Why is Burnout So Common in Tech? Let's talk about it
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- Опубликовано: 17 сен 2020
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These are my thoughts on why I think burnout is so common in tech. I'm sure it's a lot of different things, but this theory has been on my mind for a while since it's a reality I've lived.
Blind's findings about burnout: www.teamblind.com/blog/index....
Learn more about Burnout from Kati Morton, a licensed therapist: • BURNOUT!
and check out Charlie Marie TV ( / charlimarietv ) and Senegoddess ( / senegoddess , the two creators I featured at the end
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Mayuko Inoue is a content creator and Software Engineer. After working in Silicon Valley tech companies like Intuit, Patreon, and Netflix for six years as an iOS Engineer, she became a full-time creator in 2020. Her work aims to help people find their way through the tech industry by sharing her own experiences navigating this world through technology, career advice, and lifestyle videos. She is passionate about discussions around mental health, cultural identity, and creating technology with empathy and compassion.
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Part of burn out in the tech industry comes from expecting too much from your career. Expecting one job to bring you status, financial stability, validation, and purpose is a tall order. There are other things in life outside of work that are rewarding too, such as starting a family, maintaining meaningful personal relationships, volunteering, side hustles, etc.
That’s a super good point. Thanks for sharing.
@@hellomayuko At the end of the day programming or whatever we are doing its only a small part of our entire life. There are so many important things such as friends, family, hobbies, passion..we shouldn't let that small part to take control of everything else cuz its gonna damage and even make our life worse. There's a more to life than programming burnout or career:)
Agree. When you think you have burnout, it's time to realign your life expectations. I've seen people overworking thinking that is all to life because they like programming/tech, when in reality it's just a job. It takes a while to get over this mentality once you are out of school and its not easy given that you spend a third of your time at work.
I think I didn't know this but after seeing this, I get this smh...
I disagree completely with you. I've been a programmer for 6 years now and burnout has always been due to factors outside of my control. For me it has always boiled down to managers, or project managers who set totally unrealistic deadlines and refused to change them even if you disagreed with it because they see every argument against these deadlines as excuses.
So you end up working nights and even weekends to meet an unrealistic deadline and when you ask them to pay you overtime they can say "well we didnt tell you to work these overtime hours, you did it on your own initiative". So you end up feeling fatigued and discouraged. You can't just say "well it's your own fault for being burnt out because you tried to do your job properly", what kind of a backwards argument is that?
Too much to learn too often. We learn something and 3 years later it is obsolete. Companies want a "jack of all trades", but also a master of them all = Burnout.
The people who burn out isnt built for this sport. They should do something else
That’s why you need to jump every 2 years lol
@Nope Leave Me Alone -->implying the only alternative to tech is walmart.
What are you over compensating for? 🤔😂
@@KlearChristal good question. probably insecure about the fact that it's easy to be a software engineer and that you don't have to start as a child
I was so happy to land a job in a start-up company after I had applied 130+ times for a frontend web development position. Didn't go to college but self-taught, and I'm disabled from a TBI Traumatic Brain Injury at age 9 from a car collision but fortunately my cognitive functions weren't affected, just can't walk and have limited movement and use one hand to type so I can't type really fast, but fortunately most of the code I write frequently can just be copied and pasted with adjustment code here and there.
Thing is, despite everything going on well, it seems like the other coworkers have overloaded me with some tasks that are not in my skillset like JS which I haven't really dived into much. There's a different department of four people that handles that, but during the lifting of the lockdown two quit. Now the two remaining who are kind of interns aren't really experienced yet and I was told by the boss to learn JS and to take them as my pupils. I told her it was too much as I also had to work on the frontend. The other frontend is also not experienced and the other one is more experienced than me but kind of lazy. And there would be no raise for the new role. She told me that I was letting my disability be the cop-out and I was lucky to be hired concerning my disability.
After three years of being there as working gave me purpose, I quit two months ago and called my Dad to pick me up as I can't drive. Found out two weeks later the company closed. I'm freelancing while applying.
I was in tech and got tired of having to learn everything from scratch every 5 years. Now I'm in economics, it is a more stable business.
What type of economics job?
Same. It's frustrating when your skills are constantly getting outdated. I'm actually studying accounting in February 2024. Planning to become a chartered accountant.
“her hair is healthier than my mental state”
procras tinacion yeah saaaame
tru
Healthier than me, my mental state and my hair combined
I understand you brother ,same condition 😔
true... same here
"Tech community will always hype up things" .
Can't agree more
While I agree with the reward point, I think burn out generally happens due to the pace in the tech industry.
We're always told to go above and beyond. And planning often is top down and not done bottom up. The engineers, designers, pms should be brainstorming to decide what is possible in a given period of time and that information should go upwards toward the org managers. But more often than not, the work and deadlines come top down: often resulting in overworking of the engineers, pms and devs working on the product.
The other factor is culture: the culture should come from top down. When chats are replied to at odd hours, meetings setup after 5pm being a norm in the organization that is the culture that is set for newer developers. Expecting them to be online all the time and putting in hours Away from the normal 9-5 (of course I understand crunch time, but I'm talking about regular non deadline days).
