Ah, unlimited vacation. A competition to see who can take the least vacation!

It should be called undefined vacation, because there's clearly a limit, unless taking half of the year off is fine.

I never got less vacation days than the time we switched to unlimited vacation. God, I hate CEOs that keep up on the latest bro management books and blogs.

I think it's really dependent on the management. I worked at an "unlimited vacation" job and Felton shame taking 4-6 weeks off per year. There was motivators for not taking vacation- profit sharing was dependent on your utilization rate. I happen to have a good reason to take the time (my kids holiday schedule) so I didn't mind giving up extra money for time. I never was approached about my vacation time and felt that I used it responsibly. I can see how some environments could push that into a don't take vacation culture though.

If this is what you want, why not offer 6 weeks of PTO and a firm policy? It removes the ambiguity.

I always take 6 or more weeks per year. Usually I have unlimited vacation. The few times I've been acquired by megacorps with ancient vacation policies I either "forget" to file for vacation and so does my boss, or I take unpaid time off.

> Ah, unlimited vacation. A competition to see who can take the least vacation!

That definitely hasn't been the case for me. I've had unlimited vacation and take off 4 weeks a year + assorted random days off (2/month).

I would never work somewhere with constrained vacation. Having to file paperwork for a random day showing family around town is ridiculous.

That being said, I think "untracked" is the best definition. It's obviously not unlimited, but there's also no hard limit. And the limit depends on behavior (leaving for 6 weeks is frowned upon, but 3 random days off every month is fine).

I'm from the U.K. - everyone here is entitled to that number of holidays

I understand that your requirement is 28 days. [1]

I've taken as many as 44 days off, which is a lot more.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights/entitlement

> "Programming" is a low status activity. "Inking mega fucking cash dealz" is a high status activity.

While I agree with the status analysis, I don't think that's why programmers are forced into open offices.

Traders are high status, but work in a terrible environment (wide open trading floors).

> Traders are high status, but work in a terrible environment (wide open trading floors).

Traders work in an environment where very quick turnaround matters.

Most software development roles are nothing like this.

I hear this a lot on HN, and while I understand how it would work at bank or at IBM, how does this attitude translate into startups, founded by technical people, competing to hire "rock-star" "ninja" developers?

The language around perceived high-ability developers is important -- "rock stars" are admired. "Ninja" are feared. Neither are respected by the people who actually have money and power -- producers, daimyo, investors, management. Even "guru" implies asceticism and a willingness to provide expertise without appropriate compensation, and more importantly all three of these terms imply an independence from existing power structures that means they cannot move or advance within those structures.

I have watched very competent developers trade social status of titles and public admiration for remuneration. Your comment is uncomfortably close to truth.

This is an exceptionally insightful and just plain awesome comment...thank you for making me belly-LOL.