Work-life Balance Q&A and Videos

I'm currently working in a product which was ramped down from 19 members to 5. All remaining 5 are new to product.

Current state is:

• We get lots of escalation, and it's good learning in solving them. However, pressure is enormous and also less work life balance, due to Severity 1 issues at times.
• There is no feature development for now, mainly due to less bandwidth and also all new folks in team, who are ramping up.
• There are other priorities like Maintainence of services/system (DevOps), Security, Integration with other products, minor must do feature enhancements reported by customer
• Customers are dropping because we are at times not able to provide the enhancements asked in stipulated time

When i initially started with this project, I thought it would slow down, but there are spikes at times which results in working at whole weekends (Happened four times in 2 months).

Should I leave this product and try to move to other product or company where i should look for balanced work and timeline, product with active development or continue in current one with an hope it would slow down in near future?

I spend a lot of time on oncall. There's just 3 engineers on the oncall schedule (2 other back-end engineers and myself), so we're all oncall once every 3 weeks. We hired 2 people and are looking to onboard them into the rotation later in the summer, so it will become once every 5 weeks for oncall soon-ish.

Psychologically, the oncall is very draining as I'm constantly fearing what’s going to happen. For example, I can't work out at the gym in peace as I'm constantly on high-alert in case an issue pops up. How can I have better work-life balance and less stress with this situation?

I joined my current company a bit more than a year ago as an L4. Within 4 months, I'd launched a high stakes project, and after some churn in the team leadership, I was put into the role of being a tech lead to my remaining team of L3s.

As a pseudo TL, I did well in the mentorship and technical guidance responsibilities, but my code output dropped drastically (due to my projects being in the design phase which were being done by my juniors with me providing high level guidance).

In the last three months, I suffered some mental health issues. My work productivity dropped significantly during that time. I've been very open with my manager about my mental state throughout this process, and they've been very supportive of the things I need to do to recover. Around this time my team also hired an L5, who is now officially the TL.

Due to my drop in performance in the latter half of the year, I'm afraid my manager won't trust me with important projects. I wonder if I need to again prove my credentials to keep me on track for L5. I feel very low about my software development abilities.

This has made me demotivated and disinterested in my work. I took a couple weeks off, yet I don't feel like going back to work. I'm not considering changing teams due to immigration issues. I also don't want to leave a team on a low.

Any tips on turning around my motivation, and trajectory on the team? What can I change in my mindset and working style to overcome my struggles?

A common question in performance review is "What blockers or challenges did you experience that impacted your ability to achieve goals or meet expectations?". If there was a health emergency or a family situation but one was able to meet and go beyond expectations, what is the take on stating these as 'blockers' in performance review and in promo doc?

Even though I performed at "beyond expectations" level on my assigned projects, I feel I could have taken on more and delivered more if I was not constantly distracted for most parts of the year. I am wondering if it would be appropriate to state this as a blocker and how should one do it.

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

I was lucky to join a very competent and lovely platform team when I joined my current company. I have been working in the same team for 18 months but due to re-orgs people have moved out and we are currently 3 people and we were 9 people when we started out.

We have been doing mostly maintenance work for the past 3 months after re-orgs and recently we were given a choice to work on two projects.

There is one project, lets call it Project Hero which my skip level manager wants me to join. I would be the main PIC for this project and it will involve a lot of integration work and system design. This project is with new team mates and a new manager with whom I have not worked but they don't have the best reputation. However, going by FAANG level, they should be good enough to get the job done. Only downside is work-life balance might be skewed if I join here. However, if the project is a success, it sets me up for Senior level promotion.

There is another project, lets call it Project Nero. This will be with my existing team but from a company perspective, it's not a very important project. But I will be working with my existing team mates who are both capable of delivering a solid project and a joy to work with. However, my work here will be overshadowed by other Senior engineers on the project.

Which project should I join? I personally want to do Project Hero but not with the people present there. Also it will be challenging.
Project Nero will be challenging also but more up my comfort zone.
Given the current economic climate, I feel being in more important teams will help keep my job.

