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IME working at a big tech company post-burnout is much more relaxing than working at a startup. There is definitely opportunity & reward for working hard and ge
by theptip 3y ago
IME working at a big tech company post-burnout is much more relaxing than working at a startup. There is definitely opportunity & reward for working hard and getting stuff done, but planning timelines and deadlines are so much longer. And none of the existential dread from “will we run out of runway” or “how do we get to PMF”.
Especially if you go in a level or two below your actual tryhard level, you’ll still likely earn more than you would in a startup (sans home run exit). You can still do good work on interesting problems, but with more breathing room for work/life balance.
- busterarm 3y agoIME it's trading one pressure cooker for another. There's less time pressure but more organizational inertia and sickness blocking doing _any_ meaningful work. If you're the kind of person that can just punch a clock and not give a shit, fine, but someone used to working in startups is someone used to taking responsibility for things and that's career death in big orgs or asking for further burnout.
- ramraj07 3y agoSure but that just doesnt gel with also getting burned out.
- busterarm 3y agoDeadlines aren't why I'm burned out, but organizational malaise sure is.
- nprateem 3y agoThe opposite of burnout - rust out - can be a serious problem for good devs in large orgs where it's impossible to get anything done. Just fill the downtime by working on side projects, hobbies, fitness, etc. Even still it can be draining achieving nothing at work.
- theptip 3y agoMy recommendation for recovering from burnout is to find the sweet spot of caring less about the work, while not finding it boring. Care 60%, not 0 or 100. “Sometimes I work hard, sometimes I just work”. It’s hard to “just work” on something you are passionate about. I think most startup folks will need to correct in the direction of caring less about work. (For a while! Not forever!) I agree with your concern in that this is a U-shaped cost function. You don’t want to over-correct. But it’s not binary. You can care less than 100% and not be “punching in”. There is a lot of variance between orgs and even teams within an org. But there are definitely companies where startup folks can do good work and not feel burnt out by the organizational inertia.