Becca
What is the normal amount of hours worked as an engineering manager?
Hi, I'm Becca
I understand that sometimes you don't get off work until the job is done, I just want to know from someone who works as a engineering manager how long your normal day is #engineer #mechanical-engineering
2 answers
Douglas Lemmo, P.E.
Douglas’s Answer
HI,
Since the vast majority of Engineering Managers are on salary, that they get paid a fixed amount of money per year regardless of how many hours they work. Thus, it is left up to them to decide how many hours they need to work. In my experience they probably average between 40 and 50 hours per week. Sometimes less, sometimes more depending upon what they are doing , but overall most will average about 40 hours/week for the year. If they find themselves constantly working more than 40 or so hours per week (unless the particular project is scheduled to work more than 40 hours/week, which is not usual), there may be something wrong with the way their job is structured or wrong with how they are performing their job. Maybe they are not delegating as much as they should, or they are becoming more deeply involved in projects than they should or their team is not performing as it should and they are trying to "pick up the slack". In any event, they may need to take a step back to evaluate what is actually going on with their projects if they are continually working a lot of 50 hour weeks.
Hope this helps,
Doug
Glenn A
Glenn’s Answer
That is a great question and it depends on the industry and the to particular company. But I do find that the individual worker and the managers put in similar amount of hours per week. I have been at some companies where 90 hours a week are the norm and others that average out to 40 hours a week. I find that in product development that it is common to work 45 to 60 hours a week, depending a where you are in the projects. The managers are there to support the teams and have tasks of their own.