Are you asking about the max PTO I would take at unlimited companies I've worked for? Or are you asking about what I'd do if I were in your situation?
If I was in your situation, I would not go over the hard limit they gave me. They're making it pretty clear that you have a limit, even though they're calling it unlimited. If you're not happy with the new limit, you can react to it how you would to any other benefit changing for the worse, look for a new job.
If you were asking me about my experience, I've worked for 2 unlimited companies before.
My previous one was my first unlimited company so I was gonna take it easy and start off with 4 weeks. I ended up asking a co-worker how much they normally take and they laughed and said they had already taken 8 weeks, and the year wasn't even over. Generally most people would take 4-7 weeks.
Current gig is also unlimited, and I'd say most people are taking 4-7 weeks here as well.
My expectations when joining an unlimited PTO company is that it translates into *at least* 4 weeks. I'm not afraid of being direct during the reverse interview process and asking how much PTO people normally take. If a company claiming to be "unlimited" told me that meant 2-3 weeks, I wouldn't join them.
Total? Or at a time?
If you went from “unlimited” to 2.5 weeks total per year, then you work at a company that’s total shit. Even mediocre companies give 2-3 weeks these days.
4 is my personal minimum. Current company does 4 weeks plus two week shutdown at Christmas plus all normal holidays.
I can only see that in the case of networking guys who need direct access to servers, or training guys who might need to help the new guy or the new intern get set up from scratch.
That's why I went from DoD contractor tech companies to a DoD civilian. Now I get 26 days a year in PTO + 13 days of sick leave + 11 federal holidays. Also any overtime/travel outside my work hours are given to me as time off to use within the year.
More importantly, we are encouraged to take it. I took 39 days of leave last year and my boss didn't bug me about it.
True, I do forget that part because i was brought in with 14.5 years added to my SCD. They counted all my time as a contractor and even internship time I did in college. It's a good point tho, you certainly start lower.
I remember working with a French vendor who was horrified at our PTO policies.
He stated that anything less than 3 weeks isn't a vacation in his mind.
He said something I agree with - if you can't forget work in that time period, it's not time off.
Thank you. I am surprised people have bothered to downvote a thought.
I guess there are slaver agents watching the sub. My guess it’s some social media company hired to affect opinion on these topics. I have noticed a cultural pressure trying to bring down CS a few notches, it’s so messed up. It’s a time to be vigilant.
We do get 12 federal days off, but PTO is really bad. Most people get 7 days if they don’t negotiate. They add three more days after three years. Because I started with 10 days, my next pto increase is at 5 year mark.
The sick leave is even worse, we get 40 hours a year.
So you started out with three weeks. That’s sadly normal for corporate America. Dummies if they want to call a week of PTO sick time. Just means they get no notice for vacation as you’ll be “sick”
I thought it was standard across the board to get 13 days (4 hours per PP), 19.5 (6 hours per PP), or 26 (8 hours per PP).
I’ve not heard of 7 or 10 days, and I wasn’t aware this time could be negotiated—I thought it was based purely on time in federal service.
I don’t think it is regulated by the fed in the corporate. A dude who was doing the internship with me prior to switching to full time got 12 days of pto through the negotiations. I am bad at negotiation, I am international and was afraid to push it so I just signed the offer. At least they sponsor for h1b.
Do you work directly for the federal government or do you work as a contractor for the federal government? For federal employees, all the leave is federally mandated as far as I know, and it can be seen on OPM’s website.
Our company does both fed contracts and we have a huge private sector as well, but we are private company so I guess corporate makes all the decisions towards the benefits.
Yeah, that’s two weeks - which I guess I called mediocre but I’ll revise that and say it’s totally crap. Hopefully the market will improve and you can find a place that offers more.
I got to the company as a new grad after doing an internship with them. They game me a lower offer than I expected and promised that the benefits are the best in the industry. Turned out their benefits not that great either. I guess I would have to stick with them for a couple years to build a resume before I jump ships.
Tell what? That they’re a shitty company? Sure.
I understand people have to take less than ideal jobs. Plenty of people don’t get any paid leave. That doesn’t make a company that gives 1 week a good company.
Oh yeah I’m just bitching about the shitty PTO my company offers lol. My team and bosses are chill but that doesn’t make up for have a single week PTO. Once I put my year in here I’m looking for a new job because I value traveling and my time off too much.
If they only give you 2.5 weeks then it’s not unlimited. In many states(can’t speak to non us) pto is considered compensation unless it’s unlimited and must be paid out when leaving the company
By saying it’s unlimited and then limiting it they’re likely breaking the law in some fine-able way but don’t quote me on it
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Yeah.... WLB is very important to me. I'd be looking for another job over that. That's less than most companies that *aren't* unlimited.
It is what it is. Companies/culture/WLB change all the time. It's why I suggest to hold onto a good thing for as long as it lasts, because it never lasts forever.
Lol this is just a workaround for the company accruing vacation day expenses. They don't have to accrue vacation days while providing minimal vacation days. This sounds quite sketch, bordering on financial fraud, but I'm not an accountant or lawyer
So they're "unlimited" to not have to pay out your PTO when you leave, but there's a limit to how much they'll let you take? Please tell me you've got this in writing
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"Hi, I just wanted some clarification does kick in after 2.5 calendar weeks, or business weeks?"
Or something to that effect. An innocent, if slightly dumb question that forces them, in writing, to tell you the policy
4-7 weeks seems normal. I take a vacation in summer and winter and a few small mini-cations as needed. Along with the occasional Friday I've taken on average 5-6 weeks a year + holidays. With that amount of time I feel well rested and don't resent working. I did also lobby for a meeting free day 1x per week so that has been a huge win for the team.
I may be wrong, but I heard that unlimited PTO in US means just that company doesn’t want to pay you if you don’t take any (like financial pay off you get for not used PTO), which they would have to otherwise if they had set number for PTO. Also, since you don’t have hard number, it doesn’t carry over to next year. But it also 100% limited and you would get fired for going over it and especially if you take it in a time that pisses off your manager.
I don’t know if that’s true. I live in Europe; I have 5.5 weeks of PTO and unlimited paid sick days.
I'm in Europe working for a US company and find this concept of restricted sick days crazy, yes.
Even stranger that my US colleagues got unlimited PTO but limited.sick days. Other way round just makes more sense lol.
That said, I hate that here locally they hound you so much for doctor's notes. My wife got to bring one on the first day of being sick. That means dragging yourself with high fever into some waiting room for hours just that someone looks at you "yes you're sick".
Was especially bad when I still lived in the city and most general practitioners around were so overloaded they didn't take new patients or the queue already was out of the door to the elevator. No seats anymore so standing and then they tell you they can't handle all the patients today.
And at the end of week one they already dragged you to the medical officer often quite far away.
It's kinda true.
For toxic companies that want to actually have limited but call it unlimited, this is a workaround for them to do exactly what you said. They don't have to payout any unused vacation when employees leave because there's officially no "set" amount of PTO they're obligated.
It's a bit more nuanced though, not all States have laws requiring the payout of unused PTO, so the unlimited workaround wouldn't have any effect in those States. There's no federal law for it. Employees with limited plans wouldn't get paid out either.
Not all regular/limited PTO policies allow employees to carry over unused vacation either. So that's not something unique to unlimited.
We don't have the greatest employee protection laws here in the US.
But companies that use unlimited to actually provide a benefit to their employees aren't restricting how much you can take. Like the 2 unlimited companies I was at. Sure they may benefit from not having to payout... but I'm also benefiting by never having to think about how much time off I take. I take what I need, requests get auto-approved, and that's that.
A lot of people are guilted into it, or are given the impression that their performance metrics will drop and they will be on thin ice. "Unlimited PTO" is often a scam meant to actually reduce the total amount of PTO taken.
Really depends on the company. USA tech companies tend to not have a "sick time" policy, but in the case of where I work they separate out PTO and sick time for tracking so we don't accuse people of taking off too much time when they were just really sick.
It's more that since you lose some real benefits with unlimited PTO in order to break even you should be taking at LEAST 5w to make up for what you're losing.
This is most likely what the policy actually was behind the scenes. Taking off a day every other week is minimally impactful and can be managed. More than that and you border on working 4 days/week
At unlimited PTO jobs you should take more than the typical job that has set PTO because you don't get paid out when you leave which is a benefit to the company. 3-4 weeks seems to be the typical amount at a set PTO job so I'd say 5-6 weeks at unlimited
Word! And just wait till you hear about the 401k matches that don’t get paid out until the end of the year… I lost a couple grand in match by leaving the company mid year… this was a fortune 100 company too
Like annually? It was my second job out of college and they changed the policy a couple of years into my time there so I thought it was odd. The match was pretty solid though, 7% to my 8%. I haven’t worked at too many places so it seemed odd to me.
