I don't feel like working at all, what to do?

> In college I started getting inferiority complex.

> I never feel secured or that they have my back

3 good things: (1) your biggest problem is yourself (which means it’s in your control, possible to change), (2) you’re at least partially aware of that, and (3) you’re obviously good enough to get hired at FAANG so probably not actually “below average”.

Of course, changing your mindset is hard… the first step is knowing it’s possible. The second step is, trying out all the well-known techniques (meditation, equanimity, gratitude, working out, abundance mentality, …) and seeing what works.

Not once in my life have I ever felt a need or desire to work. I don't assign value or meaning to "work", I don't need work to find personal fulfillment, I don't need work to get social interaction and meet people, and I don't need work to learn new skills and grow. I took a month off between jobs once and it was amazing: I woke up at 4am, worked out a ton, studied my personal interests, and spent a ton of time socializing and enjoying my hobbies. I can't relate at all to the people who say you'll get bored of retirement or that life has no meaning without work.

So my goal is to retire ASAP because I know retirement is the life I'll thrive under. You should aim for that in the long term and in the short term, find a new job. FAANG companies have horrible work cultures. There are plenty of software jobs that are laid back and easy-going, and finding a new job is also a chance at a better manager.

Try a a kinder environment (at a smaller company) where your skills can grow. Also maybe a mentor.

This reminds me of a quote about how MIT has a way of turning physicists into lawyers. What it means is that people who started school trying to be physicists, got overwhelmed with competition at MIT and end up reverting to law school after graduation because their confidence in physics was diminished. Where if they went to a regular school, their skills (and confidence) would have grown.

> a downward spiral

> I have high and low phases

> I have been anxious/ depressed for around a decade

> There are phases where I work with high motivation but it fades easily

I have bipolar disorder so the above sentences caught my attention. The thing about bipolar is that it is hard to diagnose. I wasted 10's of thousands of dollars on in appropriate therapies like SSRI's and Ativan and just general talk therapy. The low phases often masquerade as anxiety depression and the high phases can look like borderline personality disorder or even schizophrenia.

Also, drug and alcohol abuse can make it impossible to get a correct diagnosis.

I got my life back and became productive once I was properly diagnosed and given a med that worked for me (Quetiapine) I also quit alcohol and drugs (except moderate amount of coffee)

I recommend seeing a psychiatrist and relating your moods and activities honestly and completely and see if bipolar rings true.

Therapy sounds like a good start to untangle what you're experiencing.

Also, you work at a FAANG, for any reasonable definition of success, you've made it. You wouldn't be where you are if you weren't good at what you do and vetted by lots of people. Can you get better? Have you done mistakes? Probably, but that doesn't mean you're bad.

> I complete around 80% of things and then leave them

This was the primary reason I got checked out for ADHD. Turns out I have ADHD.

Might be worth asking a doc for a checkup. I am not diagnosing, just suggesting to rule it out.

Contrary to what everyone else in this thread says, I think you're just normal. This idea that you should always have "high" phases is asinine. Obviously, if you're low all the time get help but when you're working 40+ hours a week at the same job your entire life to put money in the pockets of someone else's business; you're going to get tired of it and not be motivated all the time. Take all these recommendations to get meds and comments about you having a mental illness with a grain of salt.

Another suggestion would be to stop placing so much importance on your job. Find other hobbies. Most people work to make a money, bonus points if you find it to be your passion but I don't think that's the norm. Accept that there will be days where you're just going through the motions.

Therapy and a good psychiatrist is a great first step. When you have work issues, anxiety, and other things going on it can really be hard to tease out what's the cause and what's the effect.

A good therapist can help you figure this out, and give you better coping strategies.

It took me years to figure it out but I struggled to be consistently productive because of a mix of untreated insomnia, adhd and bipolar 2. What made the difference for me was really analyzing my symptoms, seeking out goal/skills-oriented therapist (a PsyD not a MFT), and not giving up after the first psych med or two didn't work.

I've seen people who really lack the awareness to know that they're underperforming, or the willpower to try to fix it and get help. Thankfully you don't seem to be one of those people.

