I once worked a minimum of 10 hours per day for 57 straight days. But I was living in a hotel, so I didn’t have to do laundry, cook, clean, or do anything but eat, sleep, put gas in my rental SUV, check my e-mail every evening, call my family once a week, and get a bit of exercise.

It’s not sustainable in the long term. I could focus only on my own needs, and didn’t have to deal with any - and I mean ANY - of the usual things that people need to do. None of the necessities of life. I had a hot shower and a comfortable bed waiting for me at the end of each day. And I managed to do it. But it was difficult. Without at least one day off every 7–10 days, you get tired and cranky and you’re not able to focus on work anymore, kind of like working more than 12–14 hours in a day.

Some people work 70 hours per week out of necessity, especially when they own their own business and lack the funds to pay others because, well, business isn’t always that good. It isn’t sustainable for health - mental or physical.

If you count thinking about the problem while lying in bed and taking a shower, and being in a car, a plane or helicopter for work purposes, I probably averaged 60-70 hours a week over my career.

But when you do this you start to find down time. You don't always think about work when traveling. You have some non-work related conversations while at work. You listen to audiobooks while commuting.

I spent probably 40% to 50% of my working time out of town, so my family got used to my being gone.

I remember early in my career, I was at TRW and they offered me a beer. This was a very small gratuity but I didn't like anything that looked like a kickback. One of my bosses said “Bill, it's Sunday. You flew from Florida to California because they can't figure out what's wrong with their laser. You don't get paid for Sundays. You aren't home with your family because they can't fix their laser problem. I think you can drink their beer.”

And that's the way most of my career went. Sometimes I was on the clock 80 hours a week. After I became a principal engineer and a technical fellow, I was not officially on the clock more than 40 hours. They just expected me to work the hours that it took to get the project done. I was expected to travel without a hint of complaint every week, often getting on planes at 6 AM or getting off them after midnight. Even going to dinner, it was often marketing customers from DARPA, Air Force, MDA, SDIO or other agencies. Sometimes things were exciting and sometimes disappointing.

That said, I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity. There were very few times that I felt what I was doing was boring. People talk of psychic remuneration. I felt I had a lot of that.

If you feel like being a scientist is a job, you will probably not stay with it. It is too much like work. If you think “holy cow they are paying me and I get to do science and discover things,” then you will do well.

I work at Google. I work typically 38–42 hours a week. I know, because I used to work more, and started making a spreadsheet, where I note the times I start and stop working, and made an effort to start working less. My manager was pretty supportive.

It might be interesting, so the reason I worked more than that was mostly because the work was fun, and also this desire to finish this thing you’re currently working on before you leave the office. It wasn’t very good for my social life, though, so I decided to change.

And, as the other answers say, nobody checks on this. If I get stuff done, it’s fine.

In most cases, engineers are not tied to a specific workflow like a production worker.

If you are an early-bird, then coming in a few hours early to beat traffic and also have a few hours before other coworkers arrive can be precious.

You can also achieve the same by working 10am to 7pm. I had a coworker at a company I worked at in the 90′s that like to bike to work. The later hours allowed him to miss the peaks in traffic.

• Yet, we still had significant overlap in hours to collaborate (he wrote code for a microcontroller-based project where I was the hardware lead)

One danger you need to think about: If you come in early, expect to stay late for meetings and other items that come up. I had a boss that was requested to come in 30 minutes earlier each day, and he ended up going home at the exact same time every night.

But at least it was more time to do important work!

Now, in my case 6 am would kill me. I rolled out of bed today at 7:30 and was to work by 8am (being I’m 5 minutes away!)

From what I’ve picked up, engineers usually work around 40-50 hours a week, but doctors can hit 60+ sometimes. Though, like, it really depends on the field and situation. Let’s dig into this a bit—engineers in tech or software might have more flexible hours, maybe even remote work, but those in construction or aerospace? They’re often on-site, dealing with deadlines or equipment malfunctions that can stretch days.

Yet... I’ve heard civil engineers on big projects might do 50-60 hours weekly, especially if there’s a crunch. Meanwhile, doctors vary way more. Surgeons or ER docs can pull 24-hour shifts during residency, which is insane—some studies say residents used to log 100+ hours a month back in the day, but now the US limits it to 80 due to burnout risks.

My cousin’s a med student, and she said her rotations felt like a marathon, but once she’s a practicing GP, her hours might drop to 50 or so, maybe with weekend calls. Oh, and let’s not forget the gig economy’s role here. Freelance engineers might work 30 hours one week, 70 the next, juggling projects.

Yet... Doctors, though, are more tied to schedules—hospitals run 24/7, so shifts are rigid. But wait, here’s a twist: some engineers in startups or tech firms end up working 60+ hours voluntarily because of company cultures pushing for “always on” vibes. let's look at - That’s a modern thing, right? Like, the line between work and life blurs more now with laptops and Zoom meetings.

This relates to... Historically, this imbalance makes sense. Humans evolved to work daylight hours, but medicine and engineering are both high-stakes fields where delays can be dangerous. Doctors have always had crazy hours because someone’s gotta be there for emergencies.