The praise received by a engineer is one who always puts in extra hours, never for someone who maintains a balanced work life balance.
The constant go go go attitude without a break causes a burn out. And it's so common in the tech industry.
@ssvegeto too real.
I would bring this up in 1:1s with your manager.
Things won't change immediately: you need to give them time as well to adopt your request. And of course if they're new managers they need time to learn.
Also try talking to your teammates in confidence. See how they feel: if more people bring this up it helps the cause. But it shouldn't be giving the manager a feeling where his team is conspiring against him.
If you see nothing changing in a month or two, maybe that's not the place for you.
There's the old saying: employees don't quit their companies/teams, they quit their managers.
And yeah this means you need to interview again and its painful. But it might be worth it in the long run: for you mental health and healthy work life balance.
Agreed 1000%
@@jellyfishi_ not all heros wear capes.
crunch time is a scam
This is big problem, everyone in tech pretend it is bottom to top, you as candidate in interview must make belief this also, when in actuality it is just like any other industry and business, expected to do how top to bottom works. I dont know what to call this, but sure isnt good for mental things.
"how is tech going to help society if it's not helping ourselves" - put it on a wall!
*My experience working in tech in a nutshell:*
1) Starting a new job, expecting to build automation tools that do repetitive tasks for me automatically.
2) Explaining my impatient brat of a manager that building automation tools isn't done in one week.
3) My boss commanding me to do everything manually, thereby becoming the tool myself.
4) Me applying for a new job due to frustrations and upcoming anger-management issues.
5) My boss acting sad, as if he's to stupid to understand why I leave...
6) Entering my new job, restarting at '1', rinse and repeat...
Then they're wondering why so many people job-hop these days, while being constantly forced to deliver quick and low quality garbage due to impatient and incompetent management. I could lower my amount of work tenfold, if management would allow me to work on each task just a bit longer until it's actually completed and ready for deployment...
ive moved into tech from boat building everything you mentioned happens in that field too expect you are lfiting heavy loads covered in cancer causing chemicals that give burns and breathing fbre glass all day. eating in a dirty canteen with putrid air and only making 25k a year. the swap for me has been easy
Truth !!!
You're like the opposite of joma tech and exactly the thing we need
jooma looks like a random burntout asian kid. no offense.
back the funbus up everyone,@@smashthestateX has spoken
Jooma is alrightish.. Tech Lead is the real hack :/.
deadass
@@jawickrock3443 ikr
My primary reason for burnouts is the feeling that I've got profoundly betrayed by the people I worked with. It's really disgusting to know that I'm being used or even abused for other people's advantages without my consent or at least my understanding of their plans. It's one of the reasons I've decided to work for myself first recently. I will accept my incompetence or my lack of ability to do something as being expected, but I won't tolerate people who try to use me so that they keep getting ahead of me.
The sooner you learn this, the better.
Good.
Been freelance g for years now hard to go back and work corporate for the reasons you say. They have no respect for your life and will work you down so that they can fire you get a tax credit for the new.skilled employee. Burn out is the reason why there is so much shitty software out there. Incompetent management is another.
I’m going through this right now. I put so much time as a developer into a startup company bc I felt like I was apart of it and just a few weeks ago I was let go from the job. I feel a strong sense of betrayal bc I was foolish enough to think it was anything but a business relationship. I thought that this was a personal relationship and that they would never do anything bad to me, I was wrong.
After losing my job, I’m currently going through burnout with no motivation to apply for new roles. So I’m not really sure where I’m gonna go from here.
@@JohnDoeX1966 One thing for sure is that you need to rest first. Do take time. In my case I had to wait many (>5) years to get rid of the depressive feelings. And simultaneously you need to do a new thing (for your living, but not limited to) as early as possible for a fast recovery.
From someone on the other side of the industry's brick wall: This is just employment altogether. You really have to be able to take something home from your work that you can build your goals and dreams with, not feed your goals and dreams to big tech companies. They have their own goals, and always will; and that's what they're paying you for. Make them pay you enough and respect your boundaries.
As a female software engineer feeling burn out right now I’m so glad your channel and this video exists. Great, eye opening points, thank you! (:
I like Marcy Sutton's take on burnout, which is similar to the definition you gave:
"Burnout is a response to repeated attempts to make meaningful change while lacking the agency to do so. See problems > try to fix them > get shot down or ignored."
Once you don't have the agency/power to enact that change, it's an easy way to get burnout really quick.
This isn’t just an issue in the FAANG culture. Those of us in the semiconductor industry deal with it a lot too.
I've burnt out about 3 times in 28 years. I take a break, then do something different like, working on electronic units for vehicles. I became an electrician playing with electronics and ultimately I build my own chips, then program them. To sum it up, "TAKE A BREAK" and do something different. We are humans, not robots. :-) Lots of love!!!
That's why work-life balance is so important and putting a defined separating line between the two and respecting it religiously.
take note: companies doesn't care about your feelings, self-improvement, how healthy you are, are you sick?, or happiness, companies care about metrics and KPI's and or maximum profitability, so there's that. you're exchanging your time and whole being for money, period, you work for the company and remember company doesn't work for you.