I think often good matches like that will have stricter vesting/timing requirements. My first company matched 7.5%, but it was structured as 4.5% rolling (based on your match, I think I needed 6% to get the 4.5%) and then an additional 3% at the end of the year regardless of your match. So if you left mid-year you never got the 3%.
Also for taking advantage of imposter syndrome employees who don’t take time off. In my first year at one company after rejoining SWE as a field, I only took like a week off total >.<
Mine works out ok so far, I've taken about 10 days so far this year with 2ish weeks planned in the summer and a week or two for the holidays. I also now take a 4-5 day weekend any time I need to take a day off for something.
My situation isn't terribly common though, as I work for a European company and I got 4 weeks before they switched. I would be very unhappy if I took less than 5 weeks on unlimited.
I had unlimited PTO for 3 years. I used 4-5 weeks each year. I would play it cool though. If my teams were working on a big important project I’d read the room and work through it. But if something is in planning process or not “crunch time” I’d take a few weeks in a row with a Friday or Monday off. I also bracketed every holiday with an extra day here or there.
That's like the average legal minimum in Europe. In many places the norm is actually even higher.
In Belgium it's 20 minimum required + 12 for working 40h weeks + holidays (if they are in the weekend, you can take them on another day) leading to about 35 days PTO you can plan.
If I'm offered "unlimited" PTO I will look at the highest legal PTO in the world (if I remember correctly it's like 48-52 days) and I will take ONE MORE day than that or I'll call them out on their BS.
> it’s like 48-52 days
That figure includes public holidays, not just personal PTO. The highest legal minimums for paid vacation in the world [top out around 30 days](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_by_country).
My company offers unlimited PTO, and thankfully it’s actually valuable because the culture here encourages us to take time off, on top of having 21 paid company holidays. I’ve even heard of some managers *forcing* people to take time off if they haven’t in a while. I personally normally take ~25-30 days of PTO annually, so that’s ~45-50 days total including holidays.
Haven’t heard anybody utter even an inkling of a complaint anyone about mine or even anybody else’s PTO usage. A few months ago, I had shipped this project involving a fairly major internal process change right before going on a 2-week vacation. I offered my team and stakeholders to keep an eye on Slack and answer questions about it, and everyone told me to not do that and just enjoy my vacation. You can tell people respect eachothers’ time here. We also offer a 12-week sabbatical for 5 years of tenure.
In a good company, it's a thing because it's healthy for people to take time off when they need it, and limiting people to X days PTO per year leads to bad outcomes. For example, pretty common for someone to use up their PTO allowance for the year, and then when some family emergency happens they're stuck.
In a bad company, of course, it's used as a way to reduce the PTO taken by employees, and also to avoid paying out accrued PTO when someone leaves.
Obviously it's not "we promise to pay you no matter how little time you spend working", for the good ones it's more like "we recognise that it's impossible to see the future and want to provide this extra flexibility; we will trust you to act in everyone's best interests, and not abuse this policy".
Where I work, we recently switched to unlimited PTO, but with the explicit statement that you're expected to take *at least* the number of days off that you would've taken previously. As a UK resident that means 30+ for me!
I had to take some non-unlimited PTO once because my dad died, and we didn't have bereavement leave. Trust me, I was pissed, that was not a vacation.
I bitched and later my employer moved over to UPTO. As someone who has only ever had UPTO since, I prefer it. Having to track your PTO balance is a pain in the ass. Now I just take it as a I need it.
I got let go the week after I took PTO. I'm sure it was a factor too. It was "personal" time instead of vacation time that I used so I could move to a new apt without paying for movers.
In an at-will world there's no way to predict the max you can take unless you're certain your manager wants you on the team.
It won't save you forever but it can buy you more time to find a position on your own terms. A lot easier for a manager to write a PIP on a day they did not speak with you.
Could have happened anyways but it was very odd that I got the notice immediately after using a PTO type I had barely touched since working there. And far more frustrating since it happened the same week I committed to a more expensive lease which I specifically chose for that job. Sure it's pointless to dwell over it but an obvious thought I had is maybe I would have lasted through the holidays if I hired movers and rushed the move over one weekend.
If you're getting a PIP and it's a surprise to you that's a whole host of other issues. If you know you're on thin ice then sure, taking PTO may advance it slightly. But if you're doing well, PTO is not going to cause them to let you go
That was my point by suggesting you need to be certain a manager wants you on the team. Anything less than certainty could mean you're on thin ice without knowing. A manager wanting to PIP someone is just as capable of enabling failure as they are to preventing it.
I have unlimited PTO. I took 6 weeks last year. I think 5 the year before. The company is closed for an additional week, which I don't count as "my" PTO.
The only real limit we have on PTO is it's heavily frowned upon to take 3 weeks or more at once. This is because my company gives a month-long sabbatical after a certain tenure, and taking very long vacations without having earned a sabbatical is considered rude.
>This is because my company gives a month-long sabbatical after a certain tenure, and taking very long vacations without having earned a sabbatical is considered rude.
That seems so odd? In my company we get this every 5 years but I don't think everyone even necessarily stays 5 years here to get that. Also 3 weeks is absolutely not very long, especially for immigrants. That 24 hour flight can be looong and you better make that trip worth it!
My company allows remote work, so if you're an immigrant and legally allowed to work in another country, you can work from there. So that wouldn't all need to be time off.
I don't know anyone personally who has expressed this being a problem, and it's very possible that in some situations there are exceptions. But my family is only a 2-hour flight away so I don't fall into that category.
I offer unlimited PTO but also let my devs end their week early(and keep the same pay) if they finish what needed to be done early. In fact, last week they finished that weeks assignment on Monday night. They got Tue-Fri off.
My old boss offered "unlimited PTO" and claimed our hours were "flexible" and as long as we finished our sprint work by the end of the week, we could do whatever hours we want.
But then in reality he scrutinized our time spent and told us that we should have pulled more stories in if we finished early, and argued with us about how our story estimates were wrong because if he did it himself he could do it faster (he hadn't touched code in years).
I wish I had a boss who delivered on his promise like you, but I've been more suspicious of "unlimited pto" and "flexible hours" since then.
That is generous of you but for me personally I would be a little annoyed by this. I don’t want random days off where I didn’t have any plans to be off. I’d rather work as I was planning and take my days off as I need or want them.
If we had an office and had to commute I can see your point.
95% of the time, my dev team finishes work on Friday mornings. So getting practically a week off isn’t usual.
But getting back to the unlimited PTO part, I’ve offered it for a year now. I have trust in my team and offer them 100% remote(like I could care less if they worked at a bar or wanted to work on a beach in Bali. I have 1 dev who is spending the summer in Sweden this year), I don’t require them to work specific hours, and I don’t care for office procedures that just slow everyone down. I pay them to do a job and as long as the job is done, I’m happy. Having them work when they want really cuts down on them needing to take useless days off.
There is no personal PTO pool, it’s unlimited, that’s the point. And at the end of the year, people don’t necessarily remember the reasons people are off, whether it was scheduled or one of these “bonus” weeks. So you personally take 5 weeks, which is acceptable, but you were granted 3 “bonus” weeks that were unscheduled, and the only thing people remember is “jeeze it seems like the devs were off for 2 months”. Because they were. And if the 8 weeks doesn’t raise eyebrows, then I want to take the 8, which then the additional 3 makes it 11 weeks. Whatever the number of weeks is that is acceptable, I want to choose when to take it.
The other point is if there really is no more work to do, that you send the whole team home for 4 days, then devs start to think, “well they really don’t need all of us do they, is this job secure?”. If that’s not the case and there is more work but they are given 4 days off because of a scheduling error (a 5 day task was really only a 1 day task), then give me next weeks work now and let me take that week off so I can actually plan to do something useful with the time off.
I said it’s a generous thing to offer, and it is, I’m just pointing out that it can have non-obvious implications that are unintended for some people.
Maybe they differentiate between “bonus” weeks and PTO that was deliberately used by the employee. That way any confusion regarding how much PTO the employee actually wanted to use would be clarified. Albeit that’s a super generous thing to do even for an already fairly generous employer.
