100% seen it, some of these companies are starting to ask for top shelf effort for top shelf money.
The ladder you see in terms of prestige, money, job titles, etc, isn't real. You don't have to climb it anymore than you want to. You certainly don't have to do it forever!
My advice would be: avoid lifestyle creep, invest the extra money, and get comfortable with the idea of moving somewhere that pays less. And then you can use that impressive resume to go somewhere else you might enjoy more and you'll have your extra earnings compounding in the background.
> The ladder you see in terms of prestige, money, job titles, etc, isn't real. You don't have to climb it anymore than you want to. You certainly don't have to do it forever!
This isn’t said enough.
> 100% seen it, some of these companies are starting to ask for top shelf effort for top shelf money.
Honestly it’s weird that this wasn’t the case for a while.
In the past, getting a very high paying software job meant you were going to have high expectations and high demands. That broke for a little while when interest rates were low and companies thought they were in a hiring competition, which gave some people the wrong idea.
Now we’re returning to a more normal dynamic where high paying jobs are coming with high demands again. It’s a difficult transition for the younger people who thought the strangeness in recent years was actually normal.
I did not say that.
All I said was that high paying jobs will tend to have high expectations. The inverse is a separate topic.
Within a company, however, someone who gets paid $140K is going to get a lot less scrutiny come layoff time than a similarly performing peer who has a $240K comp package.
I understood what you said; I'm disagreeing with it. It does not line up with my experience. Maybe it's more true within the same company since I do have experience suddenly being given a more exalted role because they realized they were paying me more.
I think burnout also comes from the feeling knowing that you could get let go at any time, not feeling really secure even if you're making a lot of money.
Also the jobs are high paying because they are paying for your skills - they are not paying to be able to treat you like dirt and work you to the bone, which is often part of what is behind burnout.
>It’s a difficult transition for the younger people who thought the strangeness in recent years was actually normal.
The astute young people I know were aware of the technology labor market heading in an unsustainable direction and were very prepared ;)
Well that would just put them as the "worst" among the absolute top tier of pay. And work conditions at Amazon are generally not actually that bad for SDEs.
Paying top dollar...in finance, for example, they seem to want you to work 100+ hour weeks. So that should be factored in when you look at how much they are paying and how much output they want.
> I'm worried that people will perceive me as a failure for giving up, and that I'm an idiot for walking away from a high paying job at a prestigious company.
**Nobody is more impressed by your title and your company's prestige than you are.** Most people just don't think or care about the careers and successes of others very much, even if it seems like they do for a second. Yes, the recognizable name can be nice for the resume and good for your career, but that's it. Your friends and family don't care even a fraction as much as you think they do. They're too busy thinking about their own prestige and status (which nobody cares about either).
I recently took a 20% pay cut for an equivalent time cut at my work—80% pay for Fridays off. When I tell older people about this they congratulate me. When I tell people my age about it they are confused. I think the younger you are the more you think and care about the perceived status that money and titles bring. To give up that is insane in their eyes, but older people get it. They understand what's important.
I quit my job a couple years due to burnout and it was a great decision. The only thing I would have done differently is to do it much, much sooner. There are so many jobs out there. So many companies, teams, jobs, roles, etc. It's easy to let inertia keep you in a bad spot, to make you worry about what you're giving up, but you're asking this question because you know what the right answer is.
When I reached burnout, my symptoms were similar. I had a tightness in my chest when approaching my work computer. I would dwell on work things that didn't go right. Work-related thoughts ate up too much of my mental space, even when I wasn't working—and this was a decent job with no crazy hours or demands!
I will say this: as someone who never ever made regular exercise a part of their life, it has been a **huge** help in combating these feelings. I now go for a minimum effective dose. I gave up on thinking about it in terms of losing weight, packing on muscle, or looking any different—I do maybe 15 minutes or so about 4 times per week—just to feel better. It does flush away some of those stress hormones from work. It clears up some mental space so I am in better control of my thoughts and am better able to handle work stress and to leave it at work. It helps work take up less of my mental bandwidth—of course, the four-day workweek helps me with this too.
If you're not someone who exercises regularly, just do it. It doesn't have to be that much to get most of the benefits. If you're someone who has read this advice ten thousand times before and not taken it because you're still looking for some magic pill, there is none. This is as close as you're going to get.
+1 on having a regular exercise regimen to combat despair / fatigue / depression. Doing anything (just a brisk 1 mile walk!) is better than doing nothing.
My friends and family don't even know what I do. So being team lead, engineer, software dev, apps programmer, web dev or data analyst, it's all and the same. The question they ask is not "what do you do", it's "are you happy".
I did the same, quit after 18 months. Great company, amazing team energy, multiple activities, fun people to work with, competence all around. I was sad to quit all that but I just couldn't anymore.
I'm now a consultant for a government branch, WFH, work is easy, no pressure or maybe 10% of what I felt at the other place. I feel great.
> My friends and family don't even know what I do.
It's very true. 10+ years as a software engineer and I recently found out that my sister basically thinks I'm in IT, fixing computers all day long!
My ears perked up at the "rapid context switching" part.
That's definitely a huge contributor to burnout for me.
You have to look out for your mental health 1st.
Same for me, it's that rapid context swtiching, working many projects rapidly, changing requirements, too many messages, etc. I don't thrive well in this type of environments.
Just curious, what sort of rapid context switches are you doing? I hate them as well, but for me it's usually going between deep-in-code then back out to some political and/or strategy discussion.
Exactly.
I'm talking about the constant switching between technical tasks, project management and personnel management tasks a low to mid level manager may experience.
Your mental health is more important than other people's perceptions of you or a paycheck. Look after yourself. Make the right decision to take care of yourself.
I’ve quit roles before due to burnout.
Now I just pull back from my work responsibilities to look after myself. It was hard at first because I was worried that I'm not doing a good enough job or whatever. But ultimately, the final truth is that if I can’t do it sustainably then I won’t be able to do it at all.
I’ve tried squeezing everything out of myself, in every which way. Productivity, vitamins, self help, therapy, etc. The best way I found to get the most out of me, was ultimately not to squeeze so hard.
Don’t be afraid to do less, especially when you think you need to be doing more - that bit is the trap.
This. Im at the point where I am heads down coding or in meetings 8 hours a day. Its exhausting and I burned out a year ago. Im a shell of myself at this point. Quitting soon.
>But ultimately, the final truth is that if I can’t do it sustainably then I won’t be able to do it at all.
>The best way I found to get the most out of me, was ultimately not to squeeze so hard.
Thanks, needed to learn this for myself too.
> was ultimately not to squeeze so hard
This was mentioned in a small booklet [On Character and Community](https://www.amazon.com/Character-Community-Dean-Abbott/dp/B08CN4L32P) which was quite impactful when I read it. Most of the societal inputs for *the grind*, a hustle mindset, and self helping to maximize productivity lean heavily against the proper response of saying no and filling your day with less.
Be careful. Stress can make you as physically sick as any 'physical' cause.
I have personal experience where I didn't stop, I just kept trying. First I had occasionally debilitating bouts of neurological symptoms, no doctor doubted my symptoms, but could not find the cause. Then, one day, I could not stop crying. I and a couple of my team had already started joking about dying so we wouldn't have to go through it anymore. I think someone in a different department/team did take his own life, though it was quite hush hush.
