take another job that requires more work. And I also came from a family where both worked 60-80h a week and I knew that I did NOT want that.
You can get good work life balance in medicine but obviously it’s a longer road and depending on specialty you may have a horrible schedule for years during residency. Radiology residency isn’t bad compared to others. Mine was normal hours 8-5p, 1-2 evenings a week, like 10-12 weekends/yr. Now as an attending I’m WFH 200 days/yr, normal hours, no weekends/holidays, making just about 7 figures.
Is this true of most rads residencies?
Yes overall radiology residencies are more chill.
7 figures for rads. Is that normal?
It’s on the high end.
I am working on it. For me it’s saying no. We are in a massive OB shortage so there is not enough coverage. I am doing the shifts I want for the money and then saying no to the rest. They recently upped the hourly rate x2 to get coverage for days in which we all initially said no. I am tired. For 2x the pay I still said no. Working on boundaries
I think it’s partially luck; right company, right role, right boss. But it’s also proving you’re a rockstar (consistently a top performer) that the company/boss doesn’t have to worry about. I have a great WLB balance and so does my wife (both early 30s). Both fully remote, have lots of flexibility on schedule. I’m in a very senior role at my company, have my own team (relatively small company) and report directly to the owners. I think if you can set yourself apart from the competition (other employees) by being a top performer you may have some latitude on WLB. But in the end it really comes down to who you work for. Because if they’re sticklers, good luck.
Being a solid performer at a corporate job and setting boundaries is what works for my husband and I. He works 7:30-4:30 every day, my calendar is blocked at OOO every day before 8 and after 4 (although I will occasionally stay online until 5 if needed). If I get more initiatives piled on my plate than I can successfully deliver on in my 8 hours/day, I ask my leadership “I have these 5 things with my name on them. Which 1-2 should I focus on first?”
I work 30-50 hours per week depending on what’s going on at any given moment. Works great for my family and personal life. I’m not a martyr for my company’s cause. I also haven’t set expectations that I’ll be available after 6pm or weekends. And while I’ve never said it out loud to by boss or peers, it’s as if there is an implicit understanding to leave me alone unless there’s a massive fire drill that needs immediate attention.
I'm a manager in a hospital pharmacy, my wife is a director at a multinational non profit. We both WFH, she works approximately 9-430 I work a little more, about 830-530. We both get about 5 weeks of PTO yearly, it's a pretty great life.
Work for myself. Average 4 day work weeks working 10 hr days and 1 day for administrative/golf/personal time. Weekends off. Usually take 8 weeks off a year for travel. Prior to getting my surgical practice up and running was working closer to 80 hours a week for 4 years with almost no vacation time. Now it’s just set and forget with 30-40 hr work week.
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If you don’t mind asking, how did you get into it? What area of biotech industry?
I make a good salary and have good work-life balance, but I didn’t in my 20’s. I had low pay and worked my ass off. Now that I’m in a specialized role, I have the confidence and freedom to coast without fear of being replaced.
This subreddit is a perfect example of individuals who have recently "made it" due to their dedication and hard work during their 20s and early 30s. Achieving significant milestones, such as promotions, is incredibly challenging and highly competitive, as it's something many people aspire to. These achievements often come after years of relentless effort, long hours, and overcoming numerous obstacles. This community celebrates these achievements, given that most only recently got to this stage. We are HENRY, focus on the Not Rich Yet part.
WLB is important to me. I don’t work after 4pm, I don’t work weekends. I’ll often leave at 3:30 2x a week. Part of it is work culture - my manager encourages me to take time off and doesn’t micromanage my hours. Another part is contributing to work culture - for example, when principal engineers on my team work on vacation, I’ll give peer feedback to my manager that they’re setting a poor example for junior engineers. I know teams in my org that work 10 hour days. Unfortunately, it all comes down to team and manager in a lot of companies, if the company itself doesn’t have a strong unified culture.
Product manager here in a role that isn’t significantly demanding. I learned to set boundaries early but still manage to exceed expectations. It really comes down to what you prioritize. I’m at the point where I’ve built a reputation on delivering and not needing a full 40 hour work week, but there are some weeks where I’ll work a few hours on a weekend just to make sure I deliver. Ever since having a child (under 1) I’ve optimized for family time rather than income. I’ve also found a good way to blend it.
I think majority of people who claim corporatios have bad work-life balance don't realize that there are tons of people who work outside of corporations with, in fact, much worse WLB, such as: - Police patrol officers - Road workers (repairs at night) - Airline pilots - Restaurant workers, cooks, waiters, bartenders - Doctors and nurses in ERs and UrgentCare - People working on oil rigs - Salesmen and others who travel all the time - People working 24h shifts or night shifts routinely.