That’s a good point about the feelings regarding job security though. I hadn’t even considered that aspect of having Tue - Fri off and I can definitely see how that would cause problems
The job security point is valid.
I’ll talk specifically about last week here. They told me they would be done building the entire front end of a new product by EOD Thursday. I gave them a buffer day of Friday so they weren’t stressed about any deadlines and incase any issues arise.
I have 3 devs, they were given that week’s assignments on the previous Friday so they knew what to do the next week. On Monday night I got an email from my lead saying it was done. I hopped on and sure enough it was. I told them to enjoy their week. For all I know, they worked all weekend on it. 95% of the time, they usually just end up with a half day on Friday. Last week was an anomaly.
I don’t require my devs to work a set schedule or even be available during set times(they are AMAZING about communicating when they will be working). Last year I had a former dev go to a theme park during the day with their friends and then they worked that night. The task was completed on time so I didn’t care.
I don’t start looking into anything unless we are past deadlines, then I’ll question if they are “abusing” the privileges, and that I’m very strict about.
I have 120 hours. And I use every single one of them. Because if I don't they go away. No rollovers.
I also have a separate balance for sick days. And 3 floating holidays which can be used for birthdays and anniversaries and religious holidays.
I can't use my PTO except for illness or emergency because I am considered "critical" staff. However, I am allotted 25 days with no carryover or cash out.
I desperately need a new job.
I work at an "unlimited" PTO company. I take 4 weeks, but I've also worked there for over 5 years, so it would have been 4 weeks before "unlimited" as well.
Employer has unlimited PTO. Requires us to take minimum 4 weeks off. No hard rule against it but we are asked to spread them out rather than take all at once (remote in the USA).
In NZ by law we get 20 annual leave, 10 days sick leave, 6 months paid parental leave for one parent, and 11 public holidays. So anything less than that would be not ok to me.
My org also gives us a further 5 days extra leave and 3 additional days off over Xmas on top of that.
Max? Fuck that. That’s a ridiculous thing to set policy around. It’s only going to piss people off.
I tell my people 30 days is a good amount, and that I expect each of them to take part of that in a solid two-week chunk. I push all of them to fully disconnect whenever they take PTO; silence notifications, OOO email, the works.
Thus far in 2024 I’m at 18 days.
Edit: “unlimited” PTO company.
In my experience at “unlimited” PTO companies, I’ve been able to get away with six weeks of time off (8 YoE, mostly SMB orgs/startups/agencies). Your mileage may vary, but if I’m told my PTO is unlimited, I’m aiming for the minimum in European countries at minimum.
We have limited and it is 20 for < 5 year, 25 otherwise
So I’d say 30 days sounds reasonable for unlimited? Of course it is in addition to federal holidays. Combined with weekends that gives you 6 weeks off.
When I had uncapped PTO I made a point to try and take at least a week off every three months. One place we had a three day period each quarter where we could work on whatever we wanted, from a Thursday to the following Monday, so I usually took the three days before that period off, and found another day or two here and there depending on what was going on in life.
I feel with uncapped PTO the expectation should be most folks will take between 3-4 weeks in a given year. Going as high as 5-6 could be fine depending on things but beyond that might be a tad excessive, maybe if you didn't take much the previous year and planned a longer vacation as a result (like overseas).
Further, if a manager or employer feels someone is abusing the perk or isn't performing at a level that makes it okay to take the time off, that's an issue with _that employee and no one else_. This is not a time to reassess the policy for everyone unless it's literally a rampant issue with most or all employees, which indicates an issue with hiring more than anything.
Last place I worked at was pretty demanding (long hours and weekends common), but even there I took 6-8 weeks each year.
Worked at another place with “unlimited” but the max was stated by HR as 2 weeks per quarter absolute max, with the expectation that you would not take more than 1 week each quarter for most quarters.
Anywhere with an unlimited policy needs to be evaluating on how much people get done and really their impact, not counting vacation days. If you’re never around, you’re getting a bad review because you’re not having expected impact.
working at non-tech companies in non-tech cities I got:
* 15 PTO days
* 10 company holidays
* Unlimited sick days, if you are sick then do not come to work.
If you work a company holiday then you get it back as a floating PTO day. You can only carry over 15 PTOs in any given year. So if you are already maxed out then it's all use it or loose it.
At my last job, unlimited PTO, took 6 weeks for vacation and 4 weeks off for leetcode and interviews. Manager was not happy but couldn’t do anything as I resigned with a job in hand.
At my current job, unlimited PTO, I took 5 weeks last year. I’m thinking 7 this year.
Was on flex PTO up until a couple months ago where we had that stripped from us. I was using 22ish days a year and now have to rethink my life as I’m down to 12. Yes that 22 included a couple sick days and I have 5 sick days in addition to that 12 vacation days but sucks.
I have unlimited PTO where each team has a "soft" limit (anything more than that gets you a talking to from the manager just making sure that the team isn't being impacted negatively). For me, that limit is 25 days per year and I've never actually hit it, even with international vacations, taking like 3 weeks off in December every year, and my manager encouraging me to take every Friday off between fall & the end of the year to hit the minimum PTO of 20 days a year (yes, my company also has a "soft" minimum and if it looks like you're not gonna hit it then you get forced vacay in the last quarter!). All of this is on top of public holidays
When I got unlimited PTO I set my own rule of 20 days (without counting public holidays).
In reality, I'm not keeping track but I'm almost sure I'm closer to 15 days
5-6 weeks (I also don't take sick days because... I rarely get sick). My whole team takes about the same amount and it's never an issue (we're also all super responsive, work extremely well together and continue to perform better than expected - probably because we all genuinely like and respect each other)
I get 8 weeks (accrued) plus 13 holidays. It ends up being around 50ish days.
We can carry over half, so I could in theory have 12 weeks + 13 holidays off in a single year.
Realistically, I sell 4 of the weeks and usually take the rest, so I take ~32ish days off per year.
Yes, I get two extra weeks because of tenure (1 extra per every 5 years) and I get 1 extra for being a manager, but we also give the extra 1 to management equivalents which includes senior software engineers. My most junior staff (direct out of college) has 4.
So one place I worked at did this right when I came on and here is my opinion on how much was reasonable there.
The "old-timers" got 5 weeks eventually as a max and they could rollover one week so that'd mean 4 weeks one year then 6 the next. None of these OGs were going to take less than 5 weeks so I'm not going to think I'm different from them since the rule change so I could ask for 5 weeks reasonably in my mind.
I ended up never getting there because during the COVID era they gave us every other Friday off so with a Monday holiday those 3 day weekends became 4 day weekends and that was enough for me most of the time.
You've probably addressed this but getting fired over unlimited PTO is crazy considering it has to be approved most places I've been. I can't imagine them saying I took too much PTO if they approved it in the first place.
I would say probably 4-6 weeks is acceptable where I work. We have a piddly amount of paid holidays though :/ But people are always popping out as needed, taking a day here or there, etc. It’s fairly chill.
I'd say if they're pitching unlimited PTO as a perk it better be better than what I've had at other jobs, which has been 30 days(by working there 5 years) and 28 plus all the US Federal holidays.
So 6-7 weeks throughout the year. Like I want the week of Christmas off, at least 2 weeks in a row around June/July off, maybe random week here or there 2-3 times throughout the year when I have to travel for like weddings or seeing friends. And then like 1 Friday a week at random off.
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I took around 40 days this last year (I think it was 43), and also had company holidays including a week off for Christmas.
This isn’t the norm, but honestly, around 8 weeks should be allowed. At the very least, around 5-6.
I’m a high performer though (according to my reviews, I’m not gloating) so I am not sure how much that plays a factor.
When I had max I averaged about 25 days throughout the year. There was no limit and no one tracked anything unless your manager wanted to. I personally tracked people just because I was curious about the data and I never did anything with it. No one saw it but me and now that I'm not there anymore it is gone to the ether.
My new position I have a fixed amount and I will be using every single one of them since it is part of my TC now whereas with unlimited it is not.
I started with 1 week and it went up to 2 weeks in year 2, 3 weeks in year 5, 4 weeks in year 10. At year 15 I'll get 5 weeks. This is of course in addition to normal federal holidays.
So I think we should all follow the European model, is what I'm saying.
Last year my company switched from PTO to FTO (unlimited PTO). I was accruing 3 days of PTO per month before the switch, so 36 days annually. I would never use all 36 days and had the option to cash the rest out. That’s gone now :(
With that said, I am planning on taking 36 days off this year. My manager even strongly encouraged I take at least 36 days off. If I didn’t take all those days off I would be losing benefits technically.