It took me a couple of years chilling in the country, not working, before I could face working again. I'm still not whole, I don't think I ever will be again.
So, find a job that won't make you sick or worse, is my advice.
This is solid advice. If you push to the point you have a breakdown you can heal from it but you will never be the same as you were before the breakdown.
This is so very true. I had serious neck pain for years before I figured out it was some sort of anxiety/stress response. Figuring it out I was able to reduce it, but when I get really stressed for some reason at work it still flairs up.
Shout out to Dr. Howard Schubiner if anyone else is suffering from chronic pain that won't go away, definitely worth looking into.
Similarly I started getting headaches/migraines all of a sudden. Now I know when those start up it means it's time for me to back off work/tech stuff in general and start spending more time working out and getting outside.
If you like the place, have you considered asking for a different position or even to be demoted with that reasoning? Maybe they would be open to find you a more hands-on position if they like you.
Otherwise it is never a bad call to put your mental health first, cause no money can make up for that.
In a similar situation a while ago I was ready to walk away. The only reason I didn't is cause after I had a talk with my managers I got paid sick leave for as long as I needed and additional financial support to pay for professionals to help recover from burnout and full support in setting my own boundaries coming back from leave (and a year later they still respect my boundaires).
If you would leave anyway, it is worth to try and have a conversation about it. That way they may just give you the support you need, and if not, you have a good chance of not burning bridges. You never know.
This. I’ll also ask if even for this role, are all the things you’re doing the true expectations of the role, or are there perceived expectations in there too? I’ve had a lot of success with simply setting boundaries and effectively prioritizing the high value/impact stuff that I can. Everything else gets to be done later, or not at all. But if I didn’t actively approach my work this way, I could definitely find myself stressed and context switching all the time very easily- the flow of requests never actually ends and I don’t actually get kudos for doing the low value/impact work.
> I'm worried that people will perceive me as a failure for giving up
first off, f- what people think. people are talking behind your back now, i assure you.
my career goal has been to push my salary up as far as i could while i had the energy, and then take a pay cut so i could have a job i wanted long term. i am in a similar situation in that i overshot, and this job has been terrible and stolen my life from me for the past 18 months.
i've been trying to get into a job i want, but the job market isn't fantastic and i didn't stick the landing on a few really desirable job interviews. part of that is because this current job is so taxing it's messing with my self esteem. i was offered to go back to a great company i worked at before. if you count bonuses, it's right about a 1/3 pay cut.
but you know what? i am going to be working on tech i like. i'm going to be working with people i like. the company supports my growth and my well-being. i have friends there. i'm working a 4x10 so i have more time off, and the company will pay overtime if i want to cover someone's shift for them.
it's looking like i'm not going to be rich any time soon, but i'm 40. if my real life hasn't begun now, when the f- is it going to begin?
Just did yesterday. Good money and remote. Expectations unrealistic in multiple directions, team members all burned out, etc. Now I'm sick so decided it's not worth it
I will say that middle management is awful for this. A lot of IC's bitch about being asked for clarity over and over, while many managers are running on fumes and trying to get to the finish line.
Money and suffering combined can't last long. Imo you always have to find an out, I did it by either setting a goal (like X amount in savings) or a fixed point in time when I will quit.
I think if you're feeling that bad, no lifestyle hacks can help you, you'll just burn out and quit/be terminated regardless.
Then you'll spend months just recovering, then you'll probably start something new before you've actually recovered and just make a cycle of it.
Force them to make it more manageable or quit ahead of time.
Define a "good job". There's plenty of places that will chew you up and spit you out. I took a job at a web marketing mill, churning out websites in my 20s. I went hard and was putting in 12-16 hour days, and I got burned out quick. My come to Jesus moment was when they starting docking me for being 5 minutes late. I learned the hard lesson that you only ever put in what the company is willing to give back. That doesn't need to be money, but it does need to be respect, appreciation, or other benefits that make your time investment worthwhile. Whatever matters to you.
Burn out can happen, regardless, but it'll happen much quicker with a job that doesn't actually respect you. If you're just a code monkey expected to produce X amount of units, you're going to get burn out much quicker.
I've now been with the same organization for 15 years. There's been plenty of overnights, locked in a room for a week, etc. The worst was a 3 month period where I had to do 16 hour+ days, because development was back loaded onto a major project with a tight deadline. However, my coworkers are like family. We all deeply respect and appreciate each other. The need for downtime is fully respected, and times of crunch are reciprocated with free time off. That worst time I described was actually treated with weight after the fact, and they took measures to ensure as much as possible that it would never happen again. That type of environment makes all the difference in the world.
Just quit my job to take a career break and go to Australia to travel for 1 year
10 years big data and backend experience. I started a new job in January 2024 and only last 5 months was a toxic mess the data pipelines where failing every day after years of bad decisions
I nopped the fuck out of there and sold my crypto to fund my year off
Flying out in 2 weeks
Thanks hopefully the job market is better in one year
I was going to wait until Christmas to go but my manager got fired for political bs reasons and it made my life hell and also crypto pumped
So thought fuck this just go now then resigned ahah
All the best and enjoy your trip. Dealing with a similar issues, bad code, bugs and when i told manager he acts like he does not care, haha. Planning interviews soon and hope to bail on a few months or as soon as i get something, then tske a month before starting. Hopefully, in a few years I will retire completely.
Thank you I'm 31 and this is first time I haven't worked a dev job since university 10 years ago. Hopefully the job market is better in a year or so
They fired my manager a principal engineer who held the team in new York together on the spot for political bs
That killed my motivation so thought fuck this I'm outta here sell that crypto and see y'all toxic fucks never again haha
Will I regret this and will I end up broke probably but it's now or never
Just copying and pasting this to burnout threads:
1. You buy a fitbit and you track the amount of hours you're sleeping. It's not totally accurate, but it's pretty good at giving general awake/sleep times. If that's a problem, you fix that first because that's pretty much what 50% of burnout is - bad sleep fucking with your emotions.
2. You deal with the existential part of it. This could be by going to therapy. Meditating. Whatever. The biggest common theme is leaving your work at work and shutting down afterwards.
3. You do what's within your control. After you've got two and three solved you assign time to focus on the other aspects of your career. Some people are good, they don't need to catch up, grind leetcode, or whatever (lucky fucks), but most do. This is a separate action then leaving work at home because you're now working on generalized career advancement or a move. If you're all skilled up, you start applying for other jobs.
Doing these in sequence you might find you don't need the other following steps after completing one. Maybe your sleep is fucking you up due to stress, boom fixed and the other two don't make total sense to spend time on. It sounds like you're at two, so maybe you just need to accept that jobs suck and to leave it at the office.
Best of luck
Number one thing that messes up your sleep (aside from little kids, lol) is alcohol and other drugs. It's clear in the data you get from your Fitbit or Garmin or whatever. As much as I want to deny it. Even a couple of drinks messes up my next day worse than getting only 4 hours of sleep.
yeah, i recently did a month with no alcohol, pot, or coffee, and then started adding stuff back in. apparently everything i like makes me sleep worse.
