I had some of my own struggles but I really started noticing this more broadly in the last 2-3 years. I'm not sure if Covid did it, the end of ZIRP did it, or what, but there was a shift where suddenly almost every SE I would talk to seemed to be burned out. I can think of a lot of potential reasons but honestly the thing that jumped out at me the most is how almost in perfect sync it seemed to happen across the profession. It's a real bummer, I remember when SE was a pretty fun profession and people seemed generally pretty happy coming to work. (Maybe this was some kind of illusion though or I was just lucky where I worked at the time. I've heard plenty of death march horror stories from the old timers too.)
Even the death marches were fun in their own way (though exploitative).
I think the reason it feels different now is that all the big companies are just constantly doing layoffs (at least every few months). So it always feels like layoffs are looming and everyone is at risk. Jobs used to feel safer (especially when most tech companies were growing rapidly instead of shrinking).
I had some of my own struggles but I really started noticing this more broadly in the last 2-3 years. I'm not sure if Covid did it, the end of ZIRP did it, or what, but there was a shift where suddenly almost every SE I would talk to seemed to be burned out. I can think of a lot of potential reasons but honestly the thing that jumped out at me the most is how almost in perfect sync it seemed to happen across the profession. It's a real bummer, I remember when SE was a pretty fun profession and people seemed generally pretty happy coming to work. (Maybe this was some kind of illusion though or I was just lucky where I worked at the time. I've heard plenty of death march horror stories from the old timers too.)
Even the death marches were fun in their own way (though exploitative).
I think the reason it feels different now is that all the big companies are just constantly doing layoffs (at least every few months). So it always feels like layoffs are looming and everyone is at risk. Jobs used to feel safer (especially when most tech companies were growing rapidly instead of shrinking).
Computing switched from liberating our communities to enslaving them and no one feels good about it.
Tech CEOs do.
Reading Tom Dale’s comments in that thread leaves me with one thought: leave clinical diagnoses to the professionals.
Requires twitter account to read.
https://xcancel.com/tomdale/status/2019640306342457450