Have You Burned Out?

Yes. I'm currently employed by a well known company but interviewing elsewhere. I've been a SWE for 10 years and even though I'm still able to smash tech interviews for the most part thanks to lots of grinding over the years I just feel so empty inside about working on computers. It's no fun. I feel isolated. I'm a very social person in real life so I live for the weekends and otherwise spend my mornings and afternoons stressed out about what to say at our daily standup because the truth is I don't care about any of it enough to get invested in a project. But it's hard to leave this field. I'm really good at interviewing and because of that I've been able to secure very good pay and conditions of employment.

In the past 4 years I've seriously looked into going to Nursing School and Cosmetology School respectively (Cosmetology School might seem silly but it's only a year, it's cheap, and it's something I'm interested in). The idea that I'd give up my cushy SWE job for much lower pay even in the case of Nursing says everything there is to say about how burnt out I am. In the end I probably will leave this field anyway. I don't suspect spending my middle age and above programming will be any more fulfilling.

Above all the weirdest part about burnout as a SWE is the GUILT that I feel about it. I get paid a lot. I have a very flexible job with a lot of autonomy. I am coddled but somehow I daydream about ... going to work from 7-7 at a hospital???? It makes me question my sanity.

I've had burnout. I was 12-18 months in a startup before I realised it was not at all the right fit for me.

I was brought in as CTO to fix some stuff. I fixed that stuff and then realised that how I wanted the business to operate and how the CEO wanted to operate were very far apart.

It all came to a head when somebody got fired and I disagreed with both the decision and how it was carried out. This was just one item amongst a bunch of other things.

This drained me so hard emotionally. I was CTO at another startup for much longer and never got close to this level of burnout. I've talked to someone else about this (talking is helpful) and they had a similar experience. It's not always about the hours or the tenure. 60 hours/week in the right environment is very different to 40 hours/week in the wrong environment.

It took a few years for me to get over this. I took some less complicated jobs with less responsibilities and less personal investment before chucking myself back into the fire. It's going well so far and I'm definitely more resilient as I've been through some pretty dire work shit since then.

Sorry to hear you're having a tough time of it. Getting less personally invested for a while really helped me. I also took on some hobbies that I had total control over and that helped too.

Good luck :)

In 2017, I was burnt out and at the end of my rope. All I wanted was to quit and run away and consider a change in careers, much like you. Without any backup plan, I quit my very lucrative job. Thankfully, my partner was okay with my decision. I was expecting to feel dread and constant anxiety that I wasn't providing for my family. Yet, once I walked out of that building, the opposite was true. I couldn't feel more relieved.

I took a few months off, which, I know, is a luxury that not many can afford. During this time, I took stock of what was important to me. Did I still love programming? And, was programming the thing that made me unhappy?

What I realized is that I didn't want to feel like a tiny cog in a giant machine, and I didn't want to work on something that wasn't in some way beneficial to others. I needed to feel like I was making a difference and not just burning my life away on something disposable for lots of cash.

I was lucky enough to find a contract with a healthcare startup where I'd be working on technology that would improve the real lives of actual people, not just another piece of software that would be discarded two years down the road. Eventually, they offered me a full-time position, and I joined as employee #9.

Am I happy now? Well, I'm happier than before. But more importantly, I feel that now I can attain happiness.

> I have read that burnout can take up to five years to be resolved

You are right.

Recovery from burnout takes years, not weeks or months. Years.

I recently got back my mojo and feel more inspired to create, and I'm quite enjoying it. It took me about 5 years to get out of a rut I was in.

One thing I will say: look for early signs of burnout and address them as quickly as possible. Burnout creeps up on you unannounced, so be careful.

I am burnt out, but not just from programming/software engineering. The older I get the more blatant it is that the 40+ hour work week, toiling away on some tiny part of something questionably significant is not the way we as a species should live. If I had a vocation, and not just a job, I'm sure it would be different but I've never found that "love what you do and you'll never work a day in your life" vocation. I've worked at jobs I've liked with good people. I just cannot fathom the point of getting up 5 days out of 7 to work the best part of the day and pretend it's OK, because it's not. I fear how juvenile that sounds but the fact that so many people waste their lives in toil for large corporations is maddening, and I'm a cog as much as anyone else. The older I get the more apathetic to work and career advancement I become. Money is vital, of course, but we're slaves to it at the end of the day...

I have severe burnout, if you can call it that. I'm from Serbia, and I worked for an exploitative international affiliate marketing company for two years throughout the pandemic. I worked as a content editor, proofreading and editing an average of 5-10k words a day. Later I got "promoted" to site manager, which involved everything from kw research to posting content via WordPress. I also edited an average of 5-10k words daily.