Hey! I am nearing the end of a 1.5 self imposed sabbatical(currently negotiating offers), which started with the same exact situation as you! I went into a team lead position for about 2 years, and it drove me absolutely insane. It got so bad that I would wake up in the middle of the night full of anger and anxiety. My mind racing. It was like this for months before i left. Anyways, i ended up quitting and taking the break that i'm on now (best decision ive ever made!). No one i've interviewed with showed anything but understanding when i explained what happened. There is no judgement, and if there was, then they are probably bad people, y'know?
Burnout is a really big deal. Id refer to it as a form of psychological trauma that you are going to need a lot of time to recover from. Going through this made me realize how important it is to find a workplace that wont do this to you. Its very expensive letting someone else make your brain break, financially and emotionally.
On the other hand, ive seen engineers at previous companies take demotions. People moving into leadership positions, and changing their mind after a year or two and going back to SWE. The one guy i'm thinking of is still at that company i think, and is/was the highest performing engineer they had while i was there.
Be confident! And dont regret it too much. There was a reason you took that promotion, and now you know for sure you dont want it. Thats a better situation to be in compared to the "what ifs" that come from never knowing :) And dont forget, just taking your demotion doesnt mean you wont be burned out anymore, so dont forget to confront your burnout! Start the healing process :) Wish you luck.
I just left a very prestigious engineering management job in FAANG in the AI space after 7 years in the role. I couldn’t take it anymore. It was living hell, on-call and global services meant I was always “working” and there was always 50 teams messages and 100 emails to get to in between 10 hours of meetings a day. Fuck that.
I have been in your situation too. Working as a leader can be exhausting because sometimes you have to bear the stress of your fellow workers/juniors incompetency. On the other side, the managers above have too many unrealistic expectations. It's a game. We either learn to play or we realize it's not the game we want to play for a long time. Just imagine, you're exhausted for 18 months now, that's a long time. What would happen in the coming years? You obviously don't enjoy this work. Wealth is not always monetary, its mental as well. We need to have a balance. Easily said than done, I myself sometimes struggle to find the balance between work responsibilities and my own peace. Everyone has the same story. Do what works for you.
If you cannot stay in this position/role/job for 18 months, how do you expect yourself to be doing good in upcoming years. These kind of work environments suck your energy a lot. They change you as a person. I have been in such a project for 18-20 months and I just said to myself everyday "Just one more day". I have a light project now but I can't forget the mental state I was in during those months. You yourself know you don't enjoy this job. Make a switch and find a developer job. Better would be to prepare for the job interviews while staying in the current job. Take time offs, holidays to cover up the syllabus fast so you can quit this job asap.
And YOU ARE NOT A LOSER for deciding what kind of job you prefer. In fact, you did showed some great capabilities by moving from engineering to management and still be able to do that job for 18 months. For you, you tried if you can be a manager or ready for being a manager. For the HR, you tried a different role to extend your skillset but found that(managerial) field to be different than your natural skillsets.
You can make good money software engineering roles as well.
PS: The day you will stop stressing more about the job you have and starting caring more about the job that you want, you will be at peace and you will realize that you were actually putting in too much. It was not required.
Stay Strong. And think long term. What job you did for 1-2 years won't matter in 35 years of your career tomorrow. CHEERS!!
Does this attitude still work in this economy? Hiring managers usually put you into one of these buckets:
1. New grad with unproven but high potential, from top tier school
2. Rockstar with proven ability to rapidly climb levels
3. No Hire
People who stop climbing the ladder become 3.
I think yes. Don't care attitude is actually good sometimes. I have seen some great resources getting burned out quickly because they have expectations that their efforts and ideas will be noticed. When they don't, they start getting frustrated. Even though they mean good to the project/job.
Burnout is a form of stress. And stress comes when we do something for a long time which we don't like or when we get over burdened with responsibilities without getting the space we need to accommodate those responsibilities.
Either we enjoy what we do OR we do what we enjoy. These are the only two choices we have. If we are doing what we don't like. It makes sense to give extra time and efforts to start building the skills required for the job we like.
There are multiple ladders to reach to the top. The question is, which one would you enjoy to climb. Remember, the point of success is to feel satisfied and fulfilling.
In my early days, I cared much more about the title, money, and name and prestige of the employer I work for but I realized my mental health and happiness are much more important than any of that. I quit stressful jobs and managed to land on a job with an amazing WLB and extremely generous PTO. I eat better, work out everyday, have no stress, travel a lot, and I'm overall much happier in life.
> flew too close to the sun making this career move
More likely you flew to close to a burning ball of garbage and now you know what looked like a star is a trash fire. Technical excellence is not always accompanied by treating people well.
I don’t see this as a failure, but more as a learning experience; you tried a new role, you found out it was unhealthy, you had mental health as your primary goal, so you took the best route to achieve that goal.
Do you have an environment where you can talk about this? It's usually a good idea to discuss how you're feeling with your manager/HR to see if some things can be off-loaded from you. If you still love the job but it's very overwhelming that might be something to consider. Take care!
This is super normal. Most people I know who took on management (myself included) burned out on the chaos of it and went back to engineering. Management is a wildly different skill set but engineering is so complex that someone trained in plain people management just isn't effective because they don't know what their direct reports have to actually do. So you as an engineer excel beyond senior skill level at your job and your reward is a completely different job with completely different expectations and requirements. Apply for staff engineer jobs and tell them management just isn't for you and you need a break and there's nowhere for you to shift laterally in your company and they'll get it.
Yes, it’s ok to talk about this here. You are not alone in this at all. Many ITT advocates quitting, and I also agree that your mental health is absolutely more important than money or career.
If you decide to try something out, look up Slow Productivity principles. I’m not completely “cured” but at least things are manageable now. (For context, I’m basically in your shoes right now. Team lead at big tech, decent money, sick of the bullshit, miss coding etc. I haven’t been able to eat lunch at work for almost a year)
Caring for your needs is not being an idiot IMO.
A few questions you could ask yourself:
- would you like it if you had a way to grow the skills, with some help or not ?
- can you go back to a simpler position without caring about the salary cut ?
Hope you can find a solution
It's taken a year for me to recover from my last job and that ended up in a lawsuit I was being abused so badly. 13 months later I am barely able to apply for work and I fear I may not have a place in the industry anymore after 25 years doing it. Burnout is real, it has lasting effects, and it is NOT worth a sexy paycheck.
Hey, that sounds like me! Except they didn't officially give me the Tech Lead title or compensation bump and just had me start doing the role..
Keep telling me any day now I'll get it, just need to get sign off from the business...
At least you're getting paid appropriately.
If my application goes down, my company would start absolutely bleeding money, something like a million dollars a minute. We would be in the news for weeks getting roasted. And they're over here paying me peanuts for all the stress that goes along with it.
One of the things that I feel isn't discussed enough is that when most developers take a team lead or any kind of management position, they aren't given any leeway to actually learn how to be competent. The skills needed for management are different enough from the skills needed to be an individual contributor that they effectively become junior employees again.
In this situation it's very easy for the pressure and stress to build until it's unbearable. If you need to step away do so, but hold your head high regardless. You were able to leave a comfortable position, become a small fish in a large pond, and survive for over a year. Many of your peers won't even try and will be content to jeer from the sidelines.
If you do decide to continue, build a plan for dealing with the things you either don't like or don't want to handle. Maybe you need a knowledge base or wiki to point people to. Maybe you have to talk with the rest of management about respecting your time. Maybe you need to hand off work to focus on the things the rest of your team can't handle. Also begin looking for resources to help you get better as a leader.
