On work-life harmony
I truly don’t think most people in tech, especially managers & executives, grasp the concept of work-life balance in 2025.
Between the calls to force folks back into offices under the guise of “improved collaboration” (not getting into that now), the revival of extreme hustle culture thanks to AI & vibe coding, and other signals, it seems like the norm is once again pushing for as much work in one’s life as possible.
This is, at best, conducive to burnout, and at worst outright exploitive. I am starting to wonder if, for some areas of tech, that is the point – the returns on tech investment seem to benefit a smaller and smaller pool of people, and those who don’t want to work to be in that shrinking pool need to work harder and/or decide whether this increasingly cutthroat culture is right for them. The political landscape in the US also seems to be directly incentivizing this way of thinking.
All to say: I am grateful to be working for a tech company that does not think this way and is still thriving.
There are myriad reasons for it, but I do think a big reason is the investment the company has in its people with focus on the long term, rather than short-term hyper-growth. A key part of this is something I’ve heard folks call work-life harmony: the idea that your work and life complement each other well and combine to form a holistic way of living that works for you and your work.
I think I’ve somehow landed this incredibly lucky thing. I spend more time with my family and my main creative outlet (music) than ever. And I also feel like I’m doing the best work of my career.
In terms of raw time, I do feel a sense of balance between work and the rest of my life. We work a 4-day work week. My job keeps me very busy from Monday to Thursday, but I still have flexibility to organize those days how I best see fit. I drop off & pickup my kid at her preschool because I can work at the coffee shop next door and deep focus, while my wife has some peace & quiet at home. If someone at home is sick, I can help them during the day and work at night if needed. I can use Fridays as if they’re weekend days. I often have a few things to catch up on, but this means I can tackle them as I see fit over the (now standard) 3-day weekend. This also nets me more time with my wife & daughter and a little more time to carve out for music and house projects.
The product I work on (Buffer) is something I actually use almost daily, and I likely would even if I didn’t work on it. My wife plans to too when she’s ready to start back up her photography & crafting business. I get satisfaction from the notion that I’m improving something we both (and other people I care about) use.
Beyond this, we are encouraged as Buffer teammates to really embody our target users - that is, we don’t just “dogfood” the product, but rather think of ourselves as a “team of creators”. I am actively encouraged to be a creator as part of my job, meaning I am empowered to put time into creating & publishing own ideas & projects (like Kid Lightbulbs, my music project) and learn from the act of doing this.
This helps me be a better product manager because I’m doing one better than empathizing with our users — I’m literally being one of them. I build my own intuition on what’s missing from the product and in the market of creator tools, and I can act as a steward & champion of fellow creators in my network, while also gathering their ideas & feedback as inputs.
It totally works, too, from a raw acquisition marketing standpoint — I have personally encouraged dozens of folks to try Buffer and become active users by simply being online, doing my weird music/small-tech-product-manager thing.
My work can be quite challenging at times, and I find myself often busy, but it’s often by design and containing the multitude of things in my life (work, family, creative outlets) that make me me. Thanks to all this harmony, it’s rarely stressful or frustrating, and yet I’m still having an impact.
I think more companies – especially ones building consumer products – should consider this framing instead of assuming that throwing more hours or more AI at the problem will help.