The job payed $1k a month, and I didn't receive a single raise for two years, which is another reason why I quit. It was only after stopped working that I realized I was completely ruined, both mentally and physically.

The worst thing about this company is they use employee time trackers that analyze and store your mouse and keyboard movements and take screenshots every 10 minutes. My contract stated I had to have an activity level above 50% if I were to get paid.

Currently, I work as a writer for a digital marketing company, and I am having a hard time getting used to the lack of micromanagement and the slower (and much more normal) pace of work.

I can't afford rehabilitation, I must continue working to be able to survive which is really hard for me right now. I have some kind of PTSD too, I keep apologizing to everyone even though I haven't done anything wrong. So there you go... Sorry for the rant. :)

I first acknowledged burnout at the end of 2020. It took 6-12 months of struggling before a baseline could be established and to this day I don't feel "recovered" but I am improving. From reading a lot about burnout I realized people are different and what works for one person may not work for all. Looking back my burnout was caused by constant context switching and a self imposed requirement to always be available. In the moment I thought it was about the work I was doing and how I felt like it wasn't improving the world.

To ease the struggling stage my biggest win was acknowledging what is the minimum actions needed to take to keep coasting, Once I accomplish those things I didn't beat my self up. Examples of this would be acknowledge 6 hours of meetings in a day is a full day, and I don't need to do 6 hours of dev work on top.

To start the healing process I quit my fulltime job and took 3 months off. After that I started contracting instead, billing hourly, and working less then 40 works for my budget and the strong disconnect between working and not working is helpful to me.

I would ask your self the question, do you need to `fix "everything"`. Sounds like a lot of pressure to put on yourself, maybe you need that pressure, maybe you don't.

I think this speaks to how much our identity and standing in society is tied to our job performance.

"Money is not everything but not having enough is" as the quote goes. Maybe there is a way to be happy without this attachment to job performance but it is a rare thing.

I burned out as a physician some 15 years ago and never returned to practice. Did college and med school in 6 years, top of my class, probably the best internship and residency in the country. Got a combined academic and clinical position at one of the best multispecialty clinics in the U.S. but year after year, became more and more disillusioned. Patients would roll in with suitcases full of records - literal suitcases, resulting from countless consultations with other doctors. They would plop down on the sofa in my office with the expectation that in the span of a week, maybe two, I would make them whole again. Day after day after day. I would spend hours and hours with each patient, but the administration didn't see the value in that. Basically "can you do it all faster?" I spent all of this time honing diagnostic skills and my ability to communicate well with people, but what matters is the bottom line.

I'd fill out institutional surveys that were aimed at figuring out the scope of burnout among the physician staff. But nothing ever changed. The final irony that precipitated my departure was that the guy running all of these burnout studies, a young junior faculty, used all of the resulting publications to leverage a cushy "Chief Wellness Officer" position at another academic medical centre.

I was done. I left my practice. My colleagues thought I had taken a dive off the deep end. But in some way, I thought they were secretly a little envious.

But if I've learned anything from this experience, it's that renewal can come in some of the most unexpected places. Just before quitting, my wife and I had a baby daughter. When she was three, we started her on Suzuki violin. Lo and behold, she was good at it. Eventually we decided to do homeschool, with me staying home to do the at-home teaching so that she could have time to practice. I became sort of the stage parent (in the best sense of the word!) Now, a decade later, she's 13 years old and is heading off to a full-time pre-conservatory program. If I hadn't been through the disastrous burnout, I would have been languishing there still and never saw the opportunity right in front of me.

It also rekindled in me a deep love of music, to the point that now, I work as a collaborative pianist and coach chamber music groups in a local music academy.

I'm not sure the hurt of burnout every completely goes away; to this day, people look at me and I'm sure are thinking "why would you throw away all that education?"

I have been like this for years, but all this time people thought I was making excuses to avoid getting a job or whatsoever.

Then of course, the pandemic hit us all and those who were judging me got hit the hardest; now they don't have the courage to look me in the eyes, because they drunk the glass of bitter water as we say in my language and know exactly how I feel.

I don't know whether it has something to do with age (80's kid here), but it's a common trait amongst those who are around my age; we can't handle too much information at once.

If you want to have a chat, let me know.

I've been burned out for decades. I deal with it by not making work my priority. I do solid work, put in my 40 hours a week, and maintain an Iron Curtain between work and the rest of my life. And I tell other people that careers are for suckers when they make the mistake of asking me for advice.

I have severe burnout, if you can call it that. I'm from Serbia, and I worked for an exploitative international affiliate marketing company for two years throughout the pandemic. I worked as a content editor, averaging around 5-10k words a day. Later, I got promoted to site manage without getting an actual raise. I did everything from keyword research to posting content via WordPress.