Also, I'm going to echo everyone and say that you should probably get screened for ADHD. With ADHD it's very common for an inability to focus -> frustration that you can't get things done as fast as you should be -> depression/anxiety.

> There are phases where I work with high motivation but it fades easily. I have found I work on my side things with interest but I am not a completer. I complete around 80% of things and then leave them.

Probably describes most of HN so don't feel too bad about that haha.

I struggle with this too. It is common.

It's not a magic solution, but considering you work at a FAANG you have sufficient $$$/insurance to pursue therapy/coaching.

Don't misunderstand. Just finding a good therapist/coach is work. You will probably have to "try" a few and they're not cheap. And then once you find a good fit the real work begins.

But, it can be a great investment. Think about it this way. Sounds like you are in your 20s or 30s. You have potentially 30+ years of employment left at $150K+ per year. That is potentially 4 or 5 million dollars, maybe more. So, when considering the costs of coaching/therapy, weigh it against this amount.

Remember that million-dollar athletes and even college and high school athletes have all kinds of coaches to help them perform. Why should YOU not deserve it?

(Side note: why don't companies invest in coaching for their expensive engineers? Considering the high cost of recruiting and retaining engineers, this seems like it would be a great competitive advantage...)

Whether you try coaching, therapy, or some other completely different route I wish you luck. Please know that you are not alone.

Hyakujo, the Chinese Zen master, used to labor with his pupils even at the age of eighty, trimming the gardens, cleaning the grounds, and pruning the trees. The pupils felt sorry to see the old teacher working so hard, but they knew he would not listen to their advice to stop, so they hid away his tools. That day the master did not eat. The next day he did not eat, nor the next. “He may be angry because we have hidden his tools,” the pupils surmised. “We had better put them back.” The day they did, the teacher worked and ate the same as before. In the evening he instructed them: “No work, no food.”

> I am taking anxiety medicines and planning to start therapy

Please don't plan on starting therapy, get it started now! Also, get a full physical from your doctor - there could be underlying medical issues causing these problems. Seriously, I've known people with these kinds of issues and a combination of medical therapy (they had a vitamin D deficiency and their brain chemicals weren't in the right balance) and therapy completely turned their life around. It wasn't easy though, especially at the outset. If the problem is you have brain chemicals out of whack I'd love to tell you that they'd be able to easily fix it but they can't. What they're going to do is try different things and see what works. It can be frustrating and you may think your doctors are idiots during this process - but realize that's today's state-of-the-art.

Remember, you're worth the effort to get to the bottom of this and get it turned around. Get the help you need and good luck!

A lot of this boils down to emotions, which are not being fully processed in your system.

When you recognize a strong feeling within yourself, you can work with it to find a balance in the following way.

Find the 'negative' emotion. Now enter a meditative state. Call up the emotion into your awareness - use imagery, imagination, sensing, whatever helps. Once you have a hold on the emotion, amplify it - seek to feel it in your entire being. Whether its sadness, fear, not being appreciated - amplify the feeling until it fills every cell of your body. Do this for a few seconds only, until it feels like the feeling begins to change or subside. (It can take as few as 3 or 5 seconds, or much longer, depending). The goal is to feel the feeling as intensely as you can (without hurting yourself!). Doing this will shift it!

Then, seek to find the opposite feeling. Ask yourself, what is the opposite feeling? Feeling grateful for your job? What does that feel like? Imagine yourself feeling this feeling. Imagine a world-scenario that would trigger this feeling. Visualize yourself in a situation which triggers this opposite feeling. Then, amplify that feeling, and feel it in every cell of your body, for a few seconds.

This will completely shift your experience of the emotion and your viewpoint on the relevant issue/topic/area/domain in which the emotion is being triggered. It's a very effective technique.

Wishing you good things.

I've had similar problems. Turns out my vitamin B12 and D levels were extremely low. Found out from a blood test. I get B12 shots now and take vitamin D daily. You might want to go to your doctor and get that checked up on.