Also never stay loyal to a company. This isnt just in tech ive heard of people going into crisis mode after putting their heart, soul, and very existence into a company just for the company to give them the boot after years of working for them
I second this, it’s really that simple. I’m not here for a long time just a good time. I’d also recommend applying to a set amount of jobs per week/month. Much easier to pivot when you’re in a constant state of networking.
@@Dom-xi8je I think constantly having to start new jobs, meet new teams with different cultures and get into new projects/codebases can be a trigger for burnout in and of itself. Also if you move jobs too often employers will become wary of you.
I never cared or will care about a company I work for. Just do the minimum.
To all young workers I recommend reaching financial security ASAP through diligent saving and investing. Then when the work burns you out, you can pursue other options at the time of your choosing.
I agree with this point. Burnout is perpetuated because you may have a sense that you have no options, there's no way out. But if you're financially secure/independent. Then at the very least, when you start having signs of burnout you can take appropriate steps back without being fearful you'll lose everything.
Good point. second this.
@@starlight9823 You will get many answers to this of course. Before you get a mentor/advisor, best to educate yourself first so read some investing books to understand the basics. You will then be able to distinguish the type of investing you'd want, the type of advisor you need, etc. You must act quickly, don't delay and let time and your assets just waste away.
Young people should watch the Minority Report channel. That gentleman is educating me where college never did on income managing.
also, build a side hustles, like a saas app, maybe one off them jump to the sky, or atleast get a steady income.
to be honest I wanted to be a concept artist/animator, just went to IT because I needed money, now days I wake up tired, sit in front of the computer and ask my self "why Am I still here, just to suffer?" fuck this Im gonna quit take a break and focus on what I like and try to make profit out of it
me too...
I am in a situation like you were in while choosing a career. I like Architecture ever since I was a kid and I have scored well on its entrance exam... but I need money so I have to get into the IT field, but I like coding too, but I don't know whether I will get burnt out in the future. I would like to know what advice you would give to your younger self? I hope you will reply to this:)
I feel like the definition of burnout is a little discoupled from what I think burnout is. I can work a lot on something that I like, I can get rewarded for it the way I want, but I can still feel burned out if I work non stop on it.
It's a psychological and physical thing that can actually be felt. The definition given just sound like what "desinterest" is: you grow out of something because you don't feel the rewards that come from working on it.
Burnout is more than that, it's when you're brain can't work anymore because it's just burned out of all the energy, even if you want to keep on working.
It's like when you've used out all of your SP, even if you were rewarded for it.
Side note:
Love this video!
Feels very professional with that awesome touch of personality, keep it up.
Amazing perspective.
You have no idea how much I related to every word that you typed out.
Thank you! Yeah totally, from what I’ve read so far about burnout, there’s a lot of different definitions and aspects of burnout, that it feels like it’s tough to pin it down specifically on what the symptoms and causes are. The playlist I liked by Kati Morton was really helpful to understand more of what it is, and I wanted to focus on one aspect of what she said that really struck a chord with me.
Great perspective
@@sharansrivatsa210 I'm glad I'm not alone hahha
@@hellomayuko I didn't know burnout had many definitions.
That's great to know, thank you very much for your insight!
I think it's also important to remember that your goals and rewards you seek out can change over time, and that's totally okay. A yearly or quarterly check-in with yourself to really think about what motivates you can help to determine if it's time to look for the next opportunity or change your approach to work for some time.
I dont feel burnt out now, and I think here is why: been a business analyst for 6 years, switched to java dev for 1.5yr. After 6 yrs BA I needed 6 months off to get myself together. But experienced all the bs. Now I know that the company s mission has nothing to do with me. I dont own stocks. So I dont worry any more. Just doing my thing every weekday. If some employer expect me to be a slave instead of contracted worker, i ll switch companies. Luckily many job oppurtunities as a dev these days.
Just wait until you're salaried.
I mean this purely as a compliment, but I think the content quality on this channel has increased by at least 3x since I first subscribed. It was already good but wow! Awesome perspective/summary of the situation, and really nice illustrations 🙌🏻
Thank you 😭😭😭 I legit worked so hard on this one!
I can't thank you enough, Mayuko, this is so timely, I am in a coding bootcamp, will soon be another female engineer in this industry chasing what everybody is going after, like you mentioned "tech community will always hype up things". With this video, I am grateful to have the opportunity to set my mind where I want it to be before entering the game. Once you realize that being in tech isn't merely about following the paths everybody is on, getting on the trend of what everyone is learning/doing, but building the ability to question the system, the norm, defining what reward/success looks like for yourself, you are one step ahead.
I think a lot of why people burn out is because they’re one dimensional. I lucked out that my team at google was very 9-5 and so everyone would pursue their hobbies and at the end of the day it’s just a job. If you treat it as just a job you shouldn’t burn out more than a target cashier does, especially making 10x as much. The problem starts when being a SWE becomes your defining character
I 100% agree with you!