The job payed $1k a month, and I didn't receive a single raise for two years, which is another reason I quit. It was only after I stopped working that I realized I was completely ruined, both mentally and physically.

The worst thing about this company is they use employee time trackers that analyze and store your mouse and keyboard movements and take screenshots every 10 minutes. My contract stated I had to have an activity level above 50% if I were to get paid.

Currently, I work as a writer for a digital marketing company, and I am having a hard time getting used to the lack of micromanagement and the slower (and much more normal) pace of work. Unfortunately, I've grown to hate the industry, and I'm having a hard time getting motivated, especially with the media blasting us with negative information all the time.

I can't afford rehabilitation, I must continue working to be able to survive, which is really hard for me right now. I have some kind of PTSD too, I keep apologizing to everyone even though I haven't done anything wrong. So there you go... and sorry for the rant. :)

Yep, I've burned out. I was doing a finance/business job that involved overseas travel and frequent 80+ hour weeks. I would sometimes not wash, eat or sleep in order to deliver. I fell for the same trap that lots of insecure overachievers fall for after college: a strong desire to prove myself, inability to set boundaries and a lack of mentorship / welfare support (other than to 'lean in').

After about 3 years of this, in 2019, I was away on a work trip and decided to tag a vacation on at the end. And I just couldn't get out of bed. I couldn't even bring myself to get food sent up to my room. I had already felt pretty suicidal by that point and knew I needed help, so I used work medical to set me up with a therapist.

It's taken way longer than I anticipated, and Covid didn't help, but I'm doing better. I'm far less neurotic, I actually have hobbies, and I've managed to hold down a couple of relationships for the first time in my life. To get to this stage, I needed to seriously take my foot of the pedal: I functionally went down to a part time job (same company, different position) and I had to completely reconfigure my values.

I miss my old self sometimes - the one that would crank all-nighters for work, a job offer or a side-hussle - but I know that old person wasn't going to last very long in the modern world!

I've been feeling burned out since just before the pandemic when my boss had a breakdown from burn out himself. He had sheltered the team quite a bit, and when he left, new managers tore the team apart and the purpose that I had for almost a decade disappeared.

That lead into a big downturn in my personal emotional and mental health, not helped by lots of issues in my personal life. I changed jobs, luckily still within my field, and now about a year later things are starting to feel more stable. My personal life is still in turmoil tho to the point where stress and burnout cost me the relationship with my partner, where we're in the process of separating now. It's been 2.5 years now, and I have no doubt that it will be years more.

It's burn out that started with work and just turned into full life burnout. The answer is always do less, not more. I've been trying to minimize my commitments and focus on what's core. Health, taking care of my son, my job, and my future. But it's all a setback where I wish I had been more proactive about my calm and my overall health. There's still lots of life left, this is just a wake up call about how to live the remainder of it well.

I worked 75+ hours a week and burned 40 grand on a startup that ultimately didn’t go anywhere after about a year. My stress levels were through the roof which I only realized after my first vacation at a new job three months in. This new job is very laid back with minimal responsibility and work compared to both the startup I worked on and the startups I worked for before that.

However, I’m now at 9 months in and I still don’t entirely feel recovered. I still have to force myself to write code when it used to be enjoyable and find my mental and intellectual recovery happening through writing, fitness and other non technical work. I’ve slowly started to recover my enjoyment of technology but deprogramming myself from every technical thing I do has to make money to I can do this technical thing out of pure curiosity is slow going.

Would I do it again? Yes, I continue to generate ideas and make observations that I think have real business value but not for another 6months to a year and not the same way.

Been there.. and still am somewhat. I was a dev - got a lead position at a disorganized company. Product was very late on the market because of the management (no clear command chain, no clear end goal, multiple tooling…). I pushed the app on the market but very fast got burn by the environment. That with 2 young children lead to a disastrous situation… I don’t think develop anymore, nearly 5 year later. I’ve switched to management, to try to do better. At my current job, I can’t so… I quit for something else, 6 month after beginning there. I’m choosing my battles. My job is only there to pay for whatever my family and me need - nothing more. I’m lucky my current job is ending now. I´d probably be burned out otherwise. I feel like you can never fully heal… but you can learn :)

Now my end goal is to definitely quit IT and find something nice to do. But let’s be honest: what’s gonna me pay that much?

Yes. I have a course that I don't know whether I will pass or not. I seem to have a mental block that just isn't helping me solve the assignments. I am also supposed to work because otherwise I won't be able to remain where I live due to costs.

I have unresolved ADHD issues too. I am burnt to a crisp and I don't know what to do.