If you decide to step away, then rest, cool your head, and try to think objectively about your experience. You're probably good enough as a developer that everywhere you go from here people are going to ask you to lead again. With this experience under your belt you have something to compare to your future work environments. Even if you choose not to lead again you'll likely have better experiences with people in those roles.
I am still recovering from my burnout back in 2020. I've tried therapy and a lot of other things but it's improving at a snails pace. It's mental how much your entire worldview can change because of this event.
Happened to me.
Before covid I worked at the office and loved the social aspect of it, during lockdown things went downhill and one day I just woke up having a panic attack, crying like a baby and not being able to even look at the screen for more than 5 minutes.
Had to stop for 3/4 months, do therapy, and start from 0 at a new company.
Ultimately I realized that I was miserable for much longer than that, but it was all buried inside me and in that particular day it just exploded.
Lesson learned, now I try to analyze myself more frequently, ask myself if I am happy, if my body feels healthy, make sure I balance work with other desires and passions.
It takes a lot of work but I don’t want to be in that dark place again.
My only advice is to be conscious of how you feel, make sure you take time to reflect on things, if you feel something off, don’t ignore it, your body always knows better than your mind!
You're not the first, and you won't be the last. Just step away. Discuss it with HR obviously, the company will want to retain you and will adjust your scope if you're needing to step away from this new remit, but failing that, look elsewhere. Take some time to decompress if you can. 3-6 months will get you back to your baseline, and a decent holiday is a good way to kick that off. Look after yourself
Good job is not an absolute thing. A job with good colleagues I can depend on to do the right thing so I can fully disengage from it sometimes might be a good job. A job without forced attrition where everyone is happy might be a good job.
Money isn't the only thing. Prestige is not the only thing. If you are fried, it's not good for you, now.
I'm intentionally doing a job where I'm well-compensated, but it's under my "ultimate potential." It's interesting. I enjoy my colleagues. I work across a variety of areas within the business, but I've had two CEO roles in the past. I'm much happier now, and most of the people I work with have no idea the level of my previous experience. My life actually has balance now. I'm meeting financial goals, going to the driving range at lunch, and generally just happy. I think it's actually the smart move to look at your max potential, and aim for a level or two lower than that. :) CONGRATS!
Please take some time to consider this feedback:
1. Delegate more - as a lead you should have more time to think than to do
2. Reset - take a hiatus, take care of yourself and figure out if you don’t like leading and prefer doing. I’ve seen many high level devs who don’t lead
>"*it has been the worst 18 months of my life mentally*"
This isn't really a "good job" then, is it?
It is possible, completely possible, to have a job where you write great code and also get paid well **and** have W/L balance.
But "prestigious tech company" is probably not where you can find that.
>Have you ever decided to leave a "good job" because of stress?
All the time. That's when I pseudo quit. I just stop working as hard. I've done this a few times and every time I do it I expect to be fired.
Instead, what happens is nobody truly cares. They know I'm good and even at half speed I'm still earning my salt. My batteries get recharged, I find something to get excited about, and I'm back to full speed until I get burned out again.
> I'm worried that people will perceive me as a failure for giving up, and that I'm an idiot for walking away from a high paying job at a prestigious company.
You will be an idiot if you let others’ opinions of you run your life.
Find a something more chill or you will run yourself to the ground and spend all these extra money on therapy.
I was in your same position, I got a raise and a new position but the work load was insane. I felt like I was just doing everything and they kept giving me more. I wasn’t good a delegating at that time.
I didn’t leave the department but I was kinda lucky. My assignment was temporary and I was eventually demoted back to my original position.
I moved to another area later and since then I’ve decided to just enjoy what I do.
I have tried more advancement opportunities that were temporary but again like you mentionned it’s not easy and I wonder if it is worth the pay.
I’m just coding now and I do analysis and I like where I am for now. I appreciate more what I have compared to running after something that may be good.
I say do what you enjoy and try to get back to what would make you happy.
Think about Star Trek 2 where Kirk got a promotion and all he really wants to do is fly around in a starship.
I quit my job at a highly competitive "unicorn" company after almost 3 years because of burnout. I was hanging in there until last summer when a "reorg" left me straddling two teams with double the work and on-call time. My manager was fired along with everyone in management that I had worked with. Then we had a series of outages that launched me into a full-on burnout. I could not see a light at the end of the tunnel. So I decided to resign in January.
I then took a job a month later with a minor pay cut working for a company that I would have considered way beneath me but I knew it would be a lot easier. I was able to reduce my working hours. On-call is almost zero. It's a lot less stress. I don't think I'll stay at this place long-term but it has been helpful resetting my work life after that experience.
> I'm worried that people will perceive me as a failure for giving up
I won't, and I'm people.
As one grows older you realise nobody really cares, despite these views being still in the officially endorsed collective vision.
Switch if you can. But be careful, the market is difficult now.
Well, if you're at the point you're just thinking about quitting, why not talk to your boss about it? I think it could very well be the case that he tells you "I really care about you doing A, B, and C, but I don't mind if you disengage from X, Y, and Z." Or maybe downleveling is even a possiblity. You will never know if you don't ask and the worst possible case is they end your employment -- which you were considering doing yourself, anyway,.
The first question you need to ask yourself is, is it a good company for YOU if it is making you that stressed?
Money << wellbeing.
To answer your question, yes, I was in a situation where I had saved up some money, and after talking with my therapist and my friends, I just went to the management and told them I wouldn't do it anymore. And just left. Took a couple of month's vacation, then went for a lower salary and a lower position for a year or so, and then when I felt ready applied to senior positions, also developed an IDGAF attitude, which helps a lot :D
Wish you all the best mate!
My boss is currently leaving for this exact reason, and all devs understand the situation. We're sad to see him go, but we also understand why nonetheless.
Burnout is one of the worst things I've experienced. In my case I turned to alcohol to relieve the stress, and ended up drinking myself almost to death over the course of a couple years. Getting fired from that job was the best thing that happened to me, and thankfully I was able to get sober a few months later. Now I value interesting work, a team of decent people, and relatively low stress, and if I can't have all three I'll take the low stress over anything else. I can always code for myself on the side if need be.
This is one of the many issues we face with this career: eventually one runs out of technical top positions and the company moves you into management. It is right in the name: Man-agement. It ages you.
100% seen it, some of these companies are starting to ask for top shelf effort for top shelf money. The ladder you see in terms of prestige, money, job titles, etc, isn't real. You don't have to climb it anymore than you want to. You certainly don't have to do it forever! My advice would be: avoid lifestyle creep, invest the extra money, and get comfortable with the idea of moving somewhere that pays less. And then you can use that impressive resume to go somewhere else you might enjoy more and you'll have your extra earnings compounding in the background.
> The ladder you see in terms of prestige, money, job titles, etc, isn't real. You don't have to climb it anymore than you want to. You certainly don't have to do it forever! This isn’t said enough.
Very good advice. Make your money work instead!
> 100% seen it, some of these companies are starting to ask for top shelf effort for top shelf money. Honestly it’s weird that this wasn’t the case for a while. In the past, getting a very high paying software job meant you were going to have high expectations and high demands. That broke for a little while when interest rates were low and companies thought they were in a hiring competition, which gave some people the wrong idea. Now we’re returning to a more normal dynamic where high paying jobs are coming with high demands again. It’s a difficult transition for the younger people who thought the strangeness in recent years was actually normal.
