In my experience, &quot;beers at work&quot; correlates with &quot;...because we need you to stay late (because...?),&quot; indeed. Doesn&#x27;t need to be all bad - if you have nothing more interesting to do (and that&#x27;s not meant ironically: building something can be pretty awesome, if you&#x27;re single and work with interesting tech; OTOH, if you have other responsibilities, the attractiveness of all-night hacking sessions is...lower).<p>The actual signs that something is amiss come when you do not <i>volunteer</i> your time - will your boss(es) just say &quot;yeah, we understand that volunteering is your right&quot;? Good. Do they say &quot;well, we understand that <i>not</i> volunteering is your right&quot;? A little weird, but still okay. Do they say &quot;but we will pay you for the extra hours&quot;? Red flag - does that mean that normally they wouldn&#x27;t? Do they say &quot;but everyone else <i>does</i>&quot;? Big red flag, emotional manipulation attempt. Do they say &quot;but we already promised delivery to the client&quot;? RUN, ain&#x27;t a red flag big enough for that.