Coding is very feast and famine for me. Im a experimental physicist in a fairly small group so Im almost always developing solo. Sometimes there's a gap of a week or so without coding if things are happening in the lab. On average i probably work 40 hours/week, but only about half of that is spent of highly demanding tasks. I spread work pretty evenly across the full week.
However, when accelerator time is less than a month away or some other major hard deadline approaches, it can kick up to around 14 hours/day where 90% of that time is highly taxing. That can be enjoyable under the right circumstances, but it isn't sustainable long term. Pushing more than a month straight with 12+ hour workdays usually leads to burnout which can subsequently cost a few full weeks of lost time. So in the end, it averages back to around 40.
I like having variations in workload. i think it would become a grind to do exactly 9-5 m-f.
Junior faculty work more, but they are generally pretty miserable as a result.
However, when accelerator time is less than a month away or some other major hard deadline approaches, it can kick up to around 14 hours/day where 90% of that time is highly taxing. That can be enjoyable under the right circumstances, but it isn't sustainable long term. Pushing more than a month straight with 12+ hour workdays usually leads to burnout which can subsequently cost a few full weeks of lost time. So in the end, it averages back to around 40.
I like having variations in workload. i think it would become a grind to do exactly 9-5 m-f.
Junior faculty work more, but they are generally pretty miserable as a result.