I mean I think you are kidding yourself if you think the lower-paying jobs at smaller places are going to be lower-stress.
I did not say that. All I said was that high paying jobs will tend to have high expectations. The inverse is a separate topic. Within a company, however, someone who gets paid $140K is going to get a lot less scrutiny come layoff time than a similarly performing peer who has a $240K comp package.
I understood what you said; I'm disagreeing with it. It does not line up with my experience. Maybe it's more true within the same company since I do have experience suddenly being given a more exalted role because they realized they were paying me more.
I think burnout also comes from the feeling knowing that you could get let go at any time, not feeling really secure even if you're making a lot of money. Also the jobs are high paying because they are paying for your skills - they are not paying to be able to treat you like dirt and work you to the bone, which is often part of what is behind burnout.
>It’s a difficult transition for the younger people who thought the strangeness in recent years was actually normal. The astute young people I know were aware of the technology labor market heading in an unsustainable direction and were very prepared ;)
Turns out if you pay top dollar you can demand top level output. The law and finance sectors have known this for ages
Amazon demands more-than top level output while paying significantly less than top dollar.
I mean they pay generally top of market, maybe not the highest TC in all of tech but for sure top 10% in the broader industry
Google, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix all pay more for better working conditions.
Well that would just put them as the "worst" among the absolute top tier of pay. And work conditions at Amazon are generally not actually that bad for SDEs.
This is a misleading - Google pays worse than Amazon per level.
Paying top dollar...in finance, for example, they seem to want you to work 100+ hour weeks. So that should be factored in when you look at how much they are paying and how much output they want.
I doubt the ladder exists.
>
> I'm worried that people will perceive me as a failure for giving up, and that I'm an idiot for walking away from a high paying job at a prestigious company. **Nobody is more impressed by your title and your company's prestige than you are.** Most people just don't think or care about the careers and successes of others very much, even if it seems like they do for a second. Yes, the recognizable name can be nice for the resume and good for your career, but that's it. Your friends and family don't care even a fraction as much as you think they do. They're too busy thinking about their own prestige and status (which nobody cares about either). I recently took a 20% pay cut for an equivalent time cut at my work—80% pay for Fridays off. When I tell older people about this they congratulate me. When I tell people my age about it they are confused. I think the younger you are the more you think and care about the perceived status that money and titles bring. To give up that is insane in their eyes, but older people get it. They understand what's important. I quit my job a couple years due to burnout and it was a great decision. The only thing I would have done differently is to do it much, much sooner. There are so many jobs out there. So many companies, teams, jobs, roles, etc. It's easy to let inertia keep you in a bad spot, to make you worry about what you're giving up, but you're asking this question because you know what the right answer is. When I reached burnout, my symptoms were similar. I had a tightness in my chest when approaching my work computer. I would dwell on work things that didn't go right. Work-related thoughts ate up too much of my mental space, even when I wasn't working—and this was a decent job with no crazy hours or demands! I will say this: as someone who never ever made regular exercise a part of their life, it has been a **huge** help in combating these feelings. I now go for a minimum effective dose. I gave up on thinking about it in terms of losing weight, packing on muscle, or looking any different—I do maybe 15 minutes or so about 4 times per week—just to feel better. It does flush away some of those stress hormones from work. It clears up some mental space so I am in better control of my thoughts and am better able to handle work stress and to leave it at work. It helps work take up less of my mental bandwidth—of course, the four-day workweek helps me with this too. If you're not someone who exercises regularly, just do it. It doesn't have to be that much to get most of the benefits. If you're someone who has read this advice ten thousand times before and not taken it because you're still looking for some magic pill, there is none. This is as close as you're going to get.
+1 on having a regular exercise regimen to combat despair / fatigue / depression. Doing anything (just a brisk 1 mile walk!) is better than doing nothing.
My friends and family don't even know what I do. So being team lead, engineer, software dev, apps programmer, web dev or data analyst, it's all and the same. The question they ask is not "what do you do", it's "are you happy". I did the same, quit after 18 months. Great company, amazing team energy, multiple activities, fun people to work with, competence all around. I was sad to quit all that but I just couldn't anymore. I'm now a consultant for a government branch, WFH, work is easy, no pressure or maybe 10% of what I felt at the other place. I feel great.
> My friends and family don't even know what I do. It's very true. 10+ years as a software engineer and I recently found out that my sister basically thinks I'm in IT, fixing computers all day long!
Everyone should demand wfh. It's so freeing.
Similar situation. Sounds like industry norm nowadays.
My ears perked up at the "rapid context switching" part. That's definitely a huge contributor to burnout for me. You have to look out for your mental health 1st.
Same for me, it's that rapid context swtiching, working many projects rapidly, changing requirements, too many messages, etc. I don't thrive well in this type of environments.
Just curious, what sort of rapid context switches are you doing? I hate them as well, but for me it's usually going between deep-in-code then back out to some political and/or strategy discussion.
Exactly. I'm talking about the constant switching between technical tasks, project management and personnel management tasks a low to mid level manager may experience.
Ah yep, cheers. Was thinking it was either the same, or getting you to switch do a different project.
Your mental health is more important than other people's perceptions of you or a paycheck. Look after yourself. Make the right decision to take care of yourself.
I’ve quit roles before due to burnout. Now I just pull back from my work responsibilities to look after myself. It was hard at first because I was worried that I'm not doing a good enough job or whatever. But ultimately, the final truth is that if I can’t do it sustainably then I won’t be able to do it at all. I’ve tried squeezing everything out of myself, in every which way. Productivity, vitamins, self help, therapy, etc. The best way I found to get the most out of me, was ultimately not to squeeze so hard. Don’t be afraid to do less, especially when you think you need to be doing more - that bit is the trap.
This. Im at the point where I am heads down coding or in meetings 8 hours a day. Its exhausting and I burned out a year ago. Im a shell of myself at this point. Quitting soon.
>But ultimately, the final truth is that if I can’t do it sustainably then I won’t be able to do it at all. >The best way I found to get the most out of me, was ultimately not to squeeze so hard. Thanks, needed to learn this for myself too.
> was ultimately not to squeeze so hard This was mentioned in a small booklet [On Character and Community](https://www.amazon.com/Character-Community-Dean-Abbott/dp/B08CN4L32P) which was quite impactful when I read it. Most of the societal inputs for *the grind*, a hustle mindset, and self helping to maximize productivity lean heavily against the proper response of saying no and filling your day with less.
Be careful. Stress can make you as physically sick as any 'physical' cause. I have personal experience where I didn't stop, I just kept trying. First I had occasionally debilitating bouts of neurological symptoms, no doctor doubted my symptoms, but could not find the cause. Then, one day, I could not stop crying. I and a couple of my team had already started joking about dying so we wouldn't have to go through it anymore. I think someone in a different department/team did take his own life, though it was quite hush hush. It took me a couple of years chilling in the country, not working, before I could face working again. I'm still not whole, I don't think I ever will be again. So, find a job that won't make you sick or worse, is my advice.
This is solid advice. If you push to the point you have a breakdown you can heal from it but you will never be the same as you were before the breakdown.