Connected to this... But in the past century, engineering became more project-driven, so deadlines push those longer weeks. Plus, both professions face burnout, but in different ways—engineers might stress over missing a deadline, while doctors deal with life-or-death stakes. Oh, and a fun fact: in the early 2000s, studies showed that overworked residents made more mistakes, so hospitals had to cap hours. But guess what? Some docs still game the system by “moonlighting” at other hospitals.

Meanwhile, engineers in places like Silicon Valley might trade long hours for stock options, thinking it’ll pay off later. Misconceptions? People assume all engineers have 9-5 jobs, but I’ve seen friends pulling all-nighters before a product launch. And not all doctors work 80 hours—some specialties, like dermatology, are more 40-hour gigs.

Also, remote work for engineers? It’s great for flexibility but can lead to “invisible” overtime since you’re always reachable. Practical takeaways? Both fields need better time management.

Taking another view... Hospitals use shift rotations, while tech companies might enforce “no after-hours emails.” But the pressure’s still there. And financially? Docs might earn more per hour but work longer, while engineers might have better balance but lower hourly rates. I’ve shared some *key* insights about this in my profile's biography, including how historical shifts and modern tech affect workloads..

short answer, it depends…

I typically work about 40 to 45 hours a week. However when I am working on a project that has a tight timeline I would end up working anywhere from 50 to 60 hours a week.

I am a strong advocate for work/life balance. My boss is also of the same mindset. You work to live, you don’t live to work. However not all employers have that same mindset. You can end up at a job where you will be expected to put your job over your personal life. Likewise a lot of employees do not have a personal life to go home to and end up making their work their life.

On the one hand it is important to make sure that your work gets done well and in a timely manner. However also keep in mind that engineers are typically paid salary, so any overtime that is put in is not paid. So be wary of how much of your time you choose to give away for free.

This will vary depending on where they work and in what sector.

I work for a government research organisation in Australia. We are paid to work 37.5 hours/week. In practise, many if not most work more than that. A couple of years ago, I was required to log all my hours against projects for a year and found that, not counting distractions or breaks, I was working about 42 hours per week on average. This varies over time, however. At the moment, I am working about 54 hours/week, and when I was a postdoc, 60 hours/week was typical. It is the intensive times that stick in memory, however. There are also times when I do work no more than 37.5 hours/week.

Many scientists are academics, and reported average working hours of academics vary widely (in part, depending on research methods: whether hours are actually measured or whether they just ask academics how long they work). It can be a point of pride for some to report long working hours, and this may skew the results. In Australia, however, it seems that my figure above of 42 hours/week is probably typical, at least in academia.

NASA jobs are just like any other. Most engineers work 5 days a week, normal work day 8–5 or 9–6 or similar, depending on your local preferences, commute times. . There are times when you might work longer - if you have a narrow launch period because of astronomical alignment, there will likely be crunch times. Most of the recent Mars rovers had a period of working 2 shifts or extended hours to get things done in time, but that’s an unusual situation.

Engineers working operations tend to have schedules that move around more - the Deep Space Network, which is world wide, operates 24/7. If you’re working on a mission and there’s a critical event scheduled to occur at midnight, then you’re probably at work at midnight. Launch campaigns will have longer hours.

But overall, no different than any other job. Mostly regular hours, some crunch times, some slack times.

Let’s see… from Monday through Friday, I put in about 7 or 8 hours a day during the daytime, and probably an hour or two at night. On the weekends, I usually end up working about 6 to 8 hours’ worth over the entire weekend. That’s if I don’t have other obligations during the week, which often isn’t the case.

So something just over 50-ish hours a week? There’s a fair amount of variation depending on the week though, and I suspect I’m on the low side for many PhD students I know.

To be fair, that’s only counting research and classes. I also have other flexible part-time jobs on campus, which will usually take up 2–4 additional hours a week. This past semester, I was teaching on Saturdays, so that was an additional 10 hours. In total I’m probably working in some capacity about 60 hours a week.

All these things kind of trade off on each other, so when I’m less busy with one thing, another thing will take up more time.

I think sleeping only 3 hours per night is pretty extreme even for scientists. How long a given scientist works per day is really variable depending on the their responsibilities (ie teaching, research, or administrative work) and the size of their lab (which would dictate how long and often they have lab meetings to meet with all the group members). It also depends on what stage of their career they are in: most pure research scientists have to work very very hard, at least until the get tenure. Overall, though, the amount of time that PIs spend physically in their lab ranges anywhere from 8-12 hrs per day including some weekends. That doesn't mean that they aren't working when they are at home, such as writing papers or working on grants.

email sez: “Suthiraphan Assarat requested your answer: Which types engineering have the longest or most work doing experiments (in terms of hours per week spent in the laboratories at colleges or universities)?”

my GUESS’d be Alchemy,

um,

uh,

Ur,

“Chemical” Engineering.

As a design engineer my hours vary wildly. If I'm architecting a platform I can only do that for about ten hours a day. I'm having to think about the disparate components and how everything fits together. If the system is complex enough I'm wiped out after 10 hours.

