It is common now to work on weekends and holidays. I am often surprised with an unscheduled call for a work session with my manager that ends up lasting several hours. Heroics are increasingly expected where we promise a client more than we can deliver and are scrambling to wrap up work on the delivery day. Pushing back is not usually tolerated. I and others are humiliated and antagonized and criticized during meetings.
The stress is affecting my mental and physical health. I need to quit soon because the thought of coming back to work makes me increasingly ill, but I know the reality of hunting for SWE roles is that it takes a long time. Every company claims now that they try to move quickly, but I know that it tends to take a few months on average.
I'm willing to take a pay cut for a liveable wage (>$60k USD) on which I can support my family while I look for something more long term if it means I can quit tomorrow and get a paycheck in under a month. Has anyone had to do this somewhat recently? What are jobs that someone with SWE and data skills would be qualified for that pays well but doesn't have a lengthy interview process?
Your work situation might be different than I'm imagining and it's difficult to set boundaries, so take my advice with a grain of salt! Good luck, this is a very mentally draining situation, be sure to take care of yourself as best you can.
If you're thinking of quitting anyway, then what have you got to lose?
Maybe you don't have to go full bore straight away, but you need to put your foot down and not be a pawn in someone else's game.
If the company starts failing because you're not showing up then that's due to poor management and resourcing.
You might be surprised however that the world doesn't collapse because you didn't work the weekend.
Also, be sure to consider what you will do for health insurance. There is COBRA[1], but it is usually very expensive.
[1] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ebsa/laws-and-regulations/laws/...
The big issue is you are broken and it will show in interviews. You need to do some healing and get a healthy ego/worldview back. Part of that can be done through interviews. Because you are in a hurry I would pay for interview practice. I've seen a few companies on here offering it.
Right now you are trapped at work and get humiliated. Once you are able to manage this is when you become a real senior developer. This is how I've dealt with it previously.
1. Change my mindset that you want the company to fire you. When a company fires you get notice or severance pay (depending on where you live). If you know you are starting a new job in two weeks getting fired today with 4 weeks is worth 2 weeks of free money. Depending on where you are in your job search cycle you need to use that to determine how much you want to show. Eg. just starting your search, keep quiet but start doing things that look good on the resume. Throw some tailwinds or introduce rust. You won't be there to support it anyways so go crazy. If you have an offer in hand.. start telling the boss he is wrong. Hopefully you can time a payday exit.
What happens is your confidence goes up and interviews are more successful.
2. You need to start pushing back. You say this isn't tolerated. Then do the opposite. Push forward. Start adding features unneeded. Spend your time in meetings fighting for these unnecessary features. When you get questioned on the work they want connect your unnecessary features and add time. When you add the work they want drop your unnecessary features and enjoy the extra time.
Sometimes you do have to push back. If they insist on a new timeline say doing it will cause these other things to be slower. Use that to slow other features.
If they want you to work overtime just don't. If a meeting goes on too long say: looks like our time is up.
Skip meetings you don't like and do your extra work then. Say this is more important and reference yesterdays meeting.
If your manager schedules a meeting tell them you are too busy. If they want to talk in the hallways too busy. Too busy for the standup. Reference new timeline.
Talk to his boss and casually drop worries and leave.
3. If they have so much work they can't let you go easily. Use your leverage but never speak about your personal struggles (too much work) make it organizational. We could do x or y if we had more resources. When you get questioned reference your previous conversation.
Good luck. You should be able to find something at the 70k level quickly. If people think you are too senior try applying in a language you are more junior in.