Working Fewer Hours for Career Growth: What I Learned About Productivity and Tech Performance

It started as an accident. Trust me.

A few deadlines had just cleared, and a big project I’d been driving for months was finally stable.

My meetings thinned out, I skipped a few late-night sessions, and for the first time in a while, I didn’t feel like I was sprinting through the week.

By Friday, I glanced at my calendar and realized something odd — I’d only logged about 32 hours.

No weekend catch-up.

No late-night Slack threads.

Just a clean, calm week.

The following quarter, I got my best performance review yet.

And that moment forced me to question almost everything I thought I knew about performance and work ethic.

Before that, I lived under the quiet pressure that most engineers carry — that 40 hours a week is just the starting line.

You can’t show ambition without exhaustion.

You can’t stand out without stretching yourself thin.

It’s subtle, but it seeps into everything.

You hear teammates say “I’ll log in again after dinner” or “I’ll just fix this before bed,” and soon it becomes culture — a badge of dedication.