Don’t jump to conclusions here. This company actually does take care of their people. Unlimited PTO and they mean it. Better than the best insurance that is self funded and more. She expects her bonus this year to be between 5k and 8k. Her team (and her) before moving up to management has a hard line max on work per day. She is doing work that if the company tried to exploit like that they would regret it immediately because shit work would make it through and their clients would not be happy.
She was originally IC with a company and was one of the first few people hired. They were bought out by a bigger fish and that company is close to a IPO but they are waiting for the market and timing to be just right to pull the trigger. They just hired a bunch of people and she is now running her team, they have made moves like splitting the teams up and creating new groups to focus on certain things to make everyones jobs easier.
As I said and clearly you didn’t read or understand. 2 of her bosses, 1 in particular were telling her to take more time off, even before they hired enough to allow them to chip in and help when needed. Again, it wasn’t them asking her to work more, it was her not being comfortable leaving stuff undone and coming back to even more.
And no, companies aren’t always in a growth phase, not like hers. They are in a niche of a niche industry that is booming. And 90% of the company is work from home without a pay adjustment for locale so we could move to an even lower cost of living area and she would still make the same, she also never has to go to the office but she is probably welcome if we were ever in NYC.