I think what burns me and a lot of people in this industry out is the fact that you can be a consistent high performer but still feel stuck because landing a new job is so difficult. The whole interview process is so far removed from actual job requirements and the need to be a pro at leetcode problems is soul crushing.

I was burnt out for about a year, two main symptoms for me were: I hated standups, felt a high degree of anxiety around them, even though I was a very influential and productive team member and I felt completely zapped of all my energy - waking up in the morning really struggling to feel any purpose behind my work or my life. Rather than dissociation and perpetuating the struggle, I resigned and then focused on a hardware/software startup. I felt I was in a good position to take on more risks, considering I have no children, savings and a relatively low cost of living.

It has come with a renewed sense of purpose and I wake up excited for the day and the years ahead, but its yet to been seen if it were a good decision financially, but I suppose anything is better than getting sick and dying

Best that happened to me was being so stressed and eventually depressed that I really needed to work with my abilities as a human being with the responsibility to take care about one self.

For a long period it was a matter of looking at a certain ask from someone and I would simply feel if I was ok with that ask.

I have quit a lot of jobs due to me not accepting how people manage their own responsibility and time, because it then hit me.

Listen, I feel you. But don't take shit from no one and especially if has cost on your well being. It is definitely not worth it. Absolutely not.

I hope you find your legs, get someone professional to talk to and get back in the game.

There is nothing wrong with any of us, but as we bend our integrity we slowly lose ourselves, and that's not good. Get back to your own self.

All the best!

I can't tell from your post whether you're currently unemployed or unhappily employed and looking for something new. I feel there's a big difference between "burnout" and dealing with the stress of unemployment.

My burnout cure is to do exactly whatever I want until I'm not burned out. Maybe that's coding. Maybe it's the motorcycle. Maybe it's watching dumb YouTube videos. Maybe it's helping build a barn. Whatever I want.

The worst bout took me about a year to get over. Quit my job and rode my mountain bike a lot. I realized that if I tried to force myself back into some project, I'd just procrastinate and remain unhappy. So I only worked on whatever it was I wanted to work on that day. I'd actively ask myself "What do I want to do?" instead of "What should I be doing?"

That might sound selfish... and it is. 100% selfish. But I get burned out from giving more than I get, so sometimes I have to make time for myself to balance it out. Fair's fair.

I was doing a lot of stuff with GPS tracks because I love maps (cheap consumer GPSes were a relative novelty at the time). And I was processing one with a program called Viking when I noticed that Viking supported a new basemap layer: OpenStreetMap. What's that, I wondered? And then I got hooked, mapping my area which barely had any data (the Bay Area barely had any OSM data, if you can imagine!). And virtually no cities were named in the US on the map. But I could get the GNIS city name and location data... all that was needed was to write a Python script to import it all through the OSM API.

Of course there were some cities in OSM already, so I had to search to make sure I didn't replace any existing ones that were relatively close in location and name. And of course some were misspelled in one dataset or the other, so I used Levenshtein distance to look for closeness.

That was the first program I wrote after my year-ish off. And it was fun again! And I got there by doing what I wanted to.

A few months later, I took some part time contract work, paid hourly. It was a great way to dip back in.

I have severe burnout, if you can call it that. I'm from Serbia, and I worked for an exploitative international affiliate marketing company for two years throughout the pandemic. I worked as a content editor, averaging around 5-10k words a day. Later, I got promoted to site manage without getting an actual raise. I did everything from keyword research to posting content via WordPress.

The job payed $1k a month, and I didn't receive a single raise for two years, which is another reason I quit. It was only after I stopped working that I realized I was completely ruined, both mentally and physically.

The worst thing about this company is they use employee time trackers that analyze and store your mouse and keyboard movements and take screenshots every 10 minutes. My contract stated I had to have an activity level above 50% if I were to get paid.

Currently, I work as a writer for a digital marketing company, and I am having a hard time getting used to the lack of micromanagement and the slower (and much more normal) pace of work. Unfortunately, I've grown to hate the industry, and I'm having a hard time getting motivated, especially with the media blasting us with negative information all the time.

I can't afford rehabilitation, I must continue working to be able to survive, which is really hard for me right now. I have some kind of PTSD too, I keep apologizing to everyone even though I haven't done anything wrong. So there you go... and sorry for the rant. :)

I have severe burnout, if you can call it that. I'm from Serbia, and I worked for an exploitative international affiliate marketing company for two years throughout the pandemic. I worked as a content editor, averaging around 5-10k words a day. Later, I got promoted to site manage without getting an actual raise. I did everything from keyword research to posting content via WordPress.

The job payed $1k a month, and I didn't receive a single raise for two years, which is another reason I quit. It was only after I stopped working that I realized I was completely ruined, both mentally and physically.