That's true, I learn it the hard way with burnout.
Bingo! It’s just a job and these kids (im waaaaay older) need to learn to also say NO, politely/professionally. No I can’t work extra hours everyday this week, no I cant work weekends, no I can’t do it by this time (commit to your ridiculous deadline/timetable) let me propose this instead. You can say NO. Yes they gave you a job with EXCELLENT pay and perks but you’re not bound by blood to your employers/boss.
Part of that is also having management that accepts it. In one of my past jobs my manager tried to put me on a performance improvement plan because I wasn't working on paid overtime. Literally, that was the only "deficiency." My work was done every week on time and to spec and my manager admitted that.
Wow, thats a good point!
It often starts with the CEO asking the IT team: how long do you reckon this project takes?
IT: 6 to 9 months
CEO: OK we have to be live in 3 months
Seen that in 9 of 10 companies.
And changed my job field altogether.
What do you do now?
Then lie double the time. He will cut at the precise time needed
I feel like this message applies to university as well. I burnt-out so hard that I put my life at risk and at the end of only 2/3 years into my degree, I had a mental crisis and after getting diagnosed with more disorders that I realized the degree wasn't worth it if I have to push harder in my 3rd year than I did in my 2nd. I had always gotten distinctions but those didn't bring me the happiness I thought they would.
So I split my final year into 2 to reduce the workload and honestly that was the best decision of my life (so far)
Burn out is a serious problem among techies in India
9:56 "how are we going to use technology to help society if we're not helping our self" love that quote
It's such a delicate balance reconciling the business side's goals with not racking up tons of tech debt, trying to make both sides happy is a constant effort 😬
Seems like the push to get onto the newest and hottest tech quickly burns out engineers. Not to mention the constant "grind" that some people feel they need to be doing Leetcode or interview problems, even when not actively interviewing. Regardless, there's nothing wrong with taking a step back and taking a break.
This spoke to me so much! As we approach Q4 and my team is preparing for 2021, I'm already feeling anxious because of the burnout I faced this year. I loved the image you had at 8:00 where you clearly laid out what underlying rewards each of these achievements actually bring to individuals. Thank you for such a great video!
This has been one of my favorite videos of yours, Mayuko! The effort you put into making this is on full display!!
Right!! she really did an awesome job on this video. :)
Thanks for making these topics more approachable. Also channel content has been really top notch these past few videos! 👌
tech jobs are very secure and good paying as long as you have the motivation I used to like coding and doing stuff with my pc but I am the type of guy who likes to chill and not feeling pressured 24/7 I just can't manage 24/7 stress and deadline times
Tell me if I'm wrong here but I noticed something I found alarming.
Many software engineers I either personally know, or on youtube are leaving the tech career behind (at least for the moment) to pursue becoming youtubers. You worked in tech/software eng and you have a cs degree like myself. This trend seems to be more widespread and I'm trying to figure out why. It seems in the years I've been following you, you moved away from doing anything related to engineering or technology and made this move to being more devoted to creating content for youtube (ironically about your former career and education to get to there). I won't drop names, but several other RUclips SE's who vlog their experiences about working in tech or getting a CS degree are no longer working in that field and trying to make YT their career, by way of either making a vlog or trying to be some sort of, entertainer...
Why do you think this is? Is tech/cs/software engineering really a field where you work for less than 3 years and pursue other things? Is this really a trend? Or are my observations more subjective to my own potentially distorted interpretations? I genuinely wonder why you don't work as an engineer any more. I'm lucky to say I love this line of work. Sure its daunting, stressful and work intensive at times, but the culture in and of itself is one of the biggest attractions to me (I won't flesh this out in detail here).
You mentioned you commuted 3 hours a day to get to your place of work, put all your heart into your work and in the end felt it was overlooked. Is this just what to expect for any commercial company? Did that commute turn you off to this career? Was it too tedious? Stressful? Intensive? other?
I genuinely would like to hear your thoughts.
First of all, thanks for your question - I get the feel that you're genuinely curious and honest about what you've said, and I really appreciate that. Secondly, I'm going to preface all of this by saying that I can't speak for anyone else in this position, since everyone has their own personal reasons for making their decisions. I will say however it's not entirely uncommon for Software Engineers to do a career change.
The reason I went this route was because full-time employment as a Software Engineer at a tech company no longer was a fulfilling job for me. Sure, it provided a lot of things for me like the ability to have stable employment and receive a good salary. But after working in the industry for a while, I realized what other needs I had in order to feel I could sustainably work in this job:
1. Work on a product that truly helps people, and isn't primarily for profit or equity
2. Have a diverse leadership team I trust and believe in
3. The ability to work flexibly (hours-wise, and location-wise: I made my decision pre-covid when companies were extremely reluctant to hiring remote workers)
4. Growing and exploring new skillsets that might not have a direct measurable impact on the company's bottom line (aka I didn't care to keep working on my iOS skillset).
