Adventures In Quora: Can you have good career progression in Silicon Valley with 40 hours of work per week?by Taylor Stapleton

Yeah you totally can. I know a lot of people who put in their 40/week and they still get promoted on a decent schedule. Lots of companies are very "results oriented". Meaning, as long as you are getting your work done and having an impact, they might not really care what hours you are working. I think the metric of "how many hours per day are you in the zone coding" is far more powerful and important than "how many hours were you at your desk". If I'm being honest, I probably only put in 4 hours of real work each day but those 4 hours are some serious kick-assery and I hit all my targets.