Which Tech Companies Actually Follow a 9‑5‑5 Work‑Life Balance?

The 955.WLB (work‑life balance) initiative was created as a response to the infamous 996.ICU movement; its GitHub repository already has over 17 stars.

Work schedule definitions:

996: 9 am – 9 pm, six days a week.

955: 9 am – 5 pm, five days a week.

11‑5‑5: 11 am – 5 pm, five days a week.

1155.Life: 11 am – 5 pm work, life first.

The 955.WLB project aims to help people escape the 996 grind by highlighting companies that adopt more reasonable hours.

Disclaimer: The listed companies are generally not 996 workplaces, but actual conditions can vary by department and location; some teams may still require overtime, and a few companies have mixed schedules (e.g., 945, 10‑5‑5, 11‑6‑5). The list is biased toward Shanghai because the author is based there.

List of companies commonly considered 955 (or close) workplaces:

Amazon – Beijing/Shanghai

Apple – Beijing/Shanghai

Autodesk – Beijing/Shanghai

Citrix – Nanjing

Cisco – Beijing/Shanghai/Hangzhou/Suzhou

Coolapk (酷安) – Beijing/Shenzhen

Douban (豆瓣) – Beijing

eBay – Shanghai

EMC – Shanghai

Ericsson – Shanghai

Google – Beijing/Shanghai

Grab – Beijing

HP – Shanghai

HSBC – Shanghai/Guangzhou/Xi'an

Hulu – Beijing

IBM – Shanghai (excluding GBS)

Intel – Shanghai

LeetCode – Shanghai

Microsoft – Beijing/Shanghai/Suzhou

National Instruments – Shanghai

NVIDIA – Beijing/Shanghai

Oracle – Shanghai

PayPal – Shanghai

Pivotal – Beijing/Shanghai

RingCentral – Xiamen

SAP – Shanghai

Splunk – Shanghai

SUSE – Beijing/Shanghai/Shenzhen

ThoughtWorks – Xi'an/Beijing/Shenzhen/Chengdu/Wuhan/Shanghai/Hong Kong

Trend Micro – Nanjing

Vipshop (唯品会) – Shanghai

VMware – Beijing/Shanghai

WeWork – Shanghai

Works Applications – Shanghai

Personal view: The author does not oppose overtime per se, but opposes meaningless overtime.