When I made my decision to become a content creator, I did look at job openings at companies that felt like it did all this right. But in the majority of cases, after peeling back the layers, it seemed like they all had a similar characteristic of a venture-funded capitalistic company who I didn't really feel excited to work for (yes I know that's just the reality of today's tech economy). The places I did really want to work for weren't hiring for iOS engineers at the time. I'd even considered going the management route for a while, and even passed a manager interview, but never got promoted into that position due to the firing the VP I would've reported to (and I wasn't going to spend another 2 years trying to become a manager).
So when I had the option to work as a content creator full-time, I took it. I already knew that I could work for myself, work flexibly, see and feel the impact I have on others through the content I create, and also learn new skills I wouldn't have ever learned as a Software Engineer (how to manage a business, how to tell a compelling story, how to make dope edits, how to create and maintain a positive and chill community online, and more). I recognize I'm in an extremely privileged position to have this opportunity, so I took it.
It's the same thing in my country. Software Engineering is becoming a pedestal to be an entrepreneur, manager, director, or start a startup company, or do some other kinds of things. It is also because Software Engineering is more of an introvert job. All you do is stare at the computer all day and do your job. If you get into a big company they never really feel like you are doing something meaningful or even learn a lot, you might even be in bench or standby for a few months before getting a project, while if you go to a small company your skills and ability are so used that it causes a burnout, and it no longer even feels like you have a social life, all you do is just work.
It also due to how the newcomers today are millenials, I know we get shit from the previous generation, but the reality is we are exposed to culture and technology were everything is far more fast pace, more updated, interconnected, now you could know the news and new technology in just a matter of seconds when back then there are delays of days, months, even years. You are also more connected to your previous colleagues through social media and you see them doing far more better than you, or more successful than you, etc.
It is also because if you know the budget of the project, it was done on time and created only by 3 people and you all don't even get a commission to any of that shit. It causes you to rethink your choices and options in life.
This is every industry not just tech. It's a lot of people think programming pays good so they join it but, have very little passion for it. Also, teaching/youtube will ALWAYS be more profitable, because they aren't the best devs so they are better off just making money on YT. Also, this "burnout" crap also happens a ton in minimum wage jobs and many other jobs. The only jobs where it doesn't happen is where the person is literally not doing shit. On average most people do 3 hours of ACTUAL work. But, of course when its programming it's going to be actual 8 so that's why they get burn out. Also, youtube generally always pays more because you can promote affiliate products, create courses, and get money from views. It makes sense why most people would switch to YT. Everything is for profit, like these devs are getting paid 100k+ when they can easily outsource to Philippines devs who appreciate of lower wages and less crying.
Philip Gouldman I was burnt out so much that I quit my job a month ago. It was my 7th job change in 12 years. every job I have been into made me burn out. This time I ended up going down with retina tear due to excess screen time working on weekends as well. Now that I am gone my ex employer are looking to hire 3 people to fill my absence. 🙂 I am 35yr old and have been working for 12 years in IT as a programmer. I regret not doing masters in physics but landed up doing masters in computer science instead . IT isn’t my goal after 40. I was fooled of a promotion in my past job in IT. I am going to do masters in physics and get into research /academia while I have greater interest in physics. I just regret I was taken over my IT when it was a new thing a decade ago. IT job isn’t fulfilling and exploits you and ruins ones health and you don’t get to work with equally qualified people in the industry , it just isn’t worth it. Physics and math is always my interest and with programming background there are plenty of opportunities which “normal IT” people cannot fake up resume and get into physics /mathematical scientific projects.. these days they hire anyone on the street if they did a 2 day online programming course and there is no value for a hard earned degree in IT. Well they exploit people who are skilled with a hard earned engineering degree and good ones work to cover up street people shortcomings unable to meet project deadlines in the team. We also end up not getting value for our work and the credit goes to street people. There is decent hiring in a academic or scientific fields where they don’t hire anyone on street or anyone who can bluff . They need a qualification in academics to be able to get into scientific streams of work. IT is worst job ever possible
it's because corporate work sucks.. it kills our creativity and steals much of our time.. life is short, so live it to the fullest and pursue ones passion. well, that's for me.
Feels good to listen to mayuko discuss it from a wanting to help perspective. Since march of this year though my priorities have shifted from existential to full on wartime survival. Last couple of months is a test of attrition, got through it, but I may have too desperately overexerted myself and it feels I really need each weekend back stops killing me from sitting in this office chair.
Aside from burnout, I am experiencing office drama where the higher up is having a relationship with one of our female teammate. Causing the workload to switch towards the rest of us all (except the girl) instead of balancing it out. Favouritism is cancerous. It demoralise the entire team. Soon, 3/4 of those here will be gone.
So disgusting and unfair. I absolutely agree! As a women I had higher ups hit on me and if you don‘t show interest, you had a problem. And they are also able to turn the team against you. This is happening in EVERY industry. But women are more vulnerable, because most of the time they are in the minority(in terms of gender) and in lower positions.
@@Verstaerkerrrfloor True. Anyway, haha, Wow, hard to believe that this comment is 9 months ago. Forget about 3/4. The entire team resigned. My last day of working will be on 20th July 2021 as well.