Good chance you have 200k+ saved. Stop working for a while. Travel, live somewhere new. Start learning about things outside of software... Pursue projects for anything that moves you regardless of whether you think you'd be good at it or not. Do that for a few years and see where life goes.

Life is too precious not to live it, not to explore what could be, esp when current path becomes unbearable.

Much of what you describe(including comorbid depression and anxiety) is typical of people with ADHD. There are many other potential causes so please talk with a professional for diagnosis rather than assuming.

I am not exactly sure if/how this will help.

But I am a 26 year old sales guy, who is in a similar boat (I wouldn't say I am depressed but have this deep intense feeling of "something is missing" I need to do more. I think I have had a mixed career, My first job I was PIP'd and I voluntarily left soon after. My second job I was the company's number 1 salesperson (Out of 60) and made a ton of money, I again soon left after- because "Something" was missing. My third job was so-so at best and again I felt something... On my 4th Job now, doing great by all respects, and yet I am interviewing for another job (Scratching my head on why).... The only rational explanation I have found is I love change... if you have savings and a good relationship with family/GF, I think a good idea might be to take some time off and spend sometime away from it all to think about what "really matters" and then come back and find your next path...

Therapy and medicine won't help. Usually the answers are: clean up the negative people around you (fire that person as your boss, network and take tons of other interviews sufficient to move or have a fallback option so you worry less), and branch out on your actual life (travel more, do something new, etc.)

You could also accept that Faangs are full of slackers and coasters--stop tying your self-esteem to your work or your boss (who is actually your adversary, squeezing as much work from you for the lowest price). Do enough to be of interest to other teams there, have a few references and savings and just assume you will be let go, and focus on improving your life and your next opportunity.

Outsource your job to me, I'll take 50% of your FAANG salary

I struggle with similar things, and I have no good advice.

Now that that's out of the way, I did think about it a lot in recent years, and I came to the conclusion things become unbearable when too many things are off at the same time. When I was younger the work was on its own motivating enough, but this is no longer the case because I don't do anything really interesting. Now when I come to work already unhappy, and on top of that know the only way to solve a problem is to dig through crappy code for three days, it becomes the straw that broke the camel's back.

Things I work on and try to advise my kids, even though it's hard for me is: don't worry too much and just do it (whatever it is). We get better insights into things when we do them, so we get better. I don't really have an inferiority complex, but I did waste a lot of time in the past polishing things because I was worried what people might think. I wanted it to be great! But this doesn't work because it takes too much time, and somebody will always find a reason to criticize because it's not how they would do it. So it's like a double nothing. I also notice this is quite prevalent in this "industry" (although it's quite a wide spectrum, I am no way near a FAANG). It's made worse by a lot of people who suffer abuse (being looked down upon etc) and then solve it by abusing other people in similar ways. There are a lot of people who are arrogant and scared at the same time.

Lastly, in my case at least, I'm just not really that interested in the job anymore, above all not the grind. But it's a respected and well paid profession, so it's difficult to let go. It also became kind of a part of my identity, so if I walk away, what is left of me?

It's a real possibility you suffer from MDD. Do you struggle to get up in the morning? Oversleep? Depression and anxiety often manifests themselves differently in people but can lead to lower motivation, and can cause attention difficulties.

I suggest finding a Psychologist and trying some therapy (CBT/DBT). If your already on anxiety medications, I'd be careful taking those. You should only take them when your anxiety is at the very highest in low doses. Benzos are often over-prescribed and can be abused and can lead to physical dependence. A Psychiatrist will try prescribing all sorts of medications if they diagnose you with depression or ADHD, and you should be skeptical. You can also try (with therapy) other more non-invasive treatments like getting good exercise (cardio), sunlight (vitamin-D). There are other things that are more experimental too like TMS, Ketamine, etc.

Sleep and diet hygiene (in addition to exercise) are always important.

After years of treatment-resistant depression and being prescribed all sorts of medications (SSRIs, even a low-dose anti-psychotic at one point), I did a bout round of TMS and it really helped me.