I started working at TikTok last September. So far I feel like I have learned a lot but am unhappy with the work-life balance and the expectations to work long hours. I don't see a path for promotion here so I would like to move to a company that isn't under so much political pressure and the path to career development is clear. One caveat is that my official title is DevOps but I am doing SRE work. I like SRE work and would like to get that official title.

1. I have 11 months to prepare for my next role. What should my preparation look like?
2. What kind of companies should I aim for? I made a list from blind of the 2023 prestige companies and wanted to shoot for high TC. I am thinking that after the prep phase, I would start interviewing at companies I don't want to work at and get practice and offers so I have some leverage during negotiations.
3. How can I connect with other SREs from top companies that I can ask them how it is to actually work there?

At this stage of my life, I need to begin more focus on my social life. I have been working on my career only and I don't have the abundance in my social life to justify the work I have been doing. So I am hoping to land a role at a company with prestige, solid TC, and work-life balance so I can accomplish both my personal goals and my career goals.

Hello, I am a software engineer at a hardware startup company in the South Bay Area and live in San Francisco.

I make $124K/year and have been at the company for little more than a year (I joined out of college in mid-late 2022). Work-life balance at the company is pretty great (40 hours/week), the company does make exceptions for working remote from other locations from time-to-time (i.e. when you’re traveling) and is generous with PTO (this may change in 2024 as new processes have been put in place). The company raised quite a bit of money in 2021 and receives funds from government research grants so they’re in a good financial position and are even looking to hire a bit in 2024. The company culture is positive, the software team as a whole gets along quite well and I genuinely like my manager; there’s very little office politics. The company also encourages its engineers to learn.

Admittedly though, strong mentorship is lacking; something that I think I’d be highly receptive to given that I deeply cherish and frequently act upon feedback.

As for the company's future, I think the company has established a solid technology moat and might do well (maybe unicorn?). But I don’t think the company will explode into wealth anytime soon (5+ years to get there) and the equity payoff is OK (I might make an additional $280K/yr if the company 20x in valuation to be a unicorn).

The reason I am seriously considering resigning is the commute. The company has a hybrid model (3 days in-office, 2 days remote) so it’s about 1hr 30 min one-way, (3hr roundtrip) 3 days a week and it’s really getting to me.

To commute, I walk 30 min (or 20 min by bus) and then drive for an hour, sometimes in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 101-South to 280-South. Then I repeat this going back, one hour drive, and a 30 min walk (or 20 min by bus). In multiple ways, this is costing me.

Financially-speaking, I’m paying $545/month ($250 parking and $300 for gas, that’s $12,500 gross, meaning pre-tax), so effectively I make $111,500/year. I could maybe pay more for parking ($350-$500) and skip the 30 min walk, then I’d be making even less.

While I could live near Caltrain in SF, even taking Caltrain would involve taking a bus and then a 8 min walk (still roughly 1 hr 30 min one-way). Additionally, I really enjoy where I live in the city and would strongly oppose any move (as a last, last resort only).

Time-wise, I strongly feel that it’s a waste of my time to sit in traffic! I often put on podcasts + songs to distract myself from staring at the bumpers of vehicles in front of me. Getting back 9 hours of my time per week (effectively a whole day) would be incredibly beneficial. This is time and energy that I want to put towards things that are deeply, deeply important to me, one of which being health (gym, yoga, movement in general).

Health is a really important pillar for me and so having reduced time & energy to go to the gym strikes me as a major red flag for this job. I value my health far, far over compensation and career growth.

Energy-wise, on the days that I commute, I feel incredibly low energy after work. I typically come home, eat junk food, watch some on Youtube and sleep late. It's not the person that I am when I’m not commuting.

While I recognize that the market may not be so great, I am considering quitting my job in the beginning of next year and diverting my efforts to looking for a new job within the city, either startup or Big Tech (generally a company where the profit center is technology) and something with a much shorter commute (a bus or walk to somewhere in the city is perfectly fine). Alternatively, a remote job w/ healthy culture would also be OK.