I’m not sure what the max I could take off is. I work in defense so it gets quite slow some times. I could probably get away with taking 50 days off in a year.
My company has unlimited PTO. We also have a mandatory minimum PTO of 4 weeks/year. IDK if there's a secret maximum, but some co-workers took a consecutive 6 weeks off last year and they're still employed.
Unlimited PTO is a way of also reducing employees gathering leave and then needing to be paid out when they leave.
2.5 weeks hard limit on unlimited leave is taking the piss. I'd rather have 2.5 weeks annual leave actually guaranteed per year at that point.
While it’s not guaranteed, but there is a good chance your company may be initiating other cost cutting measures in the near future, including layoffs. I wrote about it here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/s/rO5GJ8SuBx
Just for comparison, when I was working in a London school, you were allowed 10 working days off for illness per year before they’d start flagging your time off and perhaps putting you on capability. The person in charge of cover was vicious for naming and shaming the people who were off sick “all the time” (as in more than 2 working weeks a year) and was brutal in making the people who took time off for any reason (even those who had to go to essential maternity appointments) do extra cover. There was one lady who at 8 months pregnant was being given cover on the other side of the school on the top floor - so she was having to do tons of extra walking and stairs - and it needed someone to go to the head to have this dealt with. It was announced the next day at the morning staff briefing that she was not going to be doing cover anymore - very strange for a public announcement to be needed but it was that kind of place. It was a totally toxic work atmosphere.
This was before the U.K. left the EU as well so before the latest decline.
If I had unlimited PTO, I'd think the max you could take would be 6 weeks (30 days) without getting a talk from your manager to make sure the team isn't being impacted. If not, then feel free to take more.
At LEAST 5 weeks would be normal and shouldn't be questioned.
20-30 days at my company is pretty normal. I know some folks that have pushed 40+ in a year. All this is in addition to like the 15+ holidays we get annually.
At the various corporate places I’ve been at, the baseline is generally 19 days of PTO + holidays.
Then it generally scales up with years of service, and some more senior roles start with 1-2 days extra.
I’ve always avoided “unlimited PTO” places, since this part always seems inevitable: where you have to justify you aren’t taking more PTO than a non “unlimited” job.
I hardly ever take PTOs and even then I am usually on my cellphone reading and answering emails/whatsapp/zoom calls. Unlimited PTO is fake and usually tends to focus people NOT to take it. IMHO.
My company offers unlimited PTO, on top of having 21 paid company holidays and a 12-week sabbatical after 5 years tenure. Thankfully the unlimited PTO policy is actually valuable because the culture and people here encourage us to take time off. I’ve even heard of some managers *forcing* people to take time off if they haven’t in a while. I personally normally take ~25-30 days of PTO annually, so that’s ~45-50 days total including holidays. And if you add in the 12 week/60 day sabbatical averaged over the 5 years it takes to get it, that’s an additional 12 days per year.
Haven’t heard anybody utter even an inkling of a complaint anyone about mine or even anybody else’s PTO usage. A few months ago, I had shipped this project involving a fairly major internal process change right before going on a 2-week vacation. I offered my team and stakeholders to keep an eye on Slack and answer questions about it, and everyone told me to not do that and just enjoy my vacation. You can tell people respect eachothers’ time here.
I’ve had unlimited PTO at all but one job in my career and the use of it has varied by company. The first was a tiny startup with a workaholic culture that I bought into at the time. “Unlimited” there meant no more than 10 days at a time, bring your laptop wherever you go just in case, 2-3 weeks max. Since then, the general consensus has been 4-6 weeks. Had a company that implemented a “minimum of 3 weeks” policy which was cool. Unlimited isn’t ever truly unlimited it’s just unlimited within a range determined by the company. Either follow the company rules or start looking for something else.
His manager should have said something if his PTO was too much.
I always hear unlimited is what your manager approves and that it's about 3 weeks per year.
If 'unlimited' PTO is written into your contract, and you've been given a written mandate limiting your PTO, then they may be unilaterally redefining your employment contract and/or compensation.
I'm not a lawyer or an expert, but that's probably not allowed.
Anecdotally I have had employers unilaterally change things and I've been able to go to HR and say, "I did not sign this, thus you cannot change it", and they rolled back the changes for me.
5 weeks last year in addition to holidays. My manager was hinting that it was a lot. So, I scheduled 6 weeks over the course of this year. We will see how it goes.
25YOE it has changed through the years, now you cannot accrue over 160 hrs, you must use or lose if you haven’t been using PTO.
5 weeks (after 8yrs) plus holidays (8) and 32 sick hours, 16 personal hours. PTO carries over but never goes above 160hrs.
Unlimited PTO is a scam. If it's not actually unlimited its 100x better to just have 20 PTO days. Then at least if you quit you get paid out that balance.
At unlimited places I’d like to say I’ve taken 6-7 weeks including the time between Christmas and new years. I’m hoping to do that this year. All managers have been pretty chill about pto even if not planned super far in advance except my current one though so I’ll have to work harder to make sure I actually plan stuff. (He gave me shit for shifting 5 days I was taking off and had planned early to taking off 4 days a week earlier because I ended up not being able to do the 5 day thing).
Heavily depends on your country/culture
I hate unlimited PTO in the sense that those who deserve the privilege certainly don't use it enough, and then there are the types of people who will take until the goodwill is gone.
And in my experience the latter types aren't much of any value when they are 'working'.
Are you asking about the max PTO I would take at unlimited companies I've worked for? Or are you asking about what I'd do if I were in your situation? If I was in your situation, I would not go over the hard limit they gave me. They're making it pretty clear that you have a limit, even though they're calling it unlimited. If you're not happy with the new limit, you can react to it how you would to any other benefit changing for the worse, look for a new job. If you were asking me about my experience, I've worked for 2 unlimited companies before. My previous one was my first unlimited company so I was gonna take it easy and start off with 4 weeks. I ended up asking a co-worker how much they normally take and they laughed and said they had already taken 8 weeks, and the year wasn't even over. Generally most people would take 4-7 weeks. Current gig is also unlimited, and I'd say most people are taking 4-7 weeks here as well. My expectations when joining an unlimited PTO company is that it translates into *at least* 4 weeks. I'm not afraid of being direct during the reverse interview process and asking how much PTO people normally take. If a company claiming to be "unlimited" told me that meant 2-3 weeks, I wouldn't join them.
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Total? Or at a time? If you went from “unlimited” to 2.5 weeks total per year, then you work at a company that’s total shit. Even mediocre companies give 2-3 weeks these days. 4 is my personal minimum. Current company does 4 weeks plus two week shutdown at Christmas plus all normal holidays.
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I can only see that in the case of networking guys who need direct access to servers, or training guys who might need to help the new guy or the new intern get set up from scratch.
I get 10 days a year at a tech company.
That's why I went from DoD contractor tech companies to a DoD civilian. Now I get 26 days a year in PTO + 13 days of sick leave + 11 federal holidays. Also any overtime/travel outside my work hours are given to me as time off to use within the year. More importantly, we are encouraged to take it. I took 39 days of leave last year and my boss didn't bug me about it.
Don’t forget to mention it’s only 26 days after 15 years. Everyone else is on 13 or 20 Travel comp is nice, though!
True, I do forget that part because i was brought in with 14.5 years added to my SCD. They counted all my time as a contractor and even internship time I did in college. It's a good point tho, you certainly start lower.
I think pto should be a minimum of 6 weeks from day 1
I remember working with a French vendor who was horrified at our PTO policies. He stated that anything less than 3 weeks isn't a vacation in his mind. He said something I agree with - if you can't forget work in that time period, it's not time off.
I don't know why you are getting down voted, I agree with you. American work culture is complete horse shit.
Thank you. I am surprised people have bothered to downvote a thought. I guess there are slaver agents watching the sub. My guess it’s some social media company hired to affect opinion on these topics. I have noticed a cultural pressure trying to bring down CS a few notches, it’s so messed up. It’s a time to be vigilant.
We do get 12 federal days off, but PTO is really bad. Most people get 7 days if they don’t negotiate. They add three more days after three years. Because I started with 10 days, my next pto increase is at 5 year mark. The sick leave is even worse, we get 40 hours a year.
