alt Hacker News> I know several top 1% engineers in the Valley who disengage from recruiting processes when 996 or something similar is mentioned.
A few years back, on this board, 996 was something people made fun of when it was reported that some Chinese companies did it [1].
And now, the strongest claim this blog can make is that some engineers in the US would disengage from recruiting? That the issue with working on saturdays is daily standup? What happened in these years for such a change to happen?!
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I would tell a recruiter directly that 996 is a red flag.
Prior to that it was cracked (née 10x (née ninja)) engineers or sigma grindset or whatever.
It's performative. If you bring people together to build something that they actually give a shit about, you'll out-perform a group of people who are grinding out of fear. And you'll _definitely_ out-perform the kinds of people who are buzzword heavy.
What happened? Started with Musk purging half his staff ...
I've been around long enough in this industry to see the pendulum swing back and forth a few times. The peak of 2020/2021 was the epitome of "spoiled tech worker" but now we're well on our way the other side, I'd say.
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It’s better to look at what didn’t happen: unionization.
Americans often remind me of Steve Jobs trying to cure cancer using diets & acupuncture. You know what the solutions are, you just don’t like them.