Don’t give up just yet. I’ve had ups and downs at different companies, different levels of seniority, different cultures, different quality of people in the team etc. I’ve worked at a few toxic places as well as good places but with toxic managers - and some of those really tested my resilience. They can make you get low very quickly.

First thing I’d suggest if all three have been FAANG is to try a different type of company. There are plenty of other industries that need tech staff - think banks, consultancies, consumer goods, insurance, retail. Almost any type of company these days.

Try to find a good culture (as difficult as that is through the interview process!), a good manager, and build your confidence back.

Often friends and contacts that have worked somewhere are the best way to find out if a company culture is good. Take “Top places to work” surveys with a grain of salt.

Good luck!

Do you love programming? Do you like your work culture and colleagues? Is it possible you are overworked as in burnout?

There have been many discussions here recently about taking time off to rediscover your passion or just plain satisfaction. Going back over the decade, there were discussions here around people switching careers entirely (wood working, ski pro, ...)

Finishing 80% of things isn't being 80% complete. The 80-20 rule tells us that it takes 80% of the time to finish the last 20% of a project. So ask yourself, are you afraid of challenge? Is it hard for you to get through hard tasks? Do you avoid that work, the tricky debugging or the digging through docs for esoteric facts?

If so, I get it, that's my tendency as well. The only method I found was to take breaks and think about it in a dissociative state, then I also try to live with boredom. I don't see boredom or frustration as enemies, they are like an itch I can't give in to, because scratching a bug bite makes it even itchier.

To practically improve this way, meditation gave me that extra dose of willpower to last through boredom. meditation simply teaches you to passively observe, it keeps your emotions in check, if you practice enough.

This sounds a lot like me. Only I've been at the same non-FAANG company for 9 years, and I actually am average (non-FAANG, some years I've gotten bad reviews, been told I'm "slow" a couple times), and haven't been diagnosed/medicated with anything.

I would just stay until you get fired. You're aren't going to get paid more somewhere else, right? Maybe start looking into FIRE. That way you can quit sooner, or get to a point where you don't care if you're fired.

On a side note, how did you get almost PIP'd and then fired and still get hired by FAANG? I feel like if I get fired from my job that I won't be able to find another one unless I take an entry level position for even less pay.

How is your social life?

> There are phases where I work with high motivation but it fades easily. I have found I work on my side things with interest but I am not a completer. I complete around 80% of things and then leave them.

I think a therapist/meds or even a coach could provide the best help for you. A therapist should be the ones to diagnose you, but this _ might_ be an attention disorder like ADD. I know really smart people that suffer from this, and I see in them a lot of starting new/interesting things with manic energy and not finishing. However it could also be a sign of other mental health issues, so definitely consult a professional.

Before you start any therapy you should try to understand yourself, by tracking yourself, as in the quantified self. You work at a FAANG so you could probably develop your own tools to do this. Track your mood, your sleep habits, exercise, activity, meals, caffeine intake, work productivity, social interactions, medications, etc. Then look and find insights into how these relate to your work attitude. This project might in itself give you motivation and who knows, maybe you can develop your own startup to build this as a product

Structure your week. Set weekly goals. Set things up so that you assign weekends free to relax/do fun stuff - so they feel like actual week ends. This enables you to focus on Mon-Thurs without feeling hopeless, as your body/mind know that good time is coming later in the week. It avoids the feeling of just being aimlessly lost in time.

It's important to ensure your mind/body feel there is light at the end of the tunnel, not just at the macro but micro (days, weeks) level too.

I typed a lot. It has no conclusion or suggestion. Just leaving it here.

high five buddy!

Don't focus to get more work on your head. Try to find a spot in the team where dependency on you will be less. Don't stress yourself.

It will be hard, sleepless nights, panic attack in the morning If I wake up early, what I do, I oversleep and work in drowsiness. And then I open outlook, teams, meetings, panic attack starts. A clear head becomes a turbulent head and doesn't know what he is talking about.

I know I'm above average, you are also above average. It's mostly people that disturbs the mind.

