A lot of this is speaking from personal experience and I've made all of these mistakes at one point or another, and other people might have different advice tha

A lot of this is speaking from personal experience and I've made all of these mistakes at one point or another, and other people might have different advice that's also useful. I think part of it is also learning how to be assertive and not allow companies to dictate your sleep schedule 24-7 for 365 days per year. Not knowing how to do this tactfully can be compounded by how a lot of developers haven't fully developed their social skills. The lack of balance can also be due to a lack of individuals communicating with managers, for example. I'm also not blaming individuals for garbage work environments. Definitely not every situation can be solved or even improved with good communication skills. Incentives often such that people are going to try to squeeze as much work out of you for as long as you can shoulder it. But when you find yourself with a place of employment that doesn't respect pushback or seems to manage people poorly, it's going to be important to be willing to walk away before you hit burnout. > FAANG, but honestly, these companies just sound like another high-performance meat grinder. You get paid a lot but are constantly under scrutiny. That's just part of the deal and at least they pay a lot, unlike many other places that work people into the ground. It is much easier to prevent/manage stress/burnout if you have a bunch of money sitting around. But I've known a lot of people who make a lot of money and just have no life and grow bitter over time. This is in addition to having to always keep advancing your knowledge. If you stop you can end up stuck at a shitty place without a stellar resume or a good network. I could go on, but tl;dr: It's always better to be proactive and avoid burnout before it happens, and however you solve that can be specific to the individual/environment.