How can I reduce my overwhelming workload?
There's too much work on my plate, which is made worse by the nature of our team's product:
- It's a black box, so it's hard to understand. There are very few Staff+ level engineers on my team to unravel this.
- I spend a lot of time on proof of concept projects instead of core execution work.
- The level of expectations are seemingly increasing every day.
What can I do to make things more doable?
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Discussion
(1 comment)- 22 years agoRobinhood, Meta, Course Hero, PayPal
I'm sorry to hear this - It's always a really bad feeling when you simply have way too much to do. First, I recommend checking out this very similar Q&A from another senior+ engineer who is feeling overwhelmed.
That being said, here's some thoughts from me:
- Can you check in with the other senior/staff engineers? - I wonder if they're doing okay or in a similar situation. If they're also having trouble, that's something you can bring as a greater feedback to your manager. If they have figured something out to manage everything smoothly, you can learn from them.
- Is it possible to reduce the proof of concept (POC) work? -The point of POCs is that they're a way to quickly vet a full-on product/feature idea. Here are some questions I have about your current situation:
- Can you cut more corners with the POC work so they're faster?
- Why aren't the POCs translating to core project work?
- Is it possible to just stop doing them as they seem to be low impact?
- Can we prioritize away some of your tasks? - An exercise I regularly did with my manager was write down everything on my plate and stack rank them by importance. From there, we would agree on what I could deprioritize (i.e. ignore for now) and what couldn't be dropped. This conversation should involve a honest conversation about work-life balance.
I also recommend this Q&A about dealing with pressure at work.
Lastly, as mentioned in the first Q&A I linked, no job is worth your mental health and well-being overall. If your manager isn't supportive and you aren't able to correct this situation soon (within 1 month), start looking for outside opportunities aggressively and maybe just leave the company without an offer in hand.