The worst thing about this company is they use employee time trackers that analyze and store your mouse and keyboard movements and take screenshots every 10 minutes. My contract stated I had to have an activity level above 50% if I were to get paid.

Currently, I work as a writer for a digital marketing company, and I am having a hard time getting used to the lack of micromanagement and the slower (and much more normal) pace of work. Unfortunately, I've grown to hate the industry, and I'm having a hard time getting motivated, especially with the media blasting us with negative information all the time.

I can't afford rehabilitation, I must continue working to be able to survive, which is really hard for me right now. I have some kind of PTSD too, I keep apologizing to everyone even though I haven't done anything wrong. So there you go... and sorry for the rant. :)

No. However, I used to feel that way. I interviewed for 18 months and I failed all the interviews. FAANG would not even grant me a graduate software engineer phone screen. I was bitter because of that since I studied/worked 8 years for that. In those 8 years I obtained 2 bachelors (one in information science), 2 masters (one in computer science) and 2 years of working experience (one year as an iphone dev, the other as a web dev bootcamp instructor). My GPA was high yet crickets.

My issue was that I only wanted to work for FAANG and being really honest. So whenever I applied for a non-FAANG company I wasn’t enthusiastic. It probably showed.

This whole ordeal toon 4 years. My resume is ragged, because it has been reactive since I almost never got a shot at working for the companies I wanted to work for.

So what changed?

Becoming less honest helps. Now I don’t mention that companies aren’t on the top of my list, I simply mention the positives and give them the impression that that is my comprehensive opinion of them.

The second thing that changed is not caring anymore where I work and not caring about the mission of the company. All I focused on was good working conditions. I now work 4 days per week, remotely. That is IMO the best quality of life boost that I have ever gotten as I am now traveling around Europe chilling wherever I go. The pace of the company is chill as well and it just so happens that I like their industry. The pay is okay for European standards and since I live frugally it’s more than I need (I save 30%).

I have severe burnout if you can call it that. I'm from Serbia, and worked for an exploitative international affiliate marketing company throughout the pandemic. I worked as a content editor and, later, site manager, having to do everything from research to posting content via WordPress.

The job payed $1k a month, and I didn't receive a single raise for two years, which is also the reason why I quit. It was after I'd working that I realized I was completely ruined, both mentally and physically.

The worst thing about this company is they use employee time trackers that analyze and store your mouse and keyboard movements, as well as take screenshots every 10 minutes. My contract stated I had to have an activity level above 50% if I were to get paid.

Currently, I work as a writer for a digital marketing company, and I am having a hard time getting used to the lack of micromanagement and the slower (and much more normal) pace of work. I can't afford rehabilitation, I must continue working to be able to survive which is really hard for me right now. I have some kind of PTSD too, I keep apologizing to everyone even though I haven't done anything wrong. So there you go... Sorry for the rant. :)

This absolutely won't apply to everyone -- at all -- but I recently went thought a good year of turmoil, burnout, career crisis etc. and relationship crisis and was just barely holding on. My sleep was getting worse some weeks, better others. I was just miserable, exhausted, brain fog, and just resentful for most of that year.

Then - for whatever reason my younger brother recommended I try taking Magnesium L-Threonate. I kid you not, I regained my zeal and love for the craft and the work regardless of the career challenges in a matter of just a day or two. Really. Within a month or two I'd dug myself out of that mess too.

I had every reason to be miserable between my work and relationship challenges. You couldn't have convinced me that there was a completely unrelated explanation / solution. It really opened my eyes to how little you can know yourself and how easily I could have spiraled out and ended up homeless if I'd stayed that way for another year or two.

All I can say is - keep an open mind - spend some time on your health. Just addressing the voices in your head won't necessarily guide you to what you need.

> I just got turned down for another job and I am at the end of my mental and emotional rope.

Try not to let being turned down for a job (or many jobs) affect you. It's a numbers game where you apply to 100 and 1 accepts you. Like dating - why get all hung up on one girl when you should be interested in 10 others at same time. It's all failures until you get 1 match.

> Tomorrow I have a second interview at a local retail store. I've been a web developer or software engineer for a decade...

Do you mean to say you're giving up on dev due to failures to land a new dev job...or you are trying to transition out of dev and not able to find a job in a new industry?

I guess either way, an anecdote from own personal experience, I was looking at other options myself...I was burnt out on dev, looking to do something related but I thought might take a burden off my shoulders (QA/support), that didn't work out...but long story short, I just decided to embrace who I was--I'm a dev, and I'd like to think a good one, not to say a bigger transition is out of the question, but I found that it was more realistic to adjust my "internal" dials rather than escape to an entirely new career. That may or may not describe you, but I guess I would say to bear in mind the solution isn't always an external change of circumstances.