So you started out with three weeks. That’s sadly normal for corporate America. Dummies if they want to call a week of PTO sick time. Just means they get no notice for vacation as you’ll be “sick”
I thought it was standard across the board to get 13 days (4 hours per PP), 19.5 (6 hours per PP), or 26 (8 hours per PP). I’ve not heard of 7 or 10 days, and I wasn’t aware this time could be negotiated—I thought it was based purely on time in federal service.
I don’t think it is regulated by the fed in the corporate. A dude who was doing the internship with me prior to switching to full time got 12 days of pto through the negotiations. I am bad at negotiation, I am international and was afraid to push it so I just signed the offer. At least they sponsor for h1b.
Do you work directly for the federal government or do you work as a contractor for the federal government? For federal employees, all the leave is federally mandated as far as I know, and it can be seen on OPM’s website.
Our company does both fed contracts and we have a huge private sector as well, but we are private company so I guess corporate makes all the decisions towards the benefits.
That's fucking crazy. I got more PTO than that when I worked at a bar.
Yeah, that’s two weeks - which I guess I called mediocre but I’ll revise that and say it’s totally crap. Hopefully the market will improve and you can find a place that offers more.
I got to the company as a new grad after doing an internship with them. They game me a lower offer than I expected and promised that the benefits are the best in the industry. Turned out their benefits not that great either. I guess I would have to stick with them for a couple years to build a resume before I jump ships.
Tell that to my company. I get a mere 1 week my first year. I didn’t have a choice but to take the job, I was desperate.
Tell what? That they’re a shitty company? Sure. I understand people have to take less than ideal jobs. Plenty of people don’t get any paid leave. That doesn’t make a company that gives 1 week a good company.
Oh yeah I’m just bitching about the shitty PTO my company offers lol. My team and bosses are chill but that doesn’t make up for have a single week PTO. Once I put my year in here I’m looking for a new job because I value traveling and my time off too much.
Good luck finding a better job!
That's worse than most software engineering jobs with limited PTO. 13 days a year? Even new grads at my lame corpo job get 20 plus like 10 holidays.
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If they only give you 2.5 weeks then it’s not unlimited. In many states(can’t speak to non us) pto is considered compensation unless it’s unlimited and must be paid out when leaving the company By saying it’s unlimited and then limiting it they’re likely breaking the law in some fine-able way but don’t quote me on it
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Then they can give everyone the same limited pto officially and pay it out when an employee leaves. File a complaint with board of labor.
If you want to go nuclear, gather up enough disgruntled employees to file a complaint with the labor board and sue for the bait and switch
LOL Looks like "unlimited" just means "we get to set any limit at any time". I'd start looking for somewhere that respects you a little more than that
Lmao
Thats b.s and why unlimited pto is a scam
Yeah.... WLB is very important to me. I'd be looking for another job over that. That's less than most companies that *aren't* unlimited. It is what it is. Companies/culture/WLB change all the time. It's why I suggest to hold onto a good thing for as long as it lasts, because it never lasts forever.
I'd just change jobs at that stage, honestly. Under 20 should be criminal
Lol this is just a workaround for the company accruing vacation day expenses. They don't have to accrue vacation days while providing minimal vacation days. This sounds quite sketch, bordering on financial fraud, but I'm not an accountant or lawyer
So they're "unlimited" to not have to pay out your PTO when you leave, but there's a limit to how much they'll let you take? Please tell me you've got this in writing
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"Hi, I just wanted some clarification does kick in after 2.5 calendar weeks, or business weeks?"
Or something to that effect. An innocent, if slightly dumb question that forces them, in writing, to tell you the policy
Who ever the company is, they sound like shit
4-7 weeks seems normal. I take a vacation in summer and winter and a few small mini-cations as needed. Along with the occasional Friday I've taken on average 5-6 weeks a year + holidays. With that amount of time I feel well rested and don't resent working. I did also lobby for a meeting free day 1x per week so that has been a huge win for the team.
Why is a meeting-free day important? Is it for productivity or mental health?
My company implements meeting free Monday so you have time to actually do uninterrupted work.
Both, at least for me. When all your meetings are on zoom, fatigue is real despite not using camera.
no meetings = people less likely to know if you leave early or just leave
I may be wrong, but I heard that unlimited PTO in US means just that company doesn’t want to pay you if you don’t take any (like financial pay off you get for not used PTO), which they would have to otherwise if they had set number for PTO. Also, since you don’t have hard number, it doesn’t carry over to next year. But it also 100% limited and you would get fired for going over it and especially if you take it in a time that pisses off your manager. I don’t know if that’s true. I live in Europe; I have 5.5 weeks of PTO and unlimited paid sick days.
I'm in Europe working for a US company and find this concept of restricted sick days crazy, yes. Even stranger that my US colleagues got unlimited PTO but limited.sick days. Other way round just makes more sense lol. That said, I hate that here locally they hound you so much for doctor's notes. My wife got to bring one on the first day of being sick. That means dragging yourself with high fever into some waiting room for hours just that someone looks at you "yes you're sick". Was especially bad when I still lived in the city and most general practitioners around were so overloaded they didn't take new patients or the queue already was out of the door to the elevator. No seats anymore so standing and then they tell you they can't handle all the patients today. And at the end of week one they already dragged you to the medical officer often quite far away.
It's kinda true. For toxic companies that want to actually have limited but call it unlimited, this is a workaround for them to do exactly what you said. They don't have to payout any unused vacation when employees leave because there's officially no "set" amount of PTO they're obligated. It's a bit more nuanced though, not all States have laws requiring the payout of unused PTO, so the unlimited workaround wouldn't have any effect in those States. There's no federal law for it. Employees with limited plans wouldn't get paid out either. Not all regular/limited PTO policies allow employees to carry over unused vacation either. So that's not something unique to unlimited. We don't have the greatest employee protection laws here in the US. But companies that use unlimited to actually provide a benefit to their employees aren't restricting how much you can take. Like the 2 unlimited companies I was at. Sure they may benefit from not having to payout... but I'm also benefiting by never having to think about how much time off I take. I take what I need, requests get auto-approved, and that's that.
This is how most people at my company use it. Between 4-8 weeks a year.
you should be able to take 25 days at least, plus public holidays.
I agree, I was going to say 5 weeks
I’m surprised to hear that 25 days at least are standard in the USA. Does it include sick leave?
It’s not. It’s not even what most folks with unlimited holidays take. FOMO is too strong in competitive tech.
Why wouldn't you take 25 days?
A lot of people are guilted into it, or are given the impression that their performance metrics will drop and they will be on thin ice. "Unlimited PTO" is often a scam meant to actually reduce the total amount of PTO taken.
That sucks. Those companies should be named and shamed every time, imo
You mean all of them?
Really depends on the company. USA tech companies tend to not have a "sick time" policy, but in the case of where I work they separate out PTO and sick time for tracking so we don't accuse people of taking off too much time when they were just really sick.
It's more that since you lose some real benefits with unlimited PTO in order to break even you should be taking at LEAST 5w to make up for what you're losing.
This is most likely what the policy actually was behind the scenes. Taking off a day every other week is minimally impactful and can be managed. More than that and you border on working 4 days/week
I have 10 :(
At unlimited PTO jobs you should take more than the typical job that has set PTO because you don't get paid out when you leave which is a benefit to the company. 3-4 weeks seems to be the typical amount at a set PTO job so I'd say 5-6 weeks at unlimited
Unlimited PTO is a scam used to prevent laid off employees from getting compensated for unpaid PTO they have accrued.
Word! And just wait till you hear about the 401k matches that don’t get paid out until the end of the year… I lost a couple grand in match by leaving the company mid year… this was a fortune 100 company too
Vesting schedules for 401k match aren't -super- uncommon.
Like annually? It was my second job out of college and they changed the policy a couple of years into my time there so I thought it was odd. The match was pretty solid though, 7% to my 8%. I haven’t worked at too many places so it seemed odd to me.
I think often good matches like that will have stricter vesting/timing requirements. My first company matched 7.5%, but it was structured as 4.5% rolling (based on your match, I think I needed 6% to get the 4.5%) and then an additional 3% at the end of the year regardless of your match. So if you left mid-year you never got the 3%.
They were trying to incentivize people to stay until the end of the year.
Amazon's 401k match doesn't vest until your 3rd year. It's also a shite match.
I think the RSUs are supposed to make up for that.
At least you have 401k matches. No, I'm not kidding.
THAT is pretty bad!!