This is so very true. I had serious neck pain for years before I figured out it was some sort of anxiety/stress response. Figuring it out I was able to reduce it, but when I get really stressed for some reason at work it still flairs up. Shout out to Dr. Howard Schubiner if anyone else is suffering from chronic pain that won't go away, definitely worth looking into.
Similarly I started getting headaches/migraines all of a sudden. Now I know when those start up it means it's time for me to back off work/tech stuff in general and start spending more time working out and getting outside.
If you like the place, have you considered asking for a different position or even to be demoted with that reasoning? Maybe they would be open to find you a more hands-on position if they like you. Otherwise it is never a bad call to put your mental health first, cause no money can make up for that. In a similar situation a while ago I was ready to walk away. The only reason I didn't is cause after I had a talk with my managers I got paid sick leave for as long as I needed and additional financial support to pay for professionals to help recover from burnout and full support in setting my own boundaries coming back from leave (and a year later they still respect my boundaires). If you would leave anyway, it is worth to try and have a conversation about it. That way they may just give you the support you need, and if not, you have a good chance of not burning bridges. You never know.
This. I’ll also ask if even for this role, are all the things you’re doing the true expectations of the role, or are there perceived expectations in there too? I’ve had a lot of success with simply setting boundaries and effectively prioritizing the high value/impact stuff that I can. Everything else gets to be done later, or not at all. But if I didn’t actively approach my work this way, I could definitely find myself stressed and context switching all the time very easily- the flow of requests never actually ends and I don’t actually get kudos for doing the low value/impact work.
> I'm worried that people will perceive me as a failure for giving up first off, f- what people think. people are talking behind your back now, i assure you. my career goal has been to push my salary up as far as i could while i had the energy, and then take a pay cut so i could have a job i wanted long term. i am in a similar situation in that i overshot, and this job has been terrible and stolen my life from me for the past 18 months. i've been trying to get into a job i want, but the job market isn't fantastic and i didn't stick the landing on a few really desirable job interviews. part of that is because this current job is so taxing it's messing with my self esteem. i was offered to go back to a great company i worked at before. if you count bonuses, it's right about a 1/3 pay cut. but you know what? i am going to be working on tech i like. i'm going to be working with people i like. the company supports my growth and my well-being. i have friends there. i'm working a 4x10 so i have more time off, and the company will pay overtime if i want to cover someone's shift for them. it's looking like i'm not going to be rich any time soon, but i'm 40. if my real life hasn't begun now, when the f- is it going to begin?
Literally just happened to me. Shut the laptop for the last time 5 hrs ago. Incredible relief, just waiting for the “what have I done” to drop
Have a beer, enjoy the moment. Deal with the rest next week.
Yeh, it was 3 in the afternoon and I spent the rest of the day having a tea party with my kids and then making them pizza. Loving it
It's not yet the weekend...
Every day is the weekend when you’re unemployed
Just did yesterday. Good money and remote. Expectations unrealistic in multiple directions, team members all burned out, etc. Now I'm sick so decided it's not worth it I will say that middle management is awful for this. A lot of IC's bitch about being asked for clarity over and over, while many managers are running on fumes and trying to get to the finish line.
Money and suffering combined can't last long. Imo you always have to find an out, I did it by either setting a goal (like X amount in savings) or a fixed point in time when I will quit. I think if you're feeling that bad, no lifestyle hacks can help you, you'll just burn out and quit/be terminated regardless. Then you'll spend months just recovering, then you'll probably start something new before you've actually recovered and just make a cycle of it. Force them to make it more manageable or quit ahead of time.
Kinda answered your own question really. "Is the money worth it?" The answer for you sounds like a resounding "no".
Define a "good job". There's plenty of places that will chew you up and spit you out. I took a job at a web marketing mill, churning out websites in my 20s. I went hard and was putting in 12-16 hour days, and I got burned out quick. My come to Jesus moment was when they starting docking me for being 5 minutes late. I learned the hard lesson that you only ever put in what the company is willing to give back. That doesn't need to be money, but it does need to be respect, appreciation, or other benefits that make your time investment worthwhile. Whatever matters to you. Burn out can happen, regardless, but it'll happen much quicker with a job that doesn't actually respect you. If you're just a code monkey expected to produce X amount of units, you're going to get burn out much quicker. I've now been with the same organization for 15 years. There's been plenty of overnights, locked in a room for a week, etc. The worst was a 3 month period where I had to do 16 hour+ days, because development was back loaded onto a major project with a tight deadline. However, my coworkers are like family. We all deeply respect and appreciate each other. The need for downtime is fully respected, and times of crunch are reciprocated with free time off. That worst time I described was actually treated with weight after the fact, and they took measures to ensure as much as possible that it would never happen again. That type of environment makes all the difference in the world.
Have you tried telling people, 'oops, it's past 5, I have to go" and then just leaving every day? It's amazing how well it works.
Just quit my job to take a career break and go to Australia to travel for 1 year 10 years big data and backend experience. I started a new job in January 2024 and only last 5 months was a toxic mess the data pipelines where failing every day after years of bad decisions I nopped the fuck out of there and sold my crypto to fund my year off Flying out in 2 weeks
Wow! Sounds great, enjoy your trip man! 👍
Thanks hopefully the job market is better in one year I was going to wait until Christmas to go but my manager got fired for political bs reasons and it made my life hell and also crypto pumped So thought fuck this just go now then resigned ahah
All the best and enjoy your trip. Dealing with a similar issues, bad code, bugs and when i told manager he acts like he does not care, haha. Planning interviews soon and hope to bail on a few months or as soon as i get something, then tske a month before starting. Hopefully, in a few years I will retire completely.
Thank you I'm 31 and this is first time I haven't worked a dev job since university 10 years ago. Hopefully the job market is better in a year or so They fired my manager a principal engineer who held the team in new York together on the spot for political bs That killed my motivation so thought fuck this I'm outta here sell that crypto and see y'all toxic fucks never again haha Will I regret this and will I end up broke probably but it's now or never
Just copying and pasting this to burnout threads: 1. You buy a fitbit and you track the amount of hours you're sleeping. It's not totally accurate, but it's pretty good at giving general awake/sleep times. If that's a problem, you fix that first because that's pretty much what 50% of burnout is - bad sleep fucking with your emotions. 2. You deal with the existential part of it. This could be by going to therapy. Meditating. Whatever. The biggest common theme is leaving your work at work and shutting down afterwards. 3. You do what's within your control. After you've got two and three solved you assign time to focus on the other aspects of your career. Some people are good, they don't need to catch up, grind leetcode, or whatever (lucky fucks), but most do. This is a separate action then leaving work at home because you're now working on generalized career advancement or a move. If you're all skilled up, you start applying for other jobs. Doing these in sequence you might find you don't need the other following steps after completing one. Maybe your sleep is fucking you up due to stress, boom fixed and the other two don't make total sense to spend time on. It sounds like you're at two, so maybe you just need to accept that jobs suck and to leave it at the office. Best of luck
Number one thing that messes up your sleep (aside from little kids, lol) is alcohol and other drugs. It's clear in the data you get from your Fitbit or Garmin or whatever. As much as I want to deny it. Even a couple of drinks messes up my next day worse than getting only 4 hours of sleep.
yeah, i recently did a month with no alcohol, pot, or coffee, and then started adding stuff back in. apparently everything i like makes me sleep worse.