I also have 6+ months of savings and am not at a risk of being deported (a U.S. citizen).

Additionally, I have multiple friends who live & work in SF, others who commute 1/week to South Bay and even some who work entirely remote. Some also work at SF startups that are actually looking for engineers right now!

So in my head, it’s quite hard to justify driving each day, paying all this money, spending all this time & energy to work at a company so far away for equivalent, or many times, less money than I would be making here in the city or even working remote.

Would greatly appreciate any thoughts y'all have! Any and all feedback is welcome :)

I'm in bootcamp right now, and many teams are telling me that they have all 3 of these things. My bootcamp mentor says that's not really feasible - There are trade-offs. Am I gullible if I believe these teams at face value?

Often I feel mentally and physically exhausted heading home from work. I started at the company 2 months ago and in total, I have just under a year’s experience working in industry. Maybe it’s because things are quite new, or is this a sign that I’m needlessly struggling?

[Context]

I try to laser in on what I’m meant to be doing, so I can get code running and testing asap but reading code takes up more time than I’d like, as I try and figure out what the service is actually doing, not only in terms of code but in the context it’s meant to be used in- It’s a systematic hedge fund and finance is new to me.

Seeking Medical Leave Assistance in the Bay Area

I'm experiencing significant stress and anxiety but can't afford to be unemployed. I don't currently have a primary care physician (PCP), and therapists won't provide a letter for medical leave.

Has anyone here used Zocdoc to obtain medical leave? Do you know of any one in the Bay Area who can assist with getting such a letter?

How would this impact my current job?

I am a senior software engineer at FAANG (not Meta), and have found myself in a difficult career dilemma.

I joined the company as a junior and made progress to senior in the same team (say A). The nature of the work was very unique. It was heavily focused on technical analysis of software as opposed to writing one yourself. A significant portion of it was cross functional collaboration across different orgs, probably the reason why I was able to get promoted fairly quickly. The coding part was maybe 30% (you were welcome to pursue more if you have the time). The culture overall was nice with good work life balance. Manager mostly supported things I wanted to pursue. Later, I switched teams (say B) and moved to the one with more focus on development of the software. I loved the technology, projects. However, the expectations were crazy high. I ended up getting a low performer rating, a year after I was promoted to senior in my previous team. The side effects were no bonus, refreshers, salary hike.

I have been working hard since then to manage the expectations. However, I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to exceed them and thereby pursue a career growth and the next title without throwing your life at work. I can get “meets expectation” for foreseeable future. We are also thinking of expanding our family next year.

I discussed with my previous manager who is willing to take me back. The work there has a high visibility, impact for the next year. I could build strong soft skills - leadership, driving things through others, collaboration there; but, not so much as to actually writing software.

My options -

1. Stick through in my current team for few years because it lets me stay closer to software development and open up opportunities in the future for development roles. But that means financial stress, an impact on family goals. Added anxiety.
2. Go back to previous team. Get that job stability, pursue family goals; but, might get rusted on software development skills. Maybe if I find some ways to keep honing them (also software design skills) then maybe there is that.
3. Looking externally. This is my last resort; but, given the market conditions it does not look pretty. I also like my company in general and would hate to leave. Also not sure of the dynamics of going through pregnancy shortly after joining a new company.

What is the correct mindset I should have? How should I navigate this situation in short and long run.

I’ve recently had my first 1:1 meeting with my manager, and we touched upon several critical points that I believe will shape my journey here. Additionally, I learned that my assigned mentor is based on the East Coast, which adds an interesting dynamic to my collaboration and learning opportunities.

After the meeting, when discussing working hours through the chat, my manager inquired about my preference. Considering the timezone difference and aiming for effective collaboration with my East Coast-based mentor, I’m contemplating proposing a work schedule from 12 PM IST to 12 AM IST. This would roughly translate to 1:30 PM EST currently and 2:30 PM EST after daylight savings adjustments.