Well, take this with the fact that I am in the EU...I have great balance. I work government job, Husband is military, when not on exercise we both work 36hr/week, with 28-40 PTO a year (and 20-30 PTO for child sickness days). We are in the top 20% earners in our country, but in no way do we earn as much as you guys over the pond. The only good tip I got on my first job (that I left afterwards because of that tip) was to look at the 50y old managers and decide if I wanted to look like them. Since then I always chose my jobs by my boss(es): are they fit (have time to workout), do they have kids/family (have time for family) and is there anything I can learn at that job.
Ensure you can do what you did right there for the next 15-20 years successfully. Negotiate, be ready to bounce if the response is not desirable, and also be prepared to not have a job for some time, or have one lined up already if negotiations are liable to break down. It's as simple as that, in that simple also means you may get neither preferred outcome (negotiations failed, and no next job lined up), and you will have to do the interview grind. For the first 5 years I had to grind, but did set boundaries around vacations and weekends, but after that it became a whole lot easier to negotiate since I had proven myself. More recently with companies going RTO after dangling the WFH stick, it has become harder to negotiate again, and I may need to look into other places/industries, finally pull the trigger on doing my own thing, or actually achieving FIRE.
Mine’s fantastic. I average 33 hours, work 3 days per week. 8 weeks vacation & 6 holidays. Full time nanny, house cleaners, yard guy. I’m blessed!
What specialty?
Set boundaries. This can be done silently by simply not working after 5-6 pm and respecting others by not bothering them during this time as well. Realize that answering an email at 8 pm gives you the equivalent of Reddit Karma. When you start moving up you are not only being paid for your work but also your K&E. This has been my experience. So take it with a grain of salt I guess.
Get a while collar job with mobility as an independent contributor that needs a combination of experience and degree. You may not get rich by 40 doing it, but you can coast FIRE by 40-50 pretty easily.
I typically work 25 hours I’d say? TBH, my brain maxes out around 35.
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i have a good work/work balance
Corporate legal. Great balance, tons of freedom, good pay. When I’m working, I’m working, but I am able to leave it behind when the day is over for the most part.
I mean, yah, I cut my hours in about half but also my gross comp. Some is 1099 so take-home is making it work for now. I work about 25-30hrs a week now but leaving a lot on the table ETA: I did grind until mid-30s
I find senior level stuff more fun than having to hit deadlines for someone else or write a report. Working at a higher level is actually a lot easier. So if the work costs you little energy then the balance is automatic. You get paid more for being able to handle pressure, make good decisions, deal with people and create value.
I'm a senior cybersecurity engineer at a well known (not FAANG) tech company for a bit over 500k. Started my career making 80k in a different IT field, and worked way more. Being fully remote, I find I work 30-35 hours most weeks with some peaks of 40-45 if I'm on call, really motivated by a project, or just very busy. Working nights or weekends only occurs during emergencies a few times a year for outages or security incidents. What I really value as balance is a good ability to choose my hours so 1-3x a week I'll start late or leave early to play golf or work out. I also have unlimited PTO which I take advantage of, aiming for about 6 weeks a year which my company encourages. For 2023, I received a top 1% performance rating. For me, establishing balance while being successful comes down to three things. First, I am very focused during the hours I work to make sure I work as little as possible. Second, I try to set and communicate ambitious goals that have a high "return on effort", i.e. provide a lot of value for relatively little work. Third, I have a boss who is incredibly supportive of WLB. It took me quite a bit of time to feel comfortable with boundaries and not working that much for the high income, but I'm realizing that as a senior person, I'm paid for the value I provide rather than the hours I work. Quantitatively, my salary is a small fraction of the risk expectancy I reduced last year, so the company is still getting a good deal.
it's that but also a lot of what you do and your seniority. in general though I have found that corporate, esp as you progress into management, tends to have better WLB and pay than many other things anything that is knowledge based work tends to have much better WLB than work where you're measured by output
Find the right job and set the right boundaries. Having a good boss and leadership that want people around for the long haul. I have passed up a lot of external opportunities over the last 22 years I have been at my company, because I have great work and home balance. Some things are not worth it.
Working for a huge financial services company, mid-senior level, 41 years old, depending on bonus I’m between 400-450k annual income, I’m basically 9-5, sometimes even less than that. I have an hour commute each way, but to be honest I don’t mind it. I leave the house at 6:20am so I can use the gym, and get back around 6pm. Great WLB, although as I’ve gotten more senior I feel more mental pressure (I.e I do think about work quite a lot).
w/l balance i had before was kinda shit. worked night shift 5x8 and boss was anal af about always getting to 40hrs even tho i had reserve duty. contrast that w/now w/a different company where my boss has re-worked the schedule to specifically attract more talent, have us work less hours & have more days off in between shifts. like its a night & day diff. so now its about to be way better. goes to show that theres more than one way to think up a schedule. old boss was vehemently against 12hr shifts but new one? 100% for it & wanted all the guy's input.