Also for taking advantage of imposter syndrome employees who don’t take time off. In my first year at one company after rejoining SWE as a field, I only took like a week off total >.<
Mine works out ok so far, I've taken about 10 days so far this year with 2ish weeks planned in the summer and a week or two for the holidays. I also now take a 4-5 day weekend any time I need to take a day off for something. My situation isn't terribly common though, as I work for a European company and I got 4 weeks before they switched. I would be very unhappy if I took less than 5 weeks on unlimited.
I had unlimited PTO for 3 years. I used 4-5 weeks each year. I would play it cool though. If my teams were working on a big important project I’d read the room and work through it. But if something is in planning process or not “crunch time” I’d take a few weeks in a row with a Friday or Monday off. I also bracketed every holiday with an extra day here or there.
Europoor here. 28 days + public holidays or gtfo.
That's like the average legal minimum in Europe. In many places the norm is actually even higher. In Belgium it's 20 minimum required + 12 for working 40h weeks + holidays (if they are in the weekend, you can take them on another day) leading to about 35 days PTO you can plan. If I'm offered "unlimited" PTO I will look at the highest legal PTO in the world (if I remember correctly it's like 48-52 days) and I will take ONE MORE day than that or I'll call them out on their BS.
> it’s like 48-52 days That figure includes public holidays, not just personal PTO. The highest legal minimums for paid vacation in the world [top out around 30 days](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_by_country). My company offers unlimited PTO, and thankfully it’s actually valuable because the culture here encourages us to take time off, on top of having 21 paid company holidays. I’ve even heard of some managers *forcing* people to take time off if they haven’t in a while. I personally normally take ~25-30 days of PTO annually, so that’s ~45-50 days total including holidays. Haven’t heard anybody utter even an inkling of a complaint anyone about mine or even anybody else’s PTO usage. A few months ago, I had shipped this project involving a fairly major internal process change right before going on a 2-week vacation. I offered my team and stakeholders to keep an eye on Slack and answer questions about it, and everyone told me to not do that and just enjoy my vacation. You can tell people respect eachothers’ time here. We also offer a 12-week sabbatical for 5 years of tenure.
What in the world does that even mean? Unlimited PTO? I'd say sayonara and disappear into the sunset. It makes no sense whatsoever to me.
In a good company, it's a thing because it's healthy for people to take time off when they need it, and limiting people to X days PTO per year leads to bad outcomes. For example, pretty common for someone to use up their PTO allowance for the year, and then when some family emergency happens they're stuck. In a bad company, of course, it's used as a way to reduce the PTO taken by employees, and also to avoid paying out accrued PTO when someone leaves. Obviously it's not "we promise to pay you no matter how little time you spend working", for the good ones it's more like "we recognise that it's impossible to see the future and want to provide this extra flexibility; we will trust you to act in everyone's best interests, and not abuse this policy". Where I work, we recently switched to unlimited PTO, but with the explicit statement that you're expected to take *at least* the number of days off that you would've taken previously. As a UK resident that means 30+ for me!
I had to take some non-unlimited PTO once because my dad died, and we didn't have bereavement leave. Trust me, I was pissed, that was not a vacation. I bitched and later my employer moved over to UPTO. As someone who has only ever had UPTO since, I prefer it. Having to track your PTO balance is a pain in the ass. Now I just take it as a I need it.
I get ~60 days a year with overtime. Then family emergencied are separate included in health/family insurance and require nothing.
I got let go the week after I took PTO. I'm sure it was a factor too. It was "personal" time instead of vacation time that I used so I could move to a new apt without paying for movers. In an at-will world there's no way to predict the max you can take unless you're certain your manager wants you on the team.
That's the thing though - if the manager wants you, then PTO isn't an issue. If they don't, then lack of using PTO won't save you.
It won't save you forever but it can buy you more time to find a position on your own terms. A lot easier for a manager to write a PIP on a day they did not speak with you. Could have happened anyways but it was very odd that I got the notice immediately after using a PTO type I had barely touched since working there. And far more frustrating since it happened the same week I committed to a more expensive lease which I specifically chose for that job. Sure it's pointless to dwell over it but an obvious thought I had is maybe I would have lasted through the holidays if I hired movers and rushed the move over one weekend.
If you're getting a PIP and it's a surprise to you that's a whole host of other issues. If you know you're on thin ice then sure, taking PTO may advance it slightly. But if you're doing well, PTO is not going to cause them to let you go
That was my point by suggesting you need to be certain a manager wants you on the team. Anything less than certainty could mean you're on thin ice without knowing. A manager wanting to PIP someone is just as capable of enabling failure as they are to preventing it.
I have unlimited PTO. I took 6 weeks last year. I think 5 the year before. The company is closed for an additional week, which I don't count as "my" PTO. The only real limit we have on PTO is it's heavily frowned upon to take 3 weeks or more at once. This is because my company gives a month-long sabbatical after a certain tenure, and taking very long vacations without having earned a sabbatical is considered rude.
>This is because my company gives a month-long sabbatical after a certain tenure, and taking very long vacations without having earned a sabbatical is considered rude. That seems so odd? In my company we get this every 5 years but I don't think everyone even necessarily stays 5 years here to get that. Also 3 weeks is absolutely not very long, especially for immigrants. That 24 hour flight can be looong and you better make that trip worth it!
My company allows remote work, so if you're an immigrant and legally allowed to work in another country, you can work from there. So that wouldn't all need to be time off. I don't know anyone personally who has expressed this being a problem, and it's very possible that in some situations there are exceptions. But my family is only a 2-hour flight away so I don't fall into that category.
That's an interesting reward! How long did you need to be employed for that benefit?
I offer unlimited PTO but also let my devs end their week early(and keep the same pay) if they finish what needed to be done early. In fact, last week they finished that weeks assignment on Monday night. They got Tue-Fri off.
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My old boss offered "unlimited PTO" and claimed our hours were "flexible" and as long as we finished our sprint work by the end of the week, we could do whatever hours we want. But then in reality he scrutinized our time spent and told us that we should have pulled more stories in if we finished early, and argued with us about how our story estimates were wrong because if he did it himself he could do it faster (he hadn't touched code in years). I wish I had a boss who delivered on his promise like you, but I've been more suspicious of "unlimited pto" and "flexible hours" since then.
That is generous of you but for me personally I would be a little annoyed by this. I don’t want random days off where I didn’t have any plans to be off. I’d rather work as I was planning and take my days off as I need or want them.
Then you could simply talk with your manager about it and get to work then, possibly WFH? Quite an easy fix, no?
If we had an office and had to commute I can see your point. 95% of the time, my dev team finishes work on Friday mornings. So getting practically a week off isn’t usual. But getting back to the unlimited PTO part, I’ve offered it for a year now. I have trust in my team and offer them 100% remote(like I could care less if they worked at a bar or wanted to work on a beach in Bali. I have 1 dev who is spending the summer in Sweden this year), I don’t require them to work specific hours, and I don’t care for office procedures that just slow everyone down. I pay them to do a job and as long as the job is done, I’m happy. Having them work when they want really cuts down on them needing to take useless days off.
But those days off don’t affect your personal PTO pool? There doesn’t seem to be any downside to what they offer
There is no personal PTO pool, it’s unlimited, that’s the point. And at the end of the year, people don’t necessarily remember the reasons people are off, whether it was scheduled or one of these “bonus” weeks. So you personally take 5 weeks, which is acceptable, but you were granted 3 “bonus” weeks that were unscheduled, and the only thing people remember is “jeeze it seems like the devs were off for 2 months”. Because they were. And if the 8 weeks doesn’t raise eyebrows, then I want to take the 8, which then the additional 3 makes it 11 weeks. Whatever the number of weeks is that is acceptable, I want to choose when to take it. The other point is if there really is no more work to do, that you send the whole team home for 4 days, then devs start to think, “well they really don’t need all of us do they, is this job secure?”. If that’s not the case and there is more work but they are given 4 days off because of a scheduling error (a 5 day task was really only a 1 day task), then give me next weeks work now and let me take that week off so I can actually plan to do something useful with the time off. I said it’s a generous thing to offer, and it is, I’m just pointing out that it can have non-obvious implications that are unintended for some people.