I’m eager to hear your insights on these matters, especially regarding the proposed working hours. Do you think this schedule is effective for cross-timezone collaboration? How would you recommend navigating these initial discussions and action points in a new role, considering the timezone alignment needs?

Your advice and shared experiences would be incredibly valuable to me.

There must be a way to work super hard, write high quality code, learn from mistakes, all while being chill even through difficult times and unplugging 100% during time off.

But over the course of a month or quarter something will go wrong, and then I think about it all weekend. There will be some bug or personal conflict or missed deadline.

It could be healthy to a degree to stress about it so that I do a retro, make action items, and fix the process for next time. But it is a major negative to take it too seriously to the point where I go over it 100 times in my head or when talking to coworkers I become defensive, give excuses, or want to start thinking about blame.

My question is not really about having a blameless culture at a company though, but how do I myself keep up high performance while taking things way less personally/seriously?

Hi Taro Community,

I'm wrestling with a question about work hours that perhaps many of you have also encountered. Is it generally advisable to stick strictly to an 8-hour workday, or is it acceptable to work more when necessary? Specifically, if the tasks at hand don't get completed within the standard 8-hour window, should I extend my hours into the night to resolve issues?

Here's my dilemma: I've found myself working additional hours at night to tackle pending tasks. While this has helped me keep up with my workload, I'm unsure about the implications of this practice:

• Should I expect acknowledgment or appreciation from my manager for these extra efforts?
• Is it beneficial to communicate my extended hours to my manager, and could it potentially influence decisions regarding bonuses or other forms of recognition?
• How do managers typically view overtime work, and what is the balance between demonstrating dedication and setting healthy work boundaries?

I'd appreciate any guidance or personal experiences you can share on handling overtime work and how to approach discussions about it with management.

Thank you for your insights.

Recently, due to health concerns, I consulted a doctor who advised me to take a medical leave for about 4 to 6 weeks, depending on my recovery. As I write this in January, my manager rates my performance at 3 or 4 out of 5. Having worked diligently throughout the year, I am eager to achieve a rating of 4, which will be finalized in August, though typically decisions are made by April.

However, I question the wisdom of deferring my health needs for the sake of a rating, especially since the financial and promotional benefits are not significant. Additionally, I have been contemplating a move to a FAANG or similar company for a better role and salary.

Despite the uncertain job market, I don't want to jeopardize my current position. There are also personal matters I need to address during my medical leave.

I'm seeking advice on how to balance pursuing a favorable performance rating with taking my medical leave, possibly in February. Is there a strategy to achieve both objectives?

what I am leaning towards is prioritizing health & starting the medical process by February. If a company penalizes me by giving me a sh*t rating for taking care of my health, then it’s not a good fit. I haven’t taken a long vacation > than 4 days in 2 years.

I recently joined a team of 20 people split across traditional software development, support personnel, storage engineering, security engineering and more and we're essentially supposed to sysadmin a large number of systems working ~70 hr weeks. The old team we're replacing did not handle well in this environment and it seems like my team needs to focus more so the storage engineers solve storage engineering problems, coders do coding etc so we can bail each other out of this hole faster. Any thoughts on how we can go about this? I'm working ~50hr weeks max and still perplexed at how these 70 hr weeks happen.

I became really ambitious at a young age and was always pushing my boundaries, from high school, through university and now in a professional environment. Ambition is not a bad thing, but I think I picked up an unhealthy maximalism and “grind mindset” which makes the journey really stressful. I’m working on understanding myself & why my personality turned out this way with a psychologist and honestly it’s great (and I recommend this to everyone in tech if you can afford it).

Reflecting back on my journey, this mentality got me pretty far so far (I’m 26), I got promoted pretty much every year (I’m just below staff-level, 5 YoE in ML/AI), I published papers as side projects and finished my Masters degree, most of this in parallel.

Throughout the years I was given several signs that this is not a maintainable pace (relationship ending because of only spending time on professional stuff, health complications like high blood pressure, etc.) and as stupid as it sounds, I just powered through these and carried on.

Exercise is one thing that helped the situation as it turns my mind off for a bit. I’ve been working our 3-4 times a week, but honestly I think the problem is with my attitude, so working out will not help the stress completely.

