How do I know if it’s burnout I’m feeling or something else?

#discuss #anonymous

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I have been a developer for a number of years, working my way from graduate junior to now an experienced senior, I have loved the climb and generally known when it felt right to move onwards and upwards.

A bit of background: I was working for a startup which should have gone live by or roughly around the time the pandemic hit. The small team thought we had got the system in a place to have been live but the founder was hesitant and when the pandemic hit pulled the plug all together on the project and the company focus switched drastically to a domain I was not familiar with nor ever felt a need to be part of (I'd had bad experiences of this domain before).

It got to the point where my workload pretty much depleted to nothing, yet the company was growing in number and the people who seemed to have been handed responsibility for my work became massive bottlenecks as they didn't know what they were doing. I spent 2 weeks telling the founder the equipment provided for my role was inadequate and yet nothing was done until I asked for one of the cloud dev environments the company was supposed to have rolled out 2 years before but hadn't although it was still on the todos list.

Feeling redundant I sought new employment and successfully gained employment elsewhere. Now on probation I find it hard to get going at the full power I once was at, forever saying nothing because my opinion obviously doesn't mean very much if my last company just glossed over it, I am scared of failing probation and failing the family my energetic and eager approach to my coding career now supports.

Is this burnout? Do I just need to get confidence back by being my best and letting my new team decide its merits for themselves? Do I need to stop worrying I am the sole provider for my family?

Top comments (5)

Keff • May 17 '22

Does not seem like burnout to me, but a side-effect of how you were incorrectly treated in the company you worked at before. It seems they might have made a negative impact on your confidence. I'd say you should get your confidence back, talk with your new team, and let them know about how you feel. Your opinion is worth the same as everyone else's. If the team is worth it, they will understand and try to help out. Otherwise look again, until you find a team and company that values you.

I know this can be difficult, and providing for your family is always the first priority, but you should not be treated poorly just because of that... You're doing a great job, keep going! And fuck incompetent bosses and leaders!!

Nik F P • May 17 '22

Keff stated this in other comments, but I'll second it and back them up: you were a victim of bad leadership, not burnout. Let me qualify the rest of my response by clarifying - I'm not a professional dev. (maybe in the future) I'm in management in a non-tech sector. However, a lot of the same business lessons apply across the board. I've learned this through years of integrating with tech culture and writing a lot of code myself.

From the limited writeup given, I can offer these points.

As leaders, your former employers had a responsibility to understand and attempt to remove any blockages to your productivity. The job of a manager is to orchestrate work and to make it as smooth as possible for the people doing the work, and they weren't doing that.
The equipment and dev enviroment issue might have been bigger than just your request. There might have been constraints around security, available resources, budgeting concerns, etc. However, this should have been a communication point between you and your leaders. Their transparency could have been a portal to let you in on understanding and maybe even solving these issues.
When they switched domain focus, they probably picked up on your dissatisfaction. What they didn't do from what I read above, is talk to you about it. Instead they let a valuable resource go idle, with little to no direction on what was needed or expected. This is poor form on their part.
What lessons can you take away from the experience at the old company for yourself? Is there anything you did wrong or would have done differently? I'm not saying this is the case, but that self reflection can be very valuable moving forward.
Regarding your new position: You have to remember that the new company is not the old company. You might have some hesitation speaking up, but remember that you also have a unique history and thus unique experience that can contribute to the conversation. If they didn't want to hear what you have to say, they wouldn't have hired you. Be nice when you chime in, and maybe find a watercooler conversation where you can open up to your new leaders about your experience and history. If they don't understand and don't encourage you to be a part of your current team, you're still in the wrong place. BUT unless you speak up, they won't know where you stand. They could be interpreting your hesitation as something else, possibly incorrectly, and since you are new to the company they won't have any context to know otherwise.

Jeremy Friesen did a great job of outlining my thoughts on personal growth and how to analyze your current situation, so I'll say "Well done" to Jeremy and refer you to that comment. The only thing I can add to what Jeremy wrote is this: It will take a moment of courage for you to take the next steps to move past this problem, but it's worth it.

I'm at a point in my career that I'm tasked to lead leaders. I've learned a lot through trial and error (mostly error, no joke), and I've tried to study leadership whenever I can. For what it's worth, in my opinion, I wouldn't want to work for the founder of your old company from the standpoint of an employee, and I wouldn't hire them from the standpoint of a leader and manager. I think you dodged a bullet by leaving.

Anugoon L • May 19 '22

Go see professional doctor. Most company insurance already covered this.
Asking medical advice on Internet is dangerous thing to do. You are not an expert. I am not an expert. No body here is an expert on this matter.