What worked for me in the past - I wanted to get my life under my control. Moved nearby my office, setup a good routine, removed distractions, got into fitness, veggies, fruits, threw away mobile, I touch computer only at work. I stopped speaking or letting anyone to waste my time at office. I became a loner, but I was focussed. I got better, started a side project, never overdid anything and practiced meditation. My only goal was to keep mind occupied and do not loose thoughts.

It worked pretty well. And everyday routine was boosting my energy levels up and up. but one day It got ruined. Family and relatives missed me so I started spending and sacrificing my interests for them. Mind went back to same old same old dancing head phones.

I still miss and in fact I'm living in past and in my present reality I know for sure I'm really not present. I really have no clue how I'm even surviving work / life but I need to earn to provide for my mom and my sister. That's the only reason I have. But even that I'll forget.

The only reason I spoke this much is that, I feel the same. I was good in my school, I liked math and science. College was a new world. It started fine but something went upside down. Then I was excited about work, for first 3-4 years it was exciting and fun, then interests and motivation went down. Throughout my life I used to find reasons why I have memory loss, why I cant pay any attention, trying to find out answers or cures, and most of the time I'll be lost in a cooked up reality believing in some non-sense that keeps me happy at that moment but serves no purpose to survive in the world. Recently I have started thinking that's how the world is. Friends moved on,

I think you need to find something you love. Maybe open a restaurant. Work is natural and fulfilling if you like what you do. You don't have to be an engineer. We are all just carbon, there is no god, this is your only life. It's not a contest. Find something you love. It's not work you don't feel like doing, it's this work. There is work out there that you can love you just have to find it.

Go work for a non-tech Fortune 500. Expectations are low, and your success will depend much more on soft skills than any other factor.

Your TC will be cut in half (or worse), but your base might not suffer as much as you think, as long as you negotiate well.

If you find that you can't stand the low expectations and slow pace, you can always go back to tech. But it might help to spend a few years in a low-performance environment and find meaning outside of work.

Maybe just grab as much money as you can and retire early. All work are like that unless you work for yourself, but then you will worry about other things.

Bank money if you can. It will give you time to search around in absence of a job, if it comes to that.

Consider leaving FAANG behind. It may not be you, it could be them. If you want to stay in tech there are other companies that would salivate over your resume. Also, expectations could be lower performance-wise.

Try new things. I know it sounds simple, but doing the same thing over and over is not likely to help if things are not going well.

This sounds like something you should see a therapist for. I got poor grades in university and they forced me to see a counselor, one from the mental health side, one of them my professors.

Does FAANG do something like this? I've seen smaller companies offer mental health support and I hear Google would promote meditation. The stress level in FAANG has to be pretty high, with most of it self-inflicted.

Try these three things -

1. Strength training with dumb bells/machines. If you can't go to the gym, buy the dumbbells and do squats, etc.. Form is important.

2. If you're male, go on nofap. You may not believe it but go on nofap for a month and you will see the difference. If it works for you, do it permanently.

3. 8 hours of sleep.

These should automatically improve your focus/motivation and solve depression/anxiety.

Start by talking with someone. To me it sounds like there may be some emotions at the root of how you are relating with work. Potentially some official diagnosis as well, but no one here can tell you that. You could have a range of treatment options ranging from talking it out to meds. There are a lot of things that could help.

It might be a matter of perspective? How many devs are there in the world? How many would die to work at a FAANG?

Sounds like you are experiencing burnout. What you are describing is not atypical, happens to the best of us. What do you enjoy doing outside of work? Are you taking time off to unwind? A job is a means to an end. Take some time off to do things for yourself. Don't let your job define who you are.

There are basically three forms of working a job:

1. Shuffling around credit between people and projects

2. "Getting by" enough to not be fired

3. Studying something of interest through the work

At competitive companies it's a lot of the first - everyone's looking for a way to take credit, which means there's a lot of performance anxiety and destructive power plays. Companies that are "coasting" see more of the second type, and this is roughly where you are in terms of mindset. It may be a dead end, but you will get paid for a while; of course this clashes if you are in a competitive team. But if the job involves an implict need to absorb stress or physical exertion, it can feel like plenty enough to get by.