@@Verstaerkerrrfloor vulnerable, she’s the one not doing the work. These girls know what they are doing
Love your quote: "burnout is when your rewards do not match your expected outcome, or effort you put in". it's so true that we have to assess if the reward is actually what we wanted in reality.
Correction: "disappointment is when your rewards do not match with your expected outcome, or effort you put it".
Totally agreed. This happens to all roles in tech industry, software engineers, product managers, UX designers and etc. We need to figure out a way to disconnect personal life and work especially with covid and have mental break. Having honest conversations with managers is also recommended. Thanks for sharing your perspective.
I love this video Mayuko! I think another key factor is who gets praised in the industry. We are always praising the teams who work on the customer-facing projects. What we forget is the people who work on behind-the-scenes projects that are crucial for their company but aren't "flashy" or "innovative" enough to be newsworthy. There's also a lot of people in tech who work on keeping things running smoothly in the background. We tend to forget about them until something goes wrong, then management gets angry they didn't prevent it from happening (as if any team could be all-knowing).
I think that toxic productivity also plays a role. Someone at my old job (which I burned out of) was given an award for literally sleeping at work. The developers + tech services teams also worked an extra hour over the other tech employees in the same office (think 8-5 compared to 9-5). It created this dynamic where people were always trying to get promoted into jobs with better treatment, which was terrible for dev team productivity.
I think that many companies also have a culture where tech employees who make everyone elses lives hell are accepted as "straight shooters who are simply bad communicators" when no other department would accept that behaviour. I'm sure we all know someone who matches that description.
A job is a job. Life is more than computers and programing 24/7. All the best to everyone. 🤓
I love your videos !! Thank you for this , as someone going into this industry it’s nice to know what’s coming brave and prepare for it .
Dope video Mayuko! Calling out a lot of important things here that not a lot of people talk about. One reward not mentioned here is learning/becoming a better software engineer. This is the biggest one for me, since I never really mind putting in a lot of effort if I'm learning and realizing my potential in the process. But once I feel like I'm putting in a ton of effort without learning much in the process, I do start to feel burnt out
Why would we burnout? We only need to learn new languages every 3-6 months. 😭
So good! Thank you for sharing Mayuko!
Great perspective, what you put in vs reward seems to be a good measure, never thought of it that way, thank you!
Perfect timing. Thank you for made this video, Mayuko-san!
Good job Mayuko for bringing in this Topic especially through this period of the pandemic, I'm a junior Software engineer at a multinational company and i can confirm your thoughts on this, no one really notices the extra work put in a project, and the main reason why burnout is so common : the lack of experience and sometimes lack of dialogue. New incomers like me were full of motivation and determined to show 'our(my) worth', i thought at first that working hard and getting always good results and positive feedback is all that matters, little did i know that i started to hate my job bit by bit and my body couldn't keep up anymore ( not getting enough sleep ). Consequently i decided to fix this by shifting my attention not to the work i do but to my hobbies, so that i get my motivation back. I also started to work on a normal pace or even a more slower rhythm, even if this produces not so good results. Right now i'm convinced that prioritizing my interests is all that matters and is all that makes me keep on going, whether it would be hobbies, traveling, hanging out with friends and family etc.
This video is exactly what I needed.
The work that you do, has an impact on me. Thank you.
Thank you for talking about this!
I never thought of it that way, I always thought I'm tired of work that's it's not about the reward, but it actually makes sense that it is both...
Very good content with precise reasons and nice animations. Thanks
This was very eye opening and brought some clarity to me. It helped me realize that I am looking for validation and status.
I am one of those self studying,aspiring web developer.it's great to recognize early on about these issues now rather that discovering it later.reading through the comments below makes it even more interesting knowing about this sad affairs tech people are going/have been through.Makes me even mor realize and reinforce what i'd like to accomplish getting into tech scene.There was a study that it is normal for people to change career and in average it is somewhere around 5 to 7 years at least here in BC Ca so tech industry isn't really an exemption.one thing is common here,dealing with
bureaucracy , politics and the alienation really do wear people down and it is sad that its ubiquitous in this field.
I identified with the burn out example given and I liked the possibilities of getting over it.
Your videos are great!
Thank you, Mayuko.
Hi Mayuko.
I work for a big company and I think (because I have experimented myself) that is really important to learn to deal with situations where some people won't recognize your work just because they want a promotion or when the sales team or marketing (just example) get a big reward for something that couldn't be without your help.
I found your video really inspiring! sometimes heard other people thoughts about the industry could help new developers to find new goals and perhaps avoid burnout
Thank you Mayuko for the video. I could relate a lot and feels good to get a sense of community that lot of others also go through this :)
Love love this video Mayuko! And the discussions happening in the comments.
I love these kind of videos and that you also featured women in tech in RUclips! Could you also feature more of them?
Also one topic you could also talk about is how do women in tech survive? How did you survive this industry? Might be very personal, but just general views will do fine. I'm a mom, and wanted to career shift to this industry.
08:00 is such an insightful interpretation at values in software engineering!
Thanks for the clarification !