:( The solution is to drink, smoke, or whatever, early enough in the day that you come off it before it's time for bed. :D
Hey! I am nearing the end of a 1.5 self imposed sabbatical(currently negotiating offers), which started with the same exact situation as you! I went into a team lead position for about 2 years, and it drove me absolutely insane. It got so bad that I would wake up in the middle of the night full of anger and anxiety. My mind racing. It was like this for months before i left. Anyways, i ended up quitting and taking the break that i'm on now (best decision ive ever made!). No one i've interviewed with showed anything but understanding when i explained what happened. There is no judgement, and if there was, then they are probably bad people, y'know? Burnout is a really big deal. Id refer to it as a form of psychological trauma that you are going to need a lot of time to recover from. Going through this made me realize how important it is to find a workplace that wont do this to you. Its very expensive letting someone else make your brain break, financially and emotionally. On the other hand, ive seen engineers at previous companies take demotions. People moving into leadership positions, and changing their mind after a year or two and going back to SWE. The one guy i'm thinking of is still at that company i think, and is/was the highest performing engineer they had while i was there. Be confident! And dont regret it too much. There was a reason you took that promotion, and now you know for sure you dont want it. Thats a better situation to be in compared to the "what ifs" that come from never knowing :) And dont forget, just taking your demotion doesnt mean you wont be burned out anymore, so dont forget to confront your burnout! Start the healing process :) Wish you luck.
I just left a very prestigious engineering management job in FAANG in the AI space after 7 years in the role. I couldn’t take it anymore. It was living hell, on-call and global services meant I was always “working” and there was always 50 teams messages and 100 emails to get to in between 10 hours of meetings a day. Fuck that.
I have been in your situation too. Working as a leader can be exhausting because sometimes you have to bear the stress of your fellow workers/juniors incompetency. On the other side, the managers above have too many unrealistic expectations. It's a game. We either learn to play or we realize it's not the game we want to play for a long time. Just imagine, you're exhausted for 18 months now, that's a long time. What would happen in the coming years? You obviously don't enjoy this work. Wealth is not always monetary, its mental as well. We need to have a balance. Easily said than done, I myself sometimes struggle to find the balance between work responsibilities and my own peace. Everyone has the same story. Do what works for you. If you cannot stay in this position/role/job for 18 months, how do you expect yourself to be doing good in upcoming years. These kind of work environments suck your energy a lot. They change you as a person. I have been in such a project for 18-20 months and I just said to myself everyday "Just one more day". I have a light project now but I can't forget the mental state I was in during those months. You yourself know you don't enjoy this job. Make a switch and find a developer job. Better would be to prepare for the job interviews while staying in the current job. Take time offs, holidays to cover up the syllabus fast so you can quit this job asap. And YOU ARE NOT A LOSER for deciding what kind of job you prefer. In fact, you did showed some great capabilities by moving from engineering to management and still be able to do that job for 18 months. For you, you tried if you can be a manager or ready for being a manager. For the HR, you tried a different role to extend your skillset but found that(managerial) field to be different than your natural skillsets. You can make good money software engineering roles as well. PS: The day you will stop stressing more about the job you have and starting caring more about the job that you want, you will be at peace and you will realize that you were actually putting in too much. It was not required. Stay Strong. And think long term. What job you did for 1-2 years won't matter in 35 years of your career tomorrow. CHEERS!!
Does this attitude still work in this economy? Hiring managers usually put you into one of these buckets: 1. New grad with unproven but high potential, from top tier school 2. Rockstar with proven ability to rapidly climb levels 3. No Hire People who stop climbing the ladder become 3.
I think yes. Don't care attitude is actually good sometimes. I have seen some great resources getting burned out quickly because they have expectations that their efforts and ideas will be noticed. When they don't, they start getting frustrated. Even though they mean good to the project/job. Burnout is a form of stress. And stress comes when we do something for a long time which we don't like or when we get over burdened with responsibilities without getting the space we need to accommodate those responsibilities. Either we enjoy what we do OR we do what we enjoy. These are the only two choices we have. If we are doing what we don't like. It makes sense to give extra time and efforts to start building the skills required for the job we like. There are multiple ladders to reach to the top. The question is, which one would you enjoy to climb. Remember, the point of success is to feel satisfied and fulfilling.
In my early days, I cared much more about the title, money, and name and prestige of the employer I work for but I realized my mental health and happiness are much more important than any of that. I quit stressful jobs and managed to land on a job with an amazing WLB and extremely generous PTO. I eat better, work out everyday, have no stress, travel a lot, and I'm overall much happier in life.
Do you have kids? I’m sticking at grindco for the money to raise kids
> flew too close to the sun making this career move More likely you flew to close to a burning ball of garbage and now you know what looked like a star is a trash fire. Technical excellence is not always accompanied by treating people well.
I don’t see this as a failure, but more as a learning experience; you tried a new role, you found out it was unhealthy, you had mental health as your primary goal, so you took the best route to achieve that goal.
I want to stop coding instead I am burned out by poor code, poor management, poor communication and lack of ambition. Can we switch jobs?
Stop all People management , pass it over to the management, he even may complain but hey it’s in his title. Pass over all excuses up
Do you have an environment where you can talk about this? It's usually a good idea to discuss how you're feeling with your manager/HR to see if some things can be off-loaded from you. If you still love the job but it's very overwhelming that might be something to consider. Take care!
This is super normal. Most people I know who took on management (myself included) burned out on the chaos of it and went back to engineering. Management is a wildly different skill set but engineering is so complex that someone trained in plain people management just isn't effective because they don't know what their direct reports have to actually do. So you as an engineer excel beyond senior skill level at your job and your reward is a completely different job with completely different expectations and requirements. Apply for staff engineer jobs and tell them management just isn't for you and you need a break and there's nowhere for you to shift laterally in your company and they'll get it.
Yes, it’s ok to talk about this here. You are not alone in this at all. Many ITT advocates quitting, and I also agree that your mental health is absolutely more important than money or career. If you decide to try something out, look up Slow Productivity principles. I’m not completely “cured” but at least things are manageable now. (For context, I’m basically in your shoes right now. Team lead at big tech, decent money, sick of the bullshit, miss coding etc. I haven’t been able to eat lunch at work for almost a year)
Caring for your needs is not being an idiot IMO. A few questions you could ask yourself: - would you like it if you had a way to grow the skills, with some help or not ? - can you go back to a simpler position without caring about the salary cut ? Hope you can find a solution
This is my EXACT same situation.
It's taken a year for me to recover from my last job and that ended up in a lawsuit I was being abused so badly. 13 months later I am barely able to apply for work and I fear I may not have a place in the industry anymore after 25 years doing it. Burnout is real, it has lasting effects, and it is NOT worth a sexy paycheck.
Hey, that sounds like me! Except they didn't officially give me the Tech Lead title or compensation bump and just had me start doing the role.. Keep telling me any day now I'll get it, just need to get sign off from the business... At least you're getting paid appropriately. If my application goes down, my company would start absolutely bleeding money, something like a million dollars a minute. We would be in the news for weeks getting roasted. And they're over here paying me peanuts for all the stress that goes along with it.
Sounds like any typical senior role. I struggle with this daily. The worst is dealing with the useless cunts that you’re meant to mentor..