But it's the third that is the only one that has some innate sense of contentment, and is always tied to those "dream jobs" and "dream projects" people seem to have, and the kind of drive that motivates high achieviment and immense technical ability. In a lot of cases it has to come from within; teams lacking leadership in this respect fall into coasting or bickering behavior, and society as a whole defaults to total indifference. So it can easily happen that you feel a purpose for a few years, then fall down for a while, then rediscover yourself. But you have to continuously have that purpose in mind to not get overly swept up in events.

It's almost certainly the case that you have something you want to study more deeply, and if you set yourself up to go down that path you would start to excel within months without feeling difficulty. But knowing it means knowing yourself and doing some deconstruction of the path you've followed so far. School-to-FAANG is a kind of life script, and all life scripts have a lack of "happily ever after" closure to them.

How do you do that deconstruction? There's no definite way, but it's a question that guides a lot of philosophy around virtue ethics and self development. So one way to go about this would be to get philosophical for a while, take a class, read some classics. Another is simply to push yourself a little to get out of your comfort zones and try out things you think you will struggle with. One of my favorite methods is simply to draw on the energy of high achievers in various fields and their biographies, interviews, etc. Live streams, by being so encompassing for long periods, can reveal a lot of underlying drive, attitude, etc. So I will often turn to gaming streams to see some of that.

For me this feeling comes when I am under deadline or just being micromanaged. The fix is to start a play project to reignite my passion.

Play more and work less to get your juices flowing again. Also, read about what people are working on, eventually someone will trigger you into passion mode.

As others have said that therapy might be a good option. I just want to add that since you work at FAANG, you should have access to EAP for free. And you can talk with a few therapist before deciding to stick with one.

Move to an early-stage startup with a highly technical founder so you have lots of hard, no-bullshit deadlines. Basically, put yourself in an environment that forces you to focus. You will then do better work and this will feed back to improve your self esteem and motivation

Also (or instead, if you are not financially/emotionally ready to take the huge leap above), set aside time to practice finishing as a skill independent of project / area of endeavor. I recommend video games with achievements as they have a more objective finish point than most other things you could do for this. Also they are fun and will make you smarter. Start with short, easy ones that have no hidden or notoriously difficult trophies and just focus on building a record of 100% completions. You can then draw on this experience for confidence and determination to help you finish work and personal projects

I think it depends on what your finances are like. You can make a lifetime equivalent salary at a few years at a FAANG. So you are probably within a few years of comfortably FIREing if that is your goal.

> I have been anxious/depressed for around a decade

I guess your first step is to get this sorted with specialists.

There is no point in asking what to do with your job when you don´t feel like working at all.

Maybe this related:

1 month ago discussion:

Advices for Burnout and Depression

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27226918

Save some money and switch careers? Nothing in physics says you have to stay in a field you don't like your whole life. Lots of places are hiring, try something outside?

Seems to me employers need to be more understanding that depression and other mental health issues are suffered by many people and are simply part of life. Sounds like maybe you need to do some of the standard stuff to fight depression (e:g taking exercise, socialising, maybe take up a sport to combine the two) and look for a kinder employer. If your output/productivity isn't up to par at the moment, find a job where it pays less and they expect less, maybe even a lower grade, at least for the short-term. Because it feels a lot better to be performing well on a lower grade than struggling on a higher one. All the best :)

Move to a much smaller company where you will be valued more.

Have you considered switching to product management? And, if you haven't already, developing some hobbies/active social life outside of work?

My advice for you, is that you need to be careful about which advice you follow in this thread.

Every one of these people has a different experience. Many of them feel the same as you do, and they think they know something that helps them. But what helps them, might not help you. Your goal is a breadth-first search -- try as many things as possible, and quickly discard the ones that don't work.

Most of the advice won't work. Okay? That's the advice I have for you, and in my opinion is the #1 thing you need to recognize. Your job here, is to find the one that will.

And the only way to do that, unfortunately, is to actually do the advice that actually works.