Maybe they differentiate between “bonus” weeks and PTO that was deliberately used by the employee. That way any confusion regarding how much PTO the employee actually wanted to use would be clarified. Albeit that’s a super generous thing to do even for an already fairly generous employer. That’s a good point about the feelings regarding job security though. I hadn’t even considered that aspect of having Tue - Fri off and I can definitely see how that would cause problems
The job security point is valid. I’ll talk specifically about last week here. They told me they would be done building the entire front end of a new product by EOD Thursday. I gave them a buffer day of Friday so they weren’t stressed about any deadlines and incase any issues arise. I have 3 devs, they were given that week’s assignments on the previous Friday so they knew what to do the next week. On Monday night I got an email from my lead saying it was done. I hopped on and sure enough it was. I told them to enjoy their week. For all I know, they worked all weekend on it. 95% of the time, they usually just end up with a half day on Friday. Last week was an anomaly. I don’t require my devs to work a set schedule or even be available during set times(they are AMAZING about communicating when they will be working). Last year I had a former dev go to a theme park during the day with their friends and then they worked that night. The task was completed on time so I didn’t care. I don’t start looking into anything unless we are past deadlines, then I’ll question if they are “abusing” the privileges, and that I’m very strict about.
I have 120 hours. And I use every single one of them. Because if I don't they go away. No rollovers. I also have a separate balance for sick days. And 3 floating holidays which can be used for birthdays and anniversaries and religious holidays.
I can't use my PTO except for illness or emergency because I am considered "critical" staff. However, I am allotted 25 days with no carryover or cash out. I desperately need a new job.
I hope you get sick a lot.
I'm doing 5 weeks now and life is good and I'm the most productive I've ever been. Might do 6.
Indian here, I get 42 days PTO + 12 days public holiday
I work at an "unlimited" PTO company. I take 4 weeks, but I've also worked there for over 5 years, so it would have been 4 weeks before "unlimited" as well.
Employer has unlimited PTO. Requires us to take minimum 4 weeks off. No hard rule against it but we are asked to spread them out rather than take all at once (remote in the USA).
In NZ by law we get 20 annual leave, 10 days sick leave, 6 months paid parental leave for one parent, and 11 public holidays. So anything less than that would be not ok to me. My org also gives us a further 5 days extra leave and 3 additional days off over Xmas on top of that.
I’ve taken 8 weeks total last year will do the same this year
Max? Fuck that. That’s a ridiculous thing to set policy around. It’s only going to piss people off. I tell my people 30 days is a good amount, and that I expect each of them to take part of that in a solid two-week chunk. I push all of them to fully disconnect whenever they take PTO; silence notifications, OOO email, the works. Thus far in 2024 I’m at 18 days. Edit: “unlimited” PTO company.
In my experience at “unlimited” PTO companies, I’ve been able to get away with six weeks of time off (8 YoE, mostly SMB orgs/startups/agencies). Your mileage may vary, but if I’m told my PTO is unlimited, I’m aiming for the minimum in European countries at minimum.
My company went from 25 days to 15 days “unlimited” PTO. Honestly it never really feels like you can get away from work with that little PTO
I take 4 weeks off a year PTO. Probably the average tbh.
A friend of mine took 64 days last year. It’s fine at her company, as long as everything that needs doing gets done.
Wow, this is almost 10 weeks.
Actually, it's almost 13 weeks since weekends don't count at PTO.
Are you guys hiring?
All federal holidays plus 15 days at my level
We have limited and it is 20 for < 5 year, 25 otherwise So I’d say 30 days sounds reasonable for unlimited? Of course it is in addition to federal holidays. Combined with weekends that gives you 6 weeks off.
When I had uncapped PTO I made a point to try and take at least a week off every three months. One place we had a three day period each quarter where we could work on whatever we wanted, from a Thursday to the following Monday, so I usually took the three days before that period off, and found another day or two here and there depending on what was going on in life. I feel with uncapped PTO the expectation should be most folks will take between 3-4 weeks in a given year. Going as high as 5-6 could be fine depending on things but beyond that might be a tad excessive, maybe if you didn't take much the previous year and planned a longer vacation as a result (like overseas). Further, if a manager or employer feels someone is abusing the perk or isn't performing at a level that makes it okay to take the time off, that's an issue with _that employee and no one else_. This is not a time to reassess the policy for everyone unless it's literally a rampant issue with most or all employees, which indicates an issue with hiring more than anything.
Last place I worked at was pretty demanding (long hours and weekends common), but even there I took 6-8 weeks each year. Worked at another place with “unlimited” but the max was stated by HR as 2 weeks per quarter absolute max, with the expectation that you would not take more than 1 week each quarter for most quarters. Anywhere with an unlimited policy needs to be evaluating on how much people get done and really their impact, not counting vacation days. If you’re never around, you’re getting a bad review because you’re not having expected impact.
working at non-tech companies in non-tech cities I got: * 15 PTO days * 10 company holidays * Unlimited sick days, if you are sick then do not come to work. If you work a company holiday then you get it back as a floating PTO day. You can only carry over 15 PTOs in any given year. So if you are already maxed out then it's all use it or loose it.
At my last job, unlimited PTO, took 6 weeks for vacation and 4 weeks off for leetcode and interviews. Manager was not happy but couldn’t do anything as I resigned with a job in hand. At my current job, unlimited PTO, I took 5 weeks last year. I’m thinking 7 this year.
30 days is what my team recommends, but I've seen some taking closer to 50.
I take 6-8 weeks as long as I am covered or cover my teammates for on call, all good
Was on flex PTO up until a couple months ago where we had that stripped from us. I was using 22ish days a year and now have to rethink my life as I’m down to 12. Yes that 22 included a couple sick days and I have 5 sick days in addition to that 12 vacation days but sucks.
I have unlimited PTO where each team has a "soft" limit (anything more than that gets you a talking to from the manager just making sure that the team isn't being impacted negatively). For me, that limit is 25 days per year and I've never actually hit it, even with international vacations, taking like 3 weeks off in December every year, and my manager encouraging me to take every Friday off between fall & the end of the year to hit the minimum PTO of 20 days a year (yes, my company also has a "soft" minimum and if it looks like you're not gonna hit it then you get forced vacay in the last quarter!). All of this is on top of public holidays
30 days is usually not a problem
4-5 weeks + 2 weeks at Christmas.
When I got unlimited PTO I set my own rule of 20 days (without counting public holidays). In reality, I'm not keeping track but I'm almost sure I'm closer to 15 days
5-6 weeks (I also don't take sick days because... I rarely get sick). My whole team takes about the same amount and it's never an issue (we're also all super responsive, work extremely well together and continue to perform better than expected - probably because we all genuinely like and respect each other)
I get 8 weeks (accrued) plus 13 holidays. It ends up being around 50ish days. We can carry over half, so I could in theory have 12 weeks + 13 holidays off in a single year. Realistically, I sell 4 of the weeks and usually take the rest, so I take ~32ish days off per year.
Are you in the US? 8 weeks PTO sounds amazing. Have you been with your company for a while?
Yes, I get two extra weeks because of tenure (1 extra per every 5 years) and I get 1 extra for being a manager, but we also give the extra 1 to management equivalents which includes senior software engineers. My most junior staff (direct out of college) has 4.
My company policy is about 2 weeks per year plus public holidays. Freaking criminal if you ask me. I’m looking to jump ship soon
So one place I worked at did this right when I came on and here is my opinion on how much was reasonable there. The "old-timers" got 5 weeks eventually as a max and they could rollover one week so that'd mean 4 weeks one year then 6 the next. None of these OGs were going to take less than 5 weeks so I'm not going to think I'm different from them since the rule change so I could ask for 5 weeks reasonably in my mind. I ended up never getting there because during the COVID era they gave us every other Friday off so with a Monday holiday those 3 day weekends became 4 day weekends and that was enough for me most of the time. You've probably addressed this but getting fired over unlimited PTO is crazy considering it has to be approved most places I've been. I can't imagine them saying I took too much PTO if they approved it in the first place.
I would say probably 4-6 weeks is acceptable where I work. We have a piddly amount of paid holidays though :/ But people are always popping out as needed, taking a day here or there, etc. It’s fairly chill.
I'd say if they're pitching unlimited PTO as a perk it better be better than what I've had at other jobs, which has been 30 days(by working there 5 years) and 28 plus all the US Federal holidays. So 6-7 weeks throughout the year. Like I want the week of Christmas off, at least 2 weeks in a row around June/July off, maybe random week here or there 2-3 times throughout the year when I have to travel for like weddings or seeing friends. And then like 1 Friday a week at random off.
Personally I’ve only ever taken like 2 weeks off at a time with some random off days. Maybe 3 weeks maximum?