Recently I think I hit a wall in terms of stress and I had a few panic attacks, which was really scary. It was a wake up call and I decided that nothing is worth experiencing these conditions. After experiencing these I became more stressed and worried about my health which makes day-to-day work pretty tough. I’m also switching jobs soon, which I think added an extra bit of stress to the whole thing, maybe that was the trigger.

Since I think Taro is a collective of people with great ambitions, I’d be really curious to hear if you faced a similar situations and how you managed it.

So I have two main questions to you:

• Short term: If you ever got to this point, what are some strategies to recover? I will be taking 2.5 weeks of vacation between the jobs and I will try to completely switch-off, but I’m curious if you have any other ideas.
• Long term: How do you balance your thoughts and ambitions about “reaching the stars” (whether it’s becoming a staff engineer, building a company, etc.) with maintaining a healthy life?

So it's been 3 months at my startup.

The day I get there, I see that our product is way worse than advertised (ie. saying we had 20 core features when we actually had 2). That's okay I guess, the team was just selling their vision during the interview process.

After 1 month, one of the cofounders quits. The next day, another one of the cofounders quits. I'm panicking, but I realize I'm stuck here because it's my first job. (looks bad if I leave so early)

After another month, we get an impromptu Zoom invite. 1/3 of the engineers have been fired. Everyone is working 60+ hour weeks at this point to keep the same velocity. The firings were not due to lack of funding btw.

And just the other day, we had mid year reviews. The CEO says my engineering speed is slow. (he claims to be able to do in 1 day what I do in 1 week) However, he's never been a SWE before so not sure how he knows.

My gut tells me to leave, but where will I go? Hopefully I can strive for a FAANG company or somewhere that has a strong engineering culture, but I feel pretty trapped right now.

Reflection:

I think part of the issue may be that the CEO wants FAANG-level performance + ridiculous work hours while providing only 60-70% of the actual comp of these firms. Something about expectations and leveling seems to be amiss here

Personal Context:

I have no problems getting interviews (thankfully, even as a new grad) because I spent a few months contributing to open-source. Just debating if it's worth cracking out the LeetCode for a few companies

I'm in a difficult situation right now and feel I need some time off to recover and manage, but am also concerned with optics.

I've been interviewing for new roles recently and spent my time off over the holidays (~2 weeks) preparing for a particularly stressful onsite interview. The team I was originally interviewing with no longer has an opening and I'm stuck waiting for headcount to open up and find a new team.

The stress of this situation has been taking a toll on me mentally and physically, and I've been dealing with a lot of health issues over the last month. I think it would be best for me to take at least a couple of weeks off to help reduce my stress and focus on maintaining my health. This isn't extremely extended, but amounts to more like a month off when factoring the recent 2 weeks off for the holidays.

After writing this out, it seems more cut-and-dry that I need to just ask and cite the health issues. I'd be curious to hear how others have navigated asking for extended time off.

When I joined my current company, it was a standard 40 hour/week company. Since the end of last year, we’ve been told that we’re all expected to work 55-60 hours/week to get our startup to a successful state (get funding, retain current customers, attract new ones). I’m feeling extremely miserable from the change because the schedule doesn’t allow me to do all the other things that are important to me outside of work, such as spending time with family, cooking and working out regularly, and dedicating time to my hobbies. I have subscribed to newsletters for years to keep up with how the javascript and react worlds are changing, but have stopped reading them. I feel like the work hours have made me less curious about keeping up with tech and growing, which is the thing that I used to like most about this career.

We’re asked to track and report our hours working on tickets, and any time we fall short of expectations it comes up in our weekly one on one with our manager. It’s making me want to leave, but the market is tough, I haven’t interviewed in years and never done DSA or system design questions, and it’s hard to start with the schedule I have, because again I’m already sacrificing time with my family for this job and don’t want to sacrifice more. It’s crazy how much the extra 15-20 hours per week is costing me emotionally.