11 years in, took an 8mo sabbatical a few years ago but once I ran out of juice just having fun, got back into working again and hate it more than when I left. But I forced myself to take the job to get out of a depressive hole after attempting to found a startup and finding it to be a spiritually bankrupt path full of utterly vapid people.

Like many of you I contemplate changing fields but it's so expensive to live these days (in a place that I find desirable to live). I'm not sure that I'd like some other form of work THAT much more that I'd give up retirement 15y earlier.

Starting to give up the idea that some huge shift is possible (or the answer). And instead just aim for minor improvements, accept only getting 70% of what I want. Anything more is a culturally conditioned fantasy complex. Trying to focus on simple pleasures like a sunny day or cooking a good meal.

Make an appointment with a psychiatrist. Do it today. When you meet them, show them this post. Whoever is treating you right now clearly isn't achieving the desired outcomes. I've been in the rut that you describe and while meds will not solve your problems they will give you a tool to solve them for yourself. It's not fast though, it takes weeks-months.

(As for the job: for now, who cares? Just pay the bills - apply directly (avoid 3rd party recruiters*) for as many web dev jobs as you can, if you work for cheap in some role way beneath you then some employer will absolutely love that and you can use the spare mental energy to focus on yourself).

* Usually I recommend them but in this case a company may not want to take a chance on you when they have to pay 30% of your salary to a recruiter as a fee - too much risk.

I really must do everything at my own pace, or suffer health consequences. I realized this in my teens, so I never held a job, instead I'm always building things without a boss, and without customers who act like I owe them something. At 30 my health is great, I've been lucky.

I burned out bad last year and quit during the summer. As soon as I gave notice, everything became better. I spent the past year learning daytrading (not going well) and working on side projects (also not going well), yet it's not causing me the stress I felt on the job. But I'm about to start applying and trying to find work again. I fear I'm no longer cut out for software dev anymore. I need to find an easy laid-back job where I don't need to be a "leader". It was being a leader that burned me out. I don't want to decide on overall direction or use bleeding edge tech or be responsible for a project. I just want to work on well-defined CRUD.

I burned out hard towards the end of last year as an engineer. Fortunately, this preceded 4 months of paternity leave during which I was really able to think hard about what I wanted out of my career. I came back to a different position at the same company, as a PM on a new team. I'm enjoying the role for now, but I'm not sure if I'll convert permanently. If I do go back to being a SWE, it will be at a smaller company/on a smaller team where shipping code takes less overhead.

Generally my advice to anyone feeling burned out these days is to take a long break if they can, and use that mental space to strategize your next move. I appreciate that not everyone is in a position to do this, though.

It took me 3 years to recover from a pretty serious case of burn-out, if there is any piece of advice that I can give you is take your time and do something entirely different than the thing you burned out on if you don't have savings.

I worked at my last job for over 10 years, and probably the last 5 were totally burned out. I quit 2 months ago, and I'm certainly not over it. Not even looking for other work right now, I wouldn't interview very well at all.

I`m in a similar state for a few years already and don't think that it`s improving, but I`m trying different ways to help myself (like those - https://ivypanda.com/blog/how-to-rest-effectively/). Hope one day I would say that I`m not feeling burnout anymore.

We've all burned out. We've all burned out recently. You're not alone.

Try to detach yourself from your situation as best you can. Take a mini-vacation, if possible. If you want to take a retail job for a bit and regroup, do it. The prescribed burnout period is however many days/weeks/months/years you need.

Failures == learning. Learn from your failures, make incremental adjustments and try again.

The burnout will end, and eventually you'll have another period of burnout, and that will end, too.

Everything is process and one must incorporate refreshing and rejuvenating aspects to this process. The mind rarely gets a break until we make time and space to provide one

I got in worst shape in October 2019, wanted to quit my job immediately. In February 2020 got corona directly from China and it was super awful 3 month long Covid. That changed my view towards employment completely. If my management does not care, why should I!!!? Today I am in same position at that company, run small consultancy in my spare time and things are great. My biggest problem today is my overweight, maybe I can fix that in coming couple years too.

Yeah, I feel it, I was feeling burnout post pandemic - I changed jobs... big mistake. Now I'm trying to go back to my old role, because its clear that the issue was not the job, it was me.

I dont know how to recover from it, I've never needed a job for meaning, I have plenty of other things to give me meaning, but the job is what pays all the bills for those otherwise very important things.

I'm seriously considering going back to university and becoming a teacher like I wanted to do in high school.

I ended up in SWE after all my teachers and parents told me "you can do much better than teaching" and pretty much forced me to change around my uni preferences.