It took a long, long time for me to find out what that was for me. And what it was for me, probably isn't going to be that for others. It's prozac and adderall for me. But I also know people who are convinced adderall is helping them –– but they are fooling themselves, and the result is sometimes destructive. I've also heard of people that take prozac, and then bad things happen. I'm not sure what "bad things," but I know that there are people who take prozac, followed by bad things.

So if I said, "What works for me is prozac and adderall," and you ran off and did those, there's a chance that it could be true for you too. But there's a higher chance that one of them and something else might help you. There's also a chance that both might hurt you.

That's true for every single reply in this comment section. My goal here is to warn you, not to advise you.

The flip side of that is, there's very likely something here that will help you. I needed some help, for a long time. It wasn't until prozac, that I actually got it. Because I didn't know that a "magic solution" existed for me personally. I had to (thankfully) stumble across that.

So, try lots of things. Discard things that don't work. Repeat.

Get advice from doctor about taking Bupropion. Get diagnosed. It is not a taboo anymore.

Therapy doesn't work for extrinsic issues like this. You are stressed from the cognitive and emotional effort of accommodating a lot of negative experiences in exchange for success, or money.

In my experience when the source of pain is removed, happiness, or at least relative contentment, ensues.

Find something to do, rather than someplace to work.

Hey! I know this feeling well. I'm bipolar 2 + ADHD and over the past few years I've drifted more heavily into the depression side. A few thoughts to share:

1) Definitely consider meds. They are not a true answer in a sense but they help you get back to homeostasis so you can rebuild yourself. Current regiment for me is Welbutrin 300mg (mood stabilizer, anxiety), Adderal 15mg XR (ADHD), Lamotrigine (bipolar).

2) Therapy is a recent change for me but I am finding it helpful. With my type A personality, I've decided that a cognitive behavioral therapist made sense to me as its more action oriented than just talking w/ someone. We setup tangible todos, monitor week to week, and spend time talking. One interesting thing in particular is working on coping methods on issues that don't have an immediate solution. Where I place my energy effectively makes a big difference.

3) As a manager, I have to say that a poor relationship w/ a manager is draining to say the least. A friend at Netflix recently made a major shift from a UI team to API over this. Have you looked into making a move internally or considered leaving? Being at FAANG, you have high potential to make a move at least horizontally.

4) It's helpful to identify triggers that give you feelings of depression or other bad feelings. It could be as simple as staying away from caffeine or lowering interactions with a particular person. Like your manager.

5) Easier said than done but this isn't an uncommon feeling for many. You're surrounded by talented people so imposter syndrome is not uncommon. I will bet 100% that you are better than you may realize.

6a) This one used to hurt to admit but not anymore. I am an average engineer at best. You start to realize later than it doesn't make as much of a difference as you'd think. Can you solve problems? Can you get to the finish line on your work and deliver consistently? Are you surrounded by people who can support you in growth? Your solutions don't have to be perfect as long as the support system and processes are there to create bumpers around you. Maybe you want to get to staff engineer but that is a decision and path you have to figure out. If you truly want to go deep, you're going to have to practice and grow. There is so many other options outside of that though.

6b) It can be tough to get to the finish line. Personally I've found that I need to prioritize and get my TODO list down to the most essential and dedicate my time to nothing but one activity at a time. With the addition of ADHD I bounce around a lot and fall into the same issue. Try to force your time into one activity in spurts and don't move onto until you get to the end. (Spurts are important so you don't burn out as you're already working to get to completion and it has been difficult.)

7) Take a break! Go burn some PTO. Get away from the computer.

My takeaway is that your environment is where this is most definitely stemming from. I highly suggest looking at a move. Do it for yourself. You shouldn't have to feel like this. Hope this helps in some way. I wish you the all the best. It can get better.

ps Don't let the stigma of mental health issues drive you away from getting help. The industry needs to be so much better about this.

whole related thread on this yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27593462

What motivates you? What do you actually enjoy doing?

Therapy, changing teams and vacations?

Work part time.

Been doing it a decade, never going back.