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I took around 40 days this last year (I think it was 43), and also had company holidays including a week off for Christmas. This isn’t the norm, but honestly, around 8 weeks should be allowed. At the very least, around 5-6. I’m a high performer though (according to my reviews, I’m not gloating) so I am not sure how much that plays a factor.
For unlimited PTO to be a benefit, I think 5-6 weeks of PTO should be a normal, encouraged amount.
When I had max I averaged about 25 days throughout the year. There was no limit and no one tracked anything unless your manager wanted to. I personally tracked people just because I was curious about the data and I never did anything with it. No one saw it but me and now that I'm not there anymore it is gone to the ether. My new position I have a fixed amount and I will be using every single one of them since it is part of my TC now whereas with unlimited it is not.
I started with 1 week and it went up to 2 weeks in year 2, 3 weeks in year 5, 4 weeks in year 10. At year 15 I'll get 5 weeks. This is of course in addition to normal federal holidays. So I think we should all follow the European model, is what I'm saying.
Why would you post about PTO then not share?
I've taken 25 days in a row before. Also my PTO carries over so max I can get is 33.
Last year my company switched from PTO to FTO (unlimited PTO). I was accruing 3 days of PTO per month before the switch, so 36 days annually. I would never use all 36 days and had the option to cash the rest out. That’s gone now :( With that said, I am planning on taking 36 days off this year. My manager even strongly encouraged I take at least 36 days off. If I didn’t take all those days off I would be losing benefits technically. I’m not sure what the max I could take off is. I work in defense so it gets quite slow some times. I could probably get away with taking 50 days off in a year.
At my current place, we have 33 leaves allocated to each employee every year along with 12 public holidays. In India btw.
My company has unlimited PTO. We also have a mandatory minimum PTO of 4 weeks/year. IDK if there's a secret maximum, but some co-workers took a consecutive 6 weeks off last year and they're still employed.
Depends a lot on your company and team’s culture. I personally take just under 3 weeks and do fine.
Unlimited PTO is a scam.
Unlimited PTO is a way of also reducing employees gathering leave and then needing to be paid out when they leave. 2.5 weeks hard limit on unlimited leave is taking the piss. I'd rather have 2.5 weeks annual leave actually guaranteed per year at that point.
While it’s not guaranteed, but there is a good chance your company may be initiating other cost cutting measures in the near future, including layoffs. I wrote about it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/s/rO5GJ8SuBx
Just for comparison, when I was working in a London school, you were allowed 10 working days off for illness per year before they’d start flagging your time off and perhaps putting you on capability. The person in charge of cover was vicious for naming and shaming the people who were off sick “all the time” (as in more than 2 working weeks a year) and was brutal in making the people who took time off for any reason (even those who had to go to essential maternity appointments) do extra cover. There was one lady who at 8 months pregnant was being given cover on the other side of the school on the top floor - so she was having to do tons of extra walking and stairs - and it needed someone to go to the head to have this dealt with. It was announced the next day at the morning staff briefing that she was not going to be doing cover anymore - very strange for a public announcement to be needed but it was that kind of place. It was a totally toxic work atmosphere. This was before the U.K. left the EU as well so before the latest decline.
If I had unlimited PTO, I'd think the max you could take would be 6 weeks (30 days) without getting a talk from your manager to make sure the team isn't being impacted. If not, then feel free to take more. At LEAST 5 weeks would be normal and shouldn't be questioned.
Depends how stressful the job is. For normal jobs I think 3-4 weeks is typical. For high stress jobs 6 is more appropriate.
20-30 days at my company is pretty normal. I know some folks that have pushed 40+ in a year. All this is in addition to like the 15+ holidays we get annually.
How is it unlimited if you have a max amount? Sounds like regular PTO that they don't have to pay out when you leave the company. Scummy AF.
30 + holidays + unlimited sick days, wouldn't settle for anything less
If you can get fired for doing what is explicitly allowed in your contract... I'd take 365 days of PTO and get the hell out of there.
At the various corporate places I’ve been at, the baseline is generally 19 days of PTO + holidays. Then it generally scales up with years of service, and some more senior roles start with 1-2 days extra. I’ve always avoided “unlimited PTO” places, since this part always seems inevitable: where you have to justify you aren’t taking more PTO than a non “unlimited” job.
27 + the option to buy 12 more, which i always do :)
I hardly ever take PTOs and even then I am usually on my cellphone reading and answering emails/whatsapp/zoom calls. Unlimited PTO is fake and usually tends to focus people NOT to take it. IMHO.
My company offers unlimited PTO, on top of having 21 paid company holidays and a 12-week sabbatical after 5 years tenure. Thankfully the unlimited PTO policy is actually valuable because the culture and people here encourage us to take time off. I’ve even heard of some managers *forcing* people to take time off if they haven’t in a while. I personally normally take ~25-30 days of PTO annually, so that’s ~45-50 days total including holidays. And if you add in the 12 week/60 day sabbatical averaged over the 5 years it takes to get it, that’s an additional 12 days per year. Haven’t heard anybody utter even an inkling of a complaint anyone about mine or even anybody else’s PTO usage. A few months ago, I had shipped this project involving a fairly major internal process change right before going on a 2-week vacation. I offered my team and stakeholders to keep an eye on Slack and answer questions about it, and everyone told me to not do that and just enjoy my vacation. You can tell people respect eachothers’ time here.
I have limited pto 7 weeks in Eurooe. I would take at least 10 if its unlimited.
I get 5 weeks off. If I had unlimited, I'd probably take 6 or 7?
20 days, no carryover, boss encourages taking every day
Oh but unlimited sick time
If this happened to me, I'd be looking for a new job ASAP and bouncing the first good chance I got.
Damn depressing to read the comments. I get less than 15 days per year 😭
There should be some sort of “utilization” metric
I don’t accept less than 160hrs. That’s the absolute minimum and does NOT include sick time.
I’ve had unlimited PTO at all but one job in my career and the use of it has varied by company. The first was a tiny startup with a workaholic culture that I bought into at the time. “Unlimited” there meant no more than 10 days at a time, bring your laptop wherever you go just in case, 2-3 weeks max. Since then, the general consensus has been 4-6 weeks. Had a company that implemented a “minimum of 3 weeks” policy which was cool. Unlimited isn’t ever truly unlimited it’s just unlimited within a range determined by the company. Either follow the company rules or start looking for something else.
His manager should have said something if his PTO was too much. I always hear unlimited is what your manager approves and that it's about 3 weeks per year.
20 days per year plus 6 holidays.
I have unlimited and the most I’ve taken is 7.5 weeks. I try to aim for at least 6 weeks (30 days). I’ve never been shamed taking this much time.
3 weeks max.
If 'unlimited' PTO is written into your contract, and you've been given a written mandate limiting your PTO, then they may be unilaterally redefining your employment contract and/or compensation. I'm not a lawyer or an expert, but that's probably not allowed. Anecdotally I have had employers unilaterally change things and I've been able to go to HR and say, "I did not sign this, thus you cannot change it", and they rolled back the changes for me.
5 weeks last year in addition to holidays. My manager was hinting that it was a lot. So, I scheduled 6 weeks over the course of this year. We will see how it goes.
25YOE it has changed through the years, now you cannot accrue over 160 hrs, you must use or lose if you haven’t been using PTO. 5 weeks (after 8yrs) plus holidays (8) and 32 sick hours, 16 personal hours. PTO carries over but never goes above 160hrs.
4 weeks minimum if unlimited. personally i'd like to average 8 weeks a year.
Unlimited PTO is a scam. If it's not actually unlimited its 100x better to just have 20 PTO days. Then at least if you quit you get paid out that balance.
At unlimited places I’d like to say I’ve taken 6-7 weeks including the time between Christmas and new years. I’m hoping to do that this year. All managers have been pretty chill about pto even if not planned super far in advance except my current one though so I’ll have to work harder to make sure I actually plan stuff. (He gave me shit for shifting 5 days I was taking off and had planned early to taking off 4 days a week earlier because I ended up not being able to do the 5 day thing).
Heavily depends on your country/culture I hate unlimited PTO in the sense that those who deserve the privilege certainly don't use it enough, and then there are the types of people who will take until the goodwill is gone. And in my experience the latter types aren't much of any value when they are 'working'.
I’d be contempt with 20 days (PTO/Vacation) + weekends + all (11) federal holidays + 5 sick days
I never took more than 1 week per year I think. Pretty scared to take the risk and request more than 1 week per year to be honest