Do IB analysts really push past 80 hours a week
Hey everyone,
I’ve been reading a lot about the intense work culture in investment banking, especially at top firms like Goldman, JPM, and Evercore. The general narrative is that analysts work ~80 hours per week, sometimes more. But I’m genuinely curious—how accurate is that in 2025?
Are analysts still pulling 90–100 hour weeks regularly? Or has there been a shift due to increased scrutiny, HR policies, or tech tools that improve workflow?
Also, I’ve heard some firms have “unofficial” ways of pushing analysts past the 80-hour cap while staying under the radar. Is that real? Like, are people asked to log off but continue working? Or is it more subtle pressure?
Not trying to stir the pot—just want to hear from those in the trenches (or who recently were). Appreciate any honest insight.
There isn’t a cap and regularly go above 80 hours a week (probably ~10% of weeks above 90, >50% of weeks above 80, >90% of weeks l above 70) and have had multiple 105 hour weeks. No one gives a fuck at my bank and the workload is excessive and fucking dangerous.
NYC BB
Name and shame
At an EB in NYC. About half of our groups regularly push past 90 hours a week easily.
I think hours alone are misleading because not all 80+ hour work weeks are created equal. It really depends on if that’s all live deal work (which is inherently way more stressful) and the quality of teams you’re on. To answer your question though, 80+ hour work weeks are the norm, not the exception, despite what the mainstream media wants you to believe. You’ll understand once you’re in seat.
80 hours of actual work or 80 hours of being in office or "at work".
80 hours isn’t that deep. It’s basically:
M-Thur: 9-12
Fri: 9-9
Sun: 1-9
It’s not great but it’s gonna kill you or anything. Also a lot of the hours are FaceTime / waiting for comments
I think the “a lot of it’s FaceTime or waiting for comments” is misleading and very group dependent. I’ve experienced weeks before where that’s the case but for me it’s consistent >80 hour grind where there is always more work to be done because my workload is excessive and dangerous and I’m triaging almost 100% of the time. Even if I push back and flag to staffer, there’s always an excessive amount of work being shoved down my throat all the time and it’s not sustainable.
Thank you. I really hate the way we throw around “waiting for comments” time as if it’s literally like you’re sitting there twiddling your thumbs waiting for someone to get back to you. It’s more like in your free time waiting for comments from one team, you have an hour worth of meetings, two separate work streams you need to finish in the next hour + a handful of teams message chasing you have to fend off. THEN you have just enough time to get in a bathroom break, maybe scroll X for 5 minutes and when you get back the comments are there. And btw they want it in the next hour too.
After being fully ramped like 3 months in I’ve literally never experienced > 30-minutes an hour of true downtime before 9pm. If any ramped analyst does have that much down time in a day, either your group sucks or you’re a crap analyst nobody wants to give important work to.
Thank you for the helpful insight - not sure why you had to throw that jab at the end though
He’s mad he doesn’t have a spine to give a little bit of pushback lmao. Dude probably asks his associate if he can get some more work at 11:30pm just to get his nose a little browner for his reviews.
It honestly wasn’t meant to be a jab but it’s a real observation, even in a particular group - the distribution of work between analysts can be insane based on your reputation, and that materially impacts how rough the work experience is. I’m not some for lifer hardo that’s gunning for brownies either, I just feel like unless you’re in a known sweaty group (like Baird industrials level) you don’t understand that you can’t actually pushback without getting berated and immediately punished by being put on the bench. You either understand that rock and a hard place feeling or you don’t (and I wish more people didn’t resonate with that!)
But are your hours consistent? Or do you have to be up until 3AM two days a week and catch-up on sleep Saturday? Banking wouldn't be bad if you could stick to the schedule you listed.
In what universe are banking hours consistent lmao. That’s why we get paid
Nah shit like 7am meeting on Sunday with notice going out Friday afternoon so we need to crank non-stop for materials to be ready for review Saturday EoD happens in this industry for some reason
The big issue here is that these hours aren’t uniform. Rather than 9-12 daily, it could be:
M: 9-9pm
T: 9-2am
W: 9-4am
Th: 10-7pm
F: 9-9am
Sun: 11-10pm
It could also be a 60-hour week followed by a 90-hour week.These hours could include hour-long lunches or dinners waiting for comments, or they can be straight work the entire time. Note that these things aren’t always correlated to bonuses either. Some seats just truly suck, and there’s little you can do about it.
How many of these hours or broken up into modeling,updating presentations, sitting around waiting for comments etc?
Sounds like actual hell on earth not gonna lie
very accurate. working around 80 hrs a week minimum, usually well past 80, once worked a 115 hr week (genuinely thought I was gonna fucking die)
Why can't we just put the comments in ourselves?
I must have gotten retty lucky because my group pays well above street and I've probably worked an 80 hour+ week literally 1 or 2 times. I go home by 6 usually or 7 most days of the week and almost always have time to go to the gym + have dinner before plugging back in and am off by 11 latest
Name & Fame
Sounds like Alts at EVR
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