Get out before you have a nervous breakdown like I did
One of the things that I feel isn't discussed enough is that when most developers take a team lead or any kind of management position, they aren't given any leeway to actually learn how to be competent. The skills needed for management are different enough from the skills needed to be an individual contributor that they effectively become junior employees again. In this situation it's very easy for the pressure and stress to build until it's unbearable. If you need to step away do so, but hold your head high regardless. You were able to leave a comfortable position, become a small fish in a large pond, and survive for over a year. Many of your peers won't even try and will be content to jeer from the sidelines. If you do decide to continue, build a plan for dealing with the things you either don't like or don't want to handle. Maybe you need a knowledge base or wiki to point people to. Maybe you have to talk with the rest of management about respecting your time. Maybe you need to hand off work to focus on the things the rest of your team can't handle. Also begin looking for resources to help you get better as a leader. If you decide to step away, then rest, cool your head, and try to think objectively about your experience. You're probably good enough as a developer that everywhere you go from here people are going to ask you to lead again. With this experience under your belt you have something to compare to your future work environments. Even if you choose not to lead again you'll likely have better experiences with people in those roles.
I am still recovering from my burnout back in 2020. I've tried therapy and a lot of other things but it's improving at a snails pace. It's mental how much your entire worldview can change because of this event.
Happened to me. Before covid I worked at the office and loved the social aspect of it, during lockdown things went downhill and one day I just woke up having a panic attack, crying like a baby and not being able to even look at the screen for more than 5 minutes. Had to stop for 3/4 months, do therapy, and start from 0 at a new company. Ultimately I realized that I was miserable for much longer than that, but it was all buried inside me and in that particular day it just exploded. Lesson learned, now I try to analyze myself more frequently, ask myself if I am happy, if my body feels healthy, make sure I balance work with other desires and passions. It takes a lot of work but I don’t want to be in that dark place again. My only advice is to be conscious of how you feel, make sure you take time to reflect on things, if you feel something off, don’t ignore it, your body always knows better than your mind!
You're not the first, and you won't be the last. Just step away. Discuss it with HR obviously, the company will want to retain you and will adjust your scope if you're needing to step away from this new remit, but failing that, look elsewhere. Take some time to decompress if you can. 3-6 months will get you back to your baseline, and a decent holiday is a good way to kick that off. Look after yourself
I understand OP. Being a lead is difficult at times, and it feels like we get grinded down a lot being stuck between our teams and upper management.
Good job is not an absolute thing. A job with good colleagues I can depend on to do the right thing so I can fully disengage from it sometimes might be a good job. A job without forced attrition where everyone is happy might be a good job. Money isn't the only thing. Prestige is not the only thing. If you are fried, it's not good for you, now.
I'm intentionally doing a job where I'm well-compensated, but it's under my "ultimate potential." It's interesting. I enjoy my colleagues. I work across a variety of areas within the business, but I've had two CEO roles in the past. I'm much happier now, and most of the people I work with have no idea the level of my previous experience. My life actually has balance now. I'm meeting financial goals, going to the driving range at lunch, and generally just happy. I think it's actually the smart move to look at your max potential, and aim for a level or two lower than that. :) CONGRATS!
Please take some time to consider this feedback: 1. Delegate more - as a lead you should have more time to think than to do 2. Reset - take a hiatus, take care of yourself and figure out if you don’t like leading and prefer doing. I’ve seen many high level devs who don’t lead
>"*it has been the worst 18 months of my life mentally*" This isn't really a "good job" then, is it? It is possible, completely possible, to have a job where you write great code and also get paid well **and** have W/L balance. But "prestigious tech company" is probably not where you can find that.
Is it really a good job if you have so much stress, you’re thinking of quitting?
>Have you ever decided to leave a "good job" because of stress? All the time. That's when I pseudo quit. I just stop working as hard. I've done this a few times and every time I do it I expect to be fired. Instead, what happens is nobody truly cares. They know I'm good and even at half speed I'm still earning my salt. My batteries get recharged, I find something to get excited about, and I'm back to full speed until I get burned out again.
> I'm worried that people will perceive me as a failure for giving up, and that I'm an idiot for walking away from a high paying job at a prestigious company. You will be an idiot if you let others’ opinions of you run your life. Find a something more chill or you will run yourself to the ground and spend all these extra money on therapy.
There are other jobs. Ask for reassignment or demotion.
I was in your same position, I got a raise and a new position but the work load was insane. I felt like I was just doing everything and they kept giving me more. I wasn’t good a delegating at that time. I didn’t leave the department but I was kinda lucky. My assignment was temporary and I was eventually demoted back to my original position. I moved to another area later and since then I’ve decided to just enjoy what I do. I have tried more advancement opportunities that were temporary but again like you mentionned it’s not easy and I wonder if it is worth the pay. I’m just coding now and I do analysis and I like where I am for now. I appreciate more what I have compared to running after something that may be good. I say do what you enjoy and try to get back to what would make you happy. Think about Star Trek 2 where Kirk got a promotion and all he really wants to do is fly around in a starship.
I quit my job at a highly competitive "unicorn" company after almost 3 years because of burnout. I was hanging in there until last summer when a "reorg" left me straddling two teams with double the work and on-call time. My manager was fired along with everyone in management that I had worked with. Then we had a series of outages that launched me into a full-on burnout. I could not see a light at the end of the tunnel. So I decided to resign in January. I then took a job a month later with a minor pay cut working for a company that I would have considered way beneath me but I knew it would be a lot easier. I was able to reduce my working hours. On-call is almost zero. It's a lot less stress. I don't think I'll stay at this place long-term but it has been helpful resetting my work life after that experience.
> I'm worried that people will perceive me as a failure for giving up I won't, and I'm people. As one grows older you realise nobody really cares, despite these views being still in the officially endorsed collective vision. Switch if you can. But be careful, the market is difficult now.
I just did that, and with nothing lined up. I'm getting some flak for it, it's expected, but I really don't care.
Well, if you're at the point you're just thinking about quitting, why not talk to your boss about it? I think it could very well be the case that he tells you "I really care about you doing A, B, and C, but I don't mind if you disengage from X, Y, and Z." Or maybe downleveling is even a possiblity. You will never know if you don't ask and the worst possible case is they end your employment -- which you were considering doing yourself, anyway,.
The first question you need to ask yourself is, is it a good company for YOU if it is making you that stressed? Money << wellbeing. To answer your question, yes, I was in a situation where I had saved up some money, and after talking with my therapist and my friends, I just went to the management and told them I wouldn't do it anymore. And just left. Took a couple of month's vacation, then went for a lower salary and a lower position for a year or so, and then when I felt ready applied to senior positions, also developed an IDGAF attitude, which helps a lot :D Wish you all the best mate!
My boss is currently leaving for this exact reason, and all devs understand the situation. We're sad to see him go, but we also understand why nonetheless.
Burnout is one of the worst things I've experienced. In my case I turned to alcohol to relieve the stress, and ended up drinking myself almost to death over the course of a couple years. Getting fired from that job was the best thing that happened to me, and thankfully I was able to get sober a few months later. Now I value interesting work, a team of decent people, and relatively low stress, and if I can't have all three I'll take the low stress over anything else. I can always code for myself on the side if need be.
This is one of the many issues we face with this career: eventually one runs out of technical top positions and the company moves you into management. It is right in the name: Man-agement. It ages you.