Oooh girl you really upped dat VIDEO QUALITY lately - love the editing. 頑張ってるね! The topic is also interesting to see as someone who works "in tech" but not in the tech department (lol)
--From your fellow Japanese-American sis
Thanks Mayuko for creating such a wonderful video!
I haven't worked for a purely tech company, but my role is basically tech. With that in mind, to what extent can working with your manager and being honest with them help alleviate burnout? In a purely tech company, can a manager help you find projects that give meaningful rewards for the effort put in, or another department whose work is more fulfilling? I've been fortunate to work at non-tech companies that will sometimes try to find another position for you or shift you to another project that meets you desired goals. Like another comment said, it seems unrealistic to put the burden of career expectations just on yourself and not work with the employer to make it better.
In my experience, this is increasingly only possible with small to mid-sized clients/employers. The larger the company, the more at risk the community becomes for bureaucratic-related communication disconnects, unnoticed burnout, strict budgeting, HR regulations, and lack of immediate response to proposed changes. In big-tech's defense, this is a natural challenge. Imagine trying to cohesively manage growing teams with increasingly different objectives. There is also increased pressure from board-members and/or shareholders who sometimes make hasty assumptions, and therefore demands, without actually understanding the day-to-day production.
Furthermore, too many people report to too many different parties and can cause too many different end-day objectives. If healthy and open communication styles aren't a priority, it is difficult to adjust for every single employee's stated needs/desires. This is also why my youthful dream about working among massively popular companies has morphed into increased fulfillment around small to mid-sized businesses, often not even tech-related, yet they find my skills helpful. I also feel more appreciated and it's fun to see how my work contributes to the bigger picture.
Lastly, it's also important to note that even small to mid-sized companies can have shitty communication standards. It just sounds like you found an employer that values communication!
Thanks for making this video, I am a self taught developer, and I've been struggling with finding ways to continue my journey. This video has given me a lot of insight in what I've been struggling with and I think it has also given me a solution in overcoming certain obstacles.
Thanks for the video, made me think about what might be going on in my job.
This is actually a great explanation about what burnout is. Great video.
I believe the majority of people in the tech industry have an issue with entitlement and expectations. It comes in two parts:
1. Expectations and entitlement that get poured unto us from what we SEE from prominent figures in the tech industry AND/OR people you know.
2. Expectations and entitlement you had in mind prior to getting to the job you’re in.
I had a similar “burnout” phase in my first year of my developer job, but then quickly realized that I had disillusioned myself with the idea that I expected things to be a certain way. When I changed my mindset, I quickly started loving what I’m doing, 3 years later, because I know what truly motivates me now versus it being work related.
This is just my personal experience and what I’ve viewed from other people dealing with similar issues.
Haha, I burned out after a year and a half. Now I went to grad school and feel so much happier. Being focused too much on metrics at jobs can take away from the actual value of the work being done. We end up focusing on doing something fast rather than well, doing something that looks good rather than being useful and good, doing more work rather than doing good work. It's enlightening to see how stepping out of the industry can show you exactly why most of our large systems have massive flaws that pop up after a couple of years. Think of Intel's CPU shenanigans or the many security flaws in the software we use day to day.
Mayuko, I enjoyed this video very much. The editing, sound effects, and visuals were put together well. Hope you are doing well with your woodworking.
Thanks! Woodworking helps keep me grounded after busy weeks of work. ☺️
This video feels relevant every year, and I'm a senior engineer. Now more than ever, _everyone_ is getting less for our effort, not just software engineers.
blame it on scrum.. it's not management for human
agreed
Very informative!!!!!! I'm glad I landed on your video!!!!
Charlie Marie on a Mayuko's video. This is the best crossover ever.
Great video. I totally agree as I've experienced burnout few times already.
It’s rewarding to me every time I get a loop to work : )
I’ll remember this video. Thanks for making it!
Really insightful, relevant, and helpful video. I work as a graphic designer on projects creating innovative analogue products (that are also a ton of work to develop for the same reasons that you mentioned for tech products) and pretty much everything you've said here applies to that type of work too.
This is also called _alienation_ and it is something we've known for a while. When the working class feels their labor is disconnected from the fruits of it, a sense of alienation is inevitable. The onus for this feeling is not on the worker, but on the capitalist class, and it is by design. While capitalism is still the ruling system, burn-out and alienation are going to continue to be the everyday existence of all of us.
This is true for the civil engineering industry as well, particularly structural engineering. It *may* appear that the results are tangible since you can see your product built and used, but the comparatively low compensation, super tight deadlines, fast paced construction trend, high risk nature of the work (death if something goes wrong), stress, and general lack of work life balance forces many to leave the industry altogether. As you elegantly put it, "The reward we get is not worth the effort we put in."
Wow, liked this content very much! Would like to complement that as human beings we always compare rewards that we get with each other, we observe that somebody else achieves more... and we much rarely compare efforts we put in
it seems sometimes like our society confuses exercising ambition with being fulfilled. Ambition works for us if we are consistently listening to our internal truths, and against us when we are reacting to what the external world seems to hunger for.
by the way
that must have taken forever to make. so much work. Thank you.