How do I get out of a situation like this? I don’t have enough savings to fall back on, my wife doesn’t work, and my state doesn’t provide Medicaid even to households with no income.

I just started my first job out of college as a Data Scientist over a month ago. The team I got assigned to was formed just recently after a reorg and is somewhat of a mess. I feel like our team is responsible for a lot of the repetitive, low-value, and uninteresting work (i.e a lot of boilerplate SQL with inefficient cross-functional processes) that other teams don't want. Also all the ICs on our team are either new to the company or new to this product line so the team has been struggling trying to ramp up. We also have to deliver projects to our internal clients under very tight deadlines so the stress level is always high. However I do love the company and my internship on another team last year was great, so I would like to stay in this company for at least the next 2-3 years. I know the best thing for me right now is probably to keep my head down and become good at my job. However, it would be great if I can get some perspective on how to navigate this situation and stand out under this kind of circumstance. What would be the best for me both in terms of short and long-term growth?

Thanks so much for taking the time!

I've been a software engineer in India for 8 years, working with reputed companies. My previous company (A) was an Indian startup that grew significantly during my 5-year tenure there. I learned quickly as a junior and mid-level engineer, often handling urgent issues. Despite frequent deployment failures, it never hindered our release pace. However, after 5 years, I felt burned out due to poor work-life balance, especially after getting married, and the pay wasn't competitive.

I moved to my current company (B) about 2.5 years ago, drawn by a 100% salary hike, better work-life balance, and excellent perks. But I soon noticed a strong cultural shift. The engineering quality at B is not on par with A, and their systems are less mature despite being in the same domain. I saw this as a chance to improve B's systems using my experience, but progress was slow. The company seemed more focused on appearing as tech leaders rather than actual tech innovation.

Initially, I had a supportive manager, but my feedback on engineering practices and processes led to tension. Over time, my manager avoided interactions with me. Now, the team dynamics are strained. Juniors respect me, but peers and seniors, even recent joiners, view me negatively, questioning my teamwork. Bureaucratic politics from new tech leads and senior managers, who came from the same previous team, add to the problem. My manager, caught in this new dynamic, no longer supports me and avoids our 1:1s due to their negative nature, although she now wants to rebuild our relationship as she claims that she has reflected over it after she got a break from everything after few weeks' of leaves.

The toxic environment has pushed me to prepare for other opportunities, though it's made me wary of company cultures. I don't want to join startups due to their poor work-life balance, but I seek a role where I can spend 60% of my day learning valuable tech skills without unnecessary politics. The office environment has turned very hostile for me where anything I try to say gets taken in negative light. This is affecting my mental health, but I'm trying to stay here until July for my stock vesting.

I'm struggling to stay hopeful about the software industry and would appreciate any encouragement. Thanks!

I am currently in a toxic org. Typical signs including people "kill themselves over work", try to compete on the same projects, product directions keep changing every quarter or so, and managers have little empathy and set unrealistic deadlines, too much thrash, etc. There are some turnovers recently in my org too.

However, there are indeed a lot of benefits of staying in my current company -- tech stack is modern, I got to work on AI/ML, pay and benefits are good, colleagues are indeed very talented, company has a good reputation, etc.

So if I want to keep in the same team in the same company (let's just assume for my situation, switching team isn't viable), any good tips on how I thrive?

In my team, I truly witnessed a 10x engineer (they are L5), and they made massive contributions to the team, including both daily technical discussions and high-quality code. Although somewhat burnt out, they are enjoying themselves in daily work too. I guess I can learn a lot from them.

Moreover, sometimes when some co-worker takes a leave (like parental leave) or leaves the company, I can usually fill the void in projects, etc. And maybe step in management if there is some opening.. (which is my long-term career goal)

But other than those points above, any other tips on how I thrive better? Thanks!

When does being a code machine act as a disadvantage?

I identify as ND (NeuroDivergent) and when I am able to build an app in a day (like hackathon style), fix a bug, solve a problem, the disadvantage I have noticed from time-to-time if I am not highly cognizant of my ability to take breaks (