It's not that I hate coding, but doing it professionally has sucked all the joy out of it

My burnout was a useful gateway to a new career outside tech in mental health as well as my first spiritual experiences. You can read about the transition here: http://glench.com/WhyIQuitTechAndBecameATherapist/

I had two breakdowns from burn out. Burn out was a culture at my previous company. I stopped working for about 8 months, left the industry, and got a new job in a new industry and new role. It took a while for the feelings of anxiety and incompetence if I wasn’t working to burn out to go away.

This thread is filling up fast! In my experience, it's hard to get over feeling like burnout is a "first world problem" and that I'm spoiled. Heh.

Best of luck to you in all your endeavors!

I feel like I burn out every few months or so. I just take a few days PTO and change up from the usual grind and try to tackle interesting/challenging work.

yea, 5 yrs experience and MS..

It's a really easy field to be burnt out in I think. Taking time off to focus on other goals in life. Ideally...I'd like to work on my own accord. entrepreneurship or consulting.

Doesn't help that the interview process is extremely taxing.

Just interviewed at 3 MAANG companies back-to-back..Felt like cramming for finals

I don't think I've burned out, but the emotions you describe are familiar. I just want to wish you luck.

I am almost at the bottom. About 20 minutes ago I booked an appointment to see a doctor about getting depression medication because I feel increasingly close to 'the edge'.

I got 'moved out' of an insanely competitive, fast paced job at a 'scale up' 5 months ago, and I've taken the time out hoping to recover. I started looking for a job recently, but I don't really know what I want to do. I mean, I do, but no-one hires someone who just 'helps solve problems'. I don't want my job to be dragging JIRA tickets across the board. I want to coach. I want to stop management doing stupid things. I want to solve business-like problems that alter the way the world functions for the better, MAYBE with software. But I don't want to make software that I don't believe in anymore. But that means fighting for the right solutions.

My career has slowly been simultaneously disintegrating and advancing over the past 5 years. I keep getting better 'roles' or more pay, but I just fail harder each time. I'm coding less which means my saleable skills are atrophying. I've intentionally avoided becoming a manager, hoping I can keep one foot on the ground, and the other in senior management land and make things better for everyone. But I'm not really sure I'm succeeding at that.

I get really invested in the happenings at work - courtesy of a mantra I've carried my whole life - "If you're going to spend 8 hours of each weekday doing something, you might as well do it fully" - so I do. Let's do it well enough that we can all go do something better like, chill out on the beach, right?

In reality, I end up treading on peoples toes and end up in the firing line. Some people love me, some people hate me but I always get nailed on the cross eventually. I can't do a job where I keep my head down. I can't imagine anything more soul destroying than spending 8 hours of my day doing something that I don't fully believe in. So then I fight for what I believe in, and then I get shot. It's like a repeating cycle that I can't escape. Purgatory.

And now this time I'm alienating myself. I'm casting off friends and friends are casting me off. I can't see my future anymore. I don't know what job I would enjoy. I can't bring myself to take a 'lesser' role where I mindlessly code software I don't believe in. I don't know what to chase. I don't know what's supposed to motivate me. I don't know what the point of it is, if I'm not enjoying it.

And here it is: I wish I didn't think that way. But I do. I wish I could just "it's just a job/life, just do the crap they ask you to do", but I can't. I always look for a better way. I'm always finding problems with the current way it works. And I always think I can help people find a better way. And then I drain myself and others trying to convince people it should be a different way. And then people get annoyed with me. And then I become jaded and depressed.

Or maybe I'm depressed, which then causes the other things. I don't really know anymore. And I'm not sure I really care.

I've got a long term therapist. I've tried hypnosis, meditation, leadership coaching and psychedelics. I've listened to every self help book under the sun. "Fixing myself" is a full time job. But I'm really running out of options. I don't know what else to do except commit myself to a psych ward, get a lobotomy, become homeless, take up heroin or disappear.

And the worst part is that I have the wherewithal to see that I'm (somehow) doing all of this to myself, whilst crying for help. But I don't understand how to escape my own clutches - so that I can better those around me and lead a fulfilling life, where I'm understood and liked for the good nature, spirit and bravery that paradoxically lead to all of my troubles.

i used to then i went for a job at a mid size company. i settled for less money.

i log out when its time to clock out.

someone told me the higher the salary, the more tasks and stress come with it.

Appropriate question for a Monday morning.

I’ve been running my company which focuses on helping people find purpose (novel job app). I’ve been building it for almost 5 years. When I started it was only for foodservice and when Covid hit I lost all my customers overnight. So I pivoted to include all industries. I’ll mention here I’m a solo founder with no tech background and I live on and off in South America with my outsourced team - constant bugs, behind deadlines by six months, extraordinary high bills for terrible quality of work in my opinion. I’m the product manager, QA, sales and marketing, etc. they just drop the ball and I’m running around picking up the pieces for things I don’t even understand - I didn’t go to school for this stuff.

