> There's nothing wrong with this choice [to work extra hours to get promoted].
But if there are limited slots for promotion, and that's generally always the case, the resulting competition among deserving engineers makes the extra hours more or less mandatory. Say that Amy is a better engineer than Jim and gets a third more done per hour. If Jim puts in 60 hours instead of the expected 40, then Amy isn't going to beat him for a slot unless she also starts working extra hours.
In the end, promotion becomes more about grinding than being effective. That's not great for company culture or retention of top talent.
That doesn't make the promotion more about grinding because the company doesn't care about how much work you get done in a set unit of time compared to other employees in the same set unit of time. The company cares about how much you get done, period.
If the only differentiating factor between Amy and Jim is quantity of work done (this is never the case in real life), most companies will prefer a Jim that works 60 hours to an Amy that works 40 if Jim is producing 5% more.
In software development, sure (maybe). Most jobs aren't software development.
The vast majority of jobs your production slows as hours increase but there isn't a tipping point where you're less productive, even after accounting for errors or rework. There's a reason CPAs don't clock out at 37.5 hours during tax season, or warehouses or service desks or any number of things other than the specific thing most of us do often work more than 40 hours a week, especially when actively working to get a promotion.
But if there are limited slots for promotion, and that's generally always the case, the resulting competition among deserving engineers makes the extra hours more or less mandatory. Say that Amy is a better engineer than Jim and gets a third more done per hour. If Jim puts in 60 hours instead of the expected 40, then Amy isn't going to beat him for a slot unless she also starts working extra hours.
In the end, promotion becomes more about grinding than being effective. That's not great for company culture or retention of top talent.