What a great video. Thanks Mayuko
Very good video and your insights on Burnout can be applicable to other industries too!
Mayuko. I feel you. It happens alot in sales/bd within the Tech and non-Tech industries.
I'm already burned out and I'm only a student
Bro me too. I'm putting too much effort into assignments with not enough reward to justify the effort.
I used to think that as a student, but you will burn out faster with a tech job
That's my secret, I'm always burntout :)
Seriously though, I think part of it might just be down to the fact we have to sit down and engage with high levels of concentration for so much longer than alot of other professions. This might just be me on the outside looking in but it seems like most other professions have more variance in the amount of time they need to spend in intense concentration throughout the day.
Also PLEASE stop inventing new frameworks for no reason people, relearning a particular naming scheme for the same things is pointless!
me too jajaa
I was in this burn out situation just a few months ago.. And seeing this video.. I am nodding my head most of the time..
Thanks, this really helped me out a lot!
Hey There! This was a great video! I also loved your diagrams! I am an Educator and Architectural Technician in Washington, DC and communication is my life. I think I was already agreeing with the points you brought up and when I saw the diagrams....I felt like I had to say wonderful video...lol
Thanks Mayuko, you are a remarkably human voice in what is a cold, impersonal and hyper-rational industry.
Another point I'd like to add is this:
While the tech industry prides itself in its meritocratic tradition of measuring its employees by external productivity alone (i.e. tangible output), it pays very little attention to how people grow internally - and one of this things is *learning*.
What many new developers don't get from their seniors or managers, is the recognition that being able to squeeze all this new knowledge into their heads, and making sense of the immensely complex tech stacks that companies have built up, is itself an incredibly productive activity! And yet managers don't give the impression that this is a valuable thing until you are able to do something with it.
It goes beyond internal growth as well. Learning makes one more knowledgeable about some things, which in turn makes it easier to learn more about those things, and so on. By being willing to invest intellectually in its workforce, companies can actually get surprisingly great returns on their investments, by simply having a workforce who can be more knowledgeable in the long run(and hence more productive) than one that's just focused on meeting the next deadline.
So managers, let your engineers go mess around with those newfangled frameworks once in a while, let them experiment with new ways of designing your backend, heck, let them try and and build it from Haskell if they want to! And if it doesn't work out, ITS FINE! At least we know why it doesn't work now, and we may even learn some new, valuable lessons from the exercise.
i am burnout in this year. Want to pause for a while or change job. The burnout comes from competence. Between companies ,orgs, Teams, peers.
Thanks for making this! Burnout is an important issue, especially right now with the pandemic. Hopefully, we can find solutions for sustainable and genuine progress in the tech industry.
I was on a special project about 2 years ago and knew I had reached burn-out stage when I tried to swipe my badge on the restroom door....and when it didn't beep, swiped it a second time. Then on the elevator an acquaintance straight up said I didn't look too well, and should dial back the overtime.
I’ve been on paid leave. I go back Monday. The people part is exhausting. I was working on a zillion projects without enough recognition or reward. I decided to chill out. Really great video, Mayuko.
Just a fantastic summary. Thank you for sharing your stories too. If we don't solve this, there's no nice frying pan to switch jobs to. Pandemic is sorta forcing the hand.
I went to a Ruby conference and they asked everyone to raise their hand if they've been at their current job for 2 years or less. It was like 70% of the room. I was like what :O
I like the "build something that has never existing before". I explain this from time to time and sound crazy. Every part of the business is doing their best (hopefully). I get why people want to know. I think the natural default is unhealthy, we have all these agile (small a) things to fight the business defaults. If we don't do these things, we are unhealthy. Exercise is something you do, not something you avoid. So it is an active intentional activity to fight the pitfall defaults.
Empathy, listening, a variety of pairing styles, breaks, walks, hammock-driven-development, diagramming, peer review, retros, mentoring, training juniors, bringing in diverse minds, 20% tech debt time, empowering automation, lunch-n-learns, tech talks and sharing and other things.
Even with all this, the best of us are running so fast just to keep up while still being able to communicate across specialties with all this complexity.
I have a spike list, just a list of things I want to play with. The list is so large, I can't name it. I have pinboard Read Laters and a youtube queue. I have unread tech books, some of them aren't even syntax/language ones. Some of them are like The Phoenix Project or Wetware subjects. So do a lot of my friends/ex-coworkers. We all are fighting a huge and important battle.
I think I big part of burnout is why I moved from science to programming to begin with. I'm fairly motivated & like learning. I believe learning by doing is best. We all have the tools to do programming: it's a computer. Where I came from, which is Nanotechnology, meant that the tools I needed: just one or two, would set me back at least a few hundred thousand $. Exposure to the equipment was the bottleneck, it was prohibitively expensive, you couldn't use them 24/7. With coding, the cost (on equipment) for running full-time is negligable...
It’s the same in medicine but 12 years of schooling/training before you realize how ridiculous the effort side is....by then the loans have you whipped- at least in software there’s a window to shift gears- great video as always!
Much needed topic!