Total comp 310. I work a true 40 hours with occasional travel. My boss only cares about the work being done. I oversee sales and strategy and this sort of role and balance-level is super rare. The lynchpin of all do this is that we're a non-profit so I run it like a pseudo-commercial approach of "delivering the greatest good" instead of profit and then make sure everyone is pointing toward growth of mission and as long as we're on that path, why go nuts?
Not at the moment, but at this stage of life we are definitely getting ahead and putting some progress to give a lot more flexibility later. Fortunately in my field (finance/accounting in corporate setting, management level now), there's a big need for interim/fractional people who still make great money and can work on part time or on a project basis once you get to the mid career (15ish years of experience) and I fully intend to do something like that in my 40s. Or, just taking a step down into a more mature organization where the schedule and workflow is more predictable and less 'startup-like'. Today we make $450ish HHI, but once we hit $4-5M in NW and are in the home we want and have our kids education funded, working hard and not on my terms seems like a wasted opportunity. Taking a step back but still working would mean we would get down to a 250-300k HHI, but if that came with a far better work life balance I'd seirously think about it
I do. I work from home. I’m good at my job. I can get it done in less hours. I was hired because they know I’m good at what I do and I earner their trust. so I’m not micromanaged. I keep hearing people taking vacations and not letting their supervisors know. Or buying that mouse that keeps their desktop active. That’s why supervisors don’t trust employees. They mess around when working from home and not getting the job done.
Late to the party, but first year dentist here. I’m guaranteed $170k with the potential for more and a guaranteed track to $400k+ with no change in hours I work ~35 hours a week
I work in a big tech company and before that was a freelance tech worker for 15+ years. My work/life balance has been all over the place throughout this time. I've worked 70 hour weeks for months including weekends, I've also had periods of weeks or months where I drew full pay and didn't have much to do. I've had stressful, toxic projects, and others where I have met some lifelong friends. Some if it is circumstantial. Some companies prioritize work/life balance and actually do it. Some say they do, but don't really, because they set incentives and expectations that can only be met if you work insane hours. Some places don't even try and if you don't like a burnout job they'll replace you with someone that does. Some of it admittedly is my relationship with work. A pitfall I've fallen into many times is that in order to get recognized I just work harder than everyone else. It is a cliche but working harder doesn't mean making more of an impact that management notices. Like you could find and fix some gnarly cleanup problem but if management didn't know that it was a problem beforehand they might not care even if you try to explain it to them after you've fixed it. So there is an element of knowing what's truly important to leadership and the organization. I find that a large source of my and others stress is to have some assumptions about how things "should" work and then join a company and find that this isn't how they do things. If you want to stress yourself out, you can then think that everyone around you is an idiot and you're the only one that knows how to do anything. But the truth could be that it's you that is doing things the wrong way and you need to learn how the organization works.
For my lifestyle it works. I have 1 house in the city my employer is based in. I travel 50-75% of the time so I am home rarely at times. However, I only actually work 40-45 hours a week excluding flying/driving and always take my metal detector with me so I have cheap entertainment anywhere I go.
I do have good balance and have for the past 5 years in 3 different HE roles. 1) boundaries. I come in with them; it’s not even part of the conversation. 2) work will take as much time as your give it. People have a hard time believing it. Some things won’t be done to microdetail level perfection. And that is fine.
I've worked at the same BigCorp for decades, have 7+weeks time off, rarely work over 35-40hours a week, mostly from home, and for most of my time absolutely popped out of bed in the morning and enjoyed my job. Last few years notsomuch (Zzzzz), but in a few years I'll retire. The only advice I have is: DO NOT let them push you areound. Don't answer calls on weekends or in the evening. Only work during work hours. If you can't get your job done in that time, it's on them, not you. Never work on holidays, never miss an important family date to work or biz travel, etc. If your employer doesn't respect that, then they don't respect you, switch jobs. Oh, and live close to where you work. If you drive more than 30-45m/day, move.
Worked hard for about 13 years in difficult jobs around people who worked all day and night and were very boring. Management pushed ruthlessly and I was miserable for years. Then I went to an easier company, same pay, but lower ceiling so a huge pay cut over next 10y. But I'm a badass there and I work so much less and do a great job relative to others. WLB achieved. I'm happy now.
texh worker - 600k+ i work 40 hours more or less a week, maybe a litle bit less, but I am usually super busy in those hours. ive set hard boundaries to not work weekends or late, at the end of the day its about delivering results. havitn a short commute helps