I think part of the burnout is the fetishization of "coding." This concept that you have to be cranking out code to be productive is frankly untrue and unhealth

I think part of the burnout is the fetishization of "coding." This concept that you have to be cranking out code to be productive is frankly untrue and unhealthy. The thing that software engineers do is solve problems and a lot of their day can be spent thinking about solving the problem and that's perfectly productive. I'd rather spend six hours thinking about a problem and an hour implementing it, than blindly write code for hours because I haven't spent time considering how to approach the problem. Management and administration, though, can be just as taxing. It's a lot of people interaction, which can be draining. It's also a job where you have to keep a bunch of balls in the air without dropping them. I've done a little of both as anchor/lead in previous roles and it's draining to do either and especially draining to do both (but extremely rewarding).