What time to show up at work in tech?

Starting from your first day of kindergarten, you’re told exactly when to show up, what to do, and when you’re allowed to leave. When you get to college, the training wheels are loosened. You have to figure out which classes you’re going to take and at what time. That list of classes is still filtered down by the requirements of your major, and to succeed you do still need to show up at a precise time for lectures and exams. You may also have a part time job, which you work during designated hours.

Finally, the wonderful day of graduation comes. You’ve studied nearly all your life for this moment. The moment you are designated as qualified to join the ranks of the professional world. You start applying for jobs. You schedule calls at specific times. You attend in-person interviews with detailed chronological itineraries. You accept an offer and agree on a start date. In a bigger company, there will be a new hire orientation and you’re told when to show up. Yet that’s only day one. In a smaller company, especially in a start-up, you may get a simple “see you Monday!”.

Great! Now you can make your own schedule and finally live the coveted tech dream, filled with ping pong tables and happy hours. Except there’s one problem: your schedule has been decided by someone else your entire life. If you need some guidance on how to know if you’re putting in enough time at work, here’s a few rules of thumb:

1. First in, last out. Your first year of your first job is filled with an insane amount of learning. You learn from the work you do. You learn from those around you. You make many mistakes and pay for them with time. You redo the same thing several times until you get it right. Be the first person in, maximize your time around those you can learn from. Be the last person out.
2. Calibrate with winners. You’ll see who gets praise and who does not. Good work habits go hand in hand with praise. Observe how the standout colleagues work. If a rockstar is coming in at 10:30am and out the door at 5pm daily, there’s a good chance she’s headed home to continue work without interruptions. This person also has the knowledge depth and speed of delivery of projects 10x faster than you. You pay with time. They pay with experience. Get to the point where you have the same level of experience capital.
3. Ask for feedback. Your boss does not want to have to tell you to work more. What your boss will tell you is that your projects are taking too long to complete (directly or indirectly) and help you fill in the knowledge gaps. That will be a good boss. A mediocre boss will give you a bad review 6 months down the road and put you on a performance improvement plan. A bad boss will fire you without any lead up, while having concretely documented your poor performance the entire time. Make sure to ask for feedback regularly on how your pace of work matches expectations. If there’s a hint of being anything but stellar, make up for your learning curve with time.
4. 9am — 7pm first six months. This is a catch-all safety net. If you are truly having a hard time understanding how much effort your job needs for you to learn from it and succeed in it, then 9am to 7pm should be your standard go-to. You’re a recent grad. You have very little obligations outside of work. That extra hour of Netflix will not produce the compound knowledge gains you should be targeting.

Your first year out of school and in the real world is critical in developing the right professional habits. Good habits take time to form. Put in the time.