I work for Google and have never had a deadline during my years there. I tend to set up my own goals, sometimes I meet them and other times I don't, but nobody has held me to any dates.

I have had exactly two hard deadlines in the two years I've worked at my current startup. One of those was brutal but the other was very fair.

I don't know if I have a trick for finding a position like this other than to pay close attention to who your manager will be and what _they_ value. My manager believes strongly in the mission of the company (decarbonize the electric grid) but also has young kids that he cares a lot about. He left big tech to work here. So his passion and his work life balance both "trickle down."

If you don't mind me asking, who do you work for?

I sent you an email

I have not found one. That's mostly my fault. I try to jump in whole when I'm getting stuff done.

What I meant to say earlier is that in a consulting lifestyle, one gets to choose how soon to move to the next gig. For me, it is always a few months between gigs, so the average number of deadlines per year is low :)