If I'm doing schematic capture (EE here) then I can go 12–14 hours if I need to. I jump between my schematics and data sheets, I stare out the window figuring things out. These are much more manageable chunks of the system design so my poor brain isn't going nuts. And since I'm looking at different things my eyes don't get too tired.

When I get to PCB layout I can do 8–9 hours. After that my eyes cross from looking at one screen, and sometimes my legs go to sleep because I forget move them. I like PCB design, it's like a puzzle, but not as hard on my brain as system design or schematics entry. I just need to figure out how to rest my eyes and move my legs.

After PCB design I have a period of down time. I usually work 7–8 hours a day then. But that all ends when my boards come back in.

When I'm doing board bring up and system testing my hours will vary depending on how well the design is working. I hate testing, so it takes me longer than it should. This is where the repetition glazes my eyes over. I might only put in 8 hours, but it feels like 16. Tinkering is fun, methodical testing to prove the design is fit for release is tedious.

So my average is probably 9–10 hours, but that doesn't count everything. I'm almost always thinking about my products and how to make them better. So I could easily make the argument that I work 16 hours a day 7 days a week.

I have. It wasn’t pretty. It requires being able to work that many hours which not everyone can do. Often company executives rise to those positions because they can work that many hours on a regular basis with it harming their physical or mental health. It always took a toll on my health.

Part of what happens though is that you take breaks and call it work. It is easier to spend 12-14 hours a day at work if that includes lunch and dinner meetings as well as other intermittent activities. I can sit in meetings all day long and not be really tired. Just bored.

Generally, after a week or two of this people start to do other things during work hours because you have no choice.

There are some people who do physical labor for 70+ hours a week but they are young and healthy. Their lives become tragic when that is no longer the case.

Depends…

I was in engineering/engineering management for nearly 40 years. MOST engineering jobs are an 8 hour day/ 5 days per week “plus as needed,” which really means “be there for such-and-such test" or whatever.

In addition, there is what you take home or receive at home in the way of keeping up with your technical area.

For the 40 years, I seldom worked less than 60 hr/wk, but 10–15 hrs was usually at home reading. Note that I was in the rapidly advancing fields of AeroSpace, particularly Aeroelasticity and/or Operation Analysis.

One firm I worked at had NOTHING open on weekends, and for Military Security reasons NOTHING could be taken home. Another I worked at was open 24/7 because of how Flight Test had to be ready when weather conditions matched what was needed on the test schedule. Another firm…..

You get the idea. Engineering is a PROFESSION, not simply a job. If you and your spouse “cannot stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

Short Answer: We still work 8-hour days because of the desire of companies to get more done, thereby making more money. We end up doing more than the 8 hour work day because technology allows us to bring work home, schools teach us that working extra at home is normal, and companies encourage this behavior because they get more out of it.

It's not technology's fault in and of itself, it's a combination of factors including technology, our society, and our educational system. Technology just allows us to get more work done for less human effort, but companies want to get even more work done than technology allows.

The 8 hour work day started with the industrial revolution, it's not something we've always had. More details here: The Origin of the 8 Hour Work Day and Why We Should Rethink It

We keep the 8 hour day, because companies want to get as much done as possible, people want to advance, and that usually gets done faster when we put more work into things. People also want to be able to buy more, and to buy more, they need more money. The best way to get more money, is to either get work that pays more, or work more hours. If someone wants to work a well-paying job, but only wants to work a 6 hour day, the company will likely hire someone who'll work the 8 hour day instead.

As for the reason why people end up working more than 8 hours, that's because technology has allowed us to do work at home. A factory worker back in the day would leave work, and have nothing to do with it until he returned the next day. The modern man leaves work, and he may still deal with emails, or add in a few extra hours on documents or software after he gets home. Companies love this because usually, they don't have to pay extra for it. "Oh, you answered a bunch of work emails on your own time? That was your choice."

This helps people to get more things done in a day, and respond to urgent or emergency situations much easier, but it's hard to track this off-hours work and pay for it, assuming the person in question actually wanted to do this work after hours, and wasn't forced into it because it's the norm.

These habits, and the acceptance, of bringing work home may have been built during school, where teachers would assign homework, and students would get used to accepting the concept of bringing incomplete work home, or even doing most of their work at home. We're raised in an environment where we do this, so people don't question it.

Working outside of hours is horrible for the workers because though companies will say, "It's the worker willingly doing work we can't track," they will likely only hire people who they think will do that. They want more work to get done for less money, so they try to continue this phenomenon. It's fine for the people that get paid for the amount of work they do, but it's horrible for the traditional hourly wage.

I was a Chemistry major in college. Freshman and Sophomore year, I had 8 am very large lecture class every week day. I had at least one small recitation class, run by a graduate student, every week day. I had lab work that was due every week, so I was in the lab almost every day until around 5pm. Junior year, I still had classes every morning (not 8 am every day) and labs a couple of afternoons, and I was a TA for ChemEng majors two days a week. Senior year, again classes in the morning and labs in the afternoon and I was a TA and I did an undergraduate thesis that was mostly lab work. Junior and Senior year, I lived in a house with five other guys who were all business majors. They knew to never expect me home before 6 pm.