Anyway, after years of +12 hour days seven days a week - I’ve taken about 4 weeks off total these past years - I can say that I super burnt out and have been for some time.

There are times when I can’t do anything, literally. It is terrible. But I just push through - I have no choice as my whole life and all my money are tied into this. Plus, I am really passionate about what I’m doing to help others (even though it seems almost everyone is trying to just rip me off as I delegate work).

Anyway, the thing is - from my life and observing others that I’m helping find jobs and purpose…you must have purpose or inspiration or you will get burnt out. If you don’t you will think what’s the point of working if you don’t find a purpose in your job or that you are really creating value in anything. Or if you have nothing going on in your personal life with purpose, then you will get burnt out on that. Without purpose you just always think what’s the point- why do anything, it’s a waste - bad place to be when the world is very full of opportunities.

You need goals and intrigue to keep going and not flop from your burnout. The burnout will probably always be there, it’s just having the inspiration to continue, like small wins towards that purpose. Small wins for me are seeing the amazing reviews on the App Store…like higher rated than the incumbents without cheating ;)

It was the win the other month speaking in front of my state senate to successfully lobby a bill that passed that will help a lot of people. It is the progress I’m making on writing my book about how to find more opportunities in life - a kids book for adults. It’s the fact that I’m in my late 30s and live with my dad who I never had a great relationship with (single dad raised me since I was 1) and I now do after trying so many years to have one. My purpose, my small wins. They keep me going.

So, if you feel stuck, the only thing I can say is keep changing things, trying new things, challenging things - the way you think and what you do. With enough change you will find something that inspires you eventually I hope. The rate of change you allow will determine how quickly that happens.

Best of luck - just remember there is a lot of stuff in this world, enough to keep you occupied with something interesting until you die I hope.

I was suffering from this recently, but I'm in recovery.

I grew up in a bad area and programming/computers were my way out to a better life than that of my family or the people I grew up around/with.

For decades it was a core part of my identity. I always had to be working on something. I had trouble sitting down to play a game because I'd think about how I could be working on something. This of course leads to a long trail of incomplete projects as I move from one fleeting new shiny project to another.

I started burning out slowly at first after getting burned by a position that I had deeply invested myself in (I believed in what we were doing, it was helping people). They wrung me out for all I was worth and left me out to dry in the end. I then moved to another position that was more opaquely abusive and toxic. This started the downward spiral of me "falling out of love" with programming.

This gave me something of an identity crisis, without programming who was I? What was my worth as a sentient being if not _creating_ things? This story is also combined with the general apathy/depression/dismay that came with all of 2020. First this feeling was that of loss, then depression, and then apathy. I was spending all of my time watching Youtube videos, browsing reddit, and sleeping. Work, consume, sleep, repeat.

I've only recently managed to break this cycle. Part of it was thanks to my incredible partner helping me to realize that I am more than the sum of my ability to contribute to the perverse growth demanded by capitalism. Another part of it was getting therapy to help me address the underlying emotional issues I have with binary interest (things are great or things are shit). However the most significant development is that I've started exploring hobbies completely unrelated to programming.

Now I do my work, give it an honest effort, and then clock out and put programming and work behind me. My free time is now spent trying new things and exploring possibilities that I had previously decided were not interesting or (more often) not possible. For me that involved drawing, painting, and now finally music production. I'm not any good at it, I likely never will be, but it's something I can do for myself, purely for enjoyment rather than _productivity_. Nobody will ever profit from my shitty music, and I'm not defined by it. It's just a thing I do for fun.

Hopefully this is helpful, try finding something completely out of left field from what you've been doing. The change of scenery in interests may help.

Yes

yes

Yes. Failed startup and haven't coded in four years. Ears blown out from a failed non-starter music career. And, stopped being able to process being part of a google-led surveillance society via no-opt-out malicious or amoral psyops that egregiously abuse my provided personal data and other undisclosed non-provided personal data in a soft-real-time stream-of-consciousness manner.

I am homeless. I have no address. On foot now, walking to get food, since I have no transportation of any kind. I have about $80 on cashapp and apple pay thanks to some folks here who tried supporting my renewed desire to write software again. That desire is gone and I would like to be gone.

My food stamps just got cancelled yesterday since I have no addr and since I missed required paperwork. It's the final straw that has pushed me to the end. I've been getting tumbled around and held under a rogue wave for years now and have reached a breaking point where my ability to avoid suicide is dissipating.

I am not likely to code or work again. Likely outcome is suicide by rope, which I hope to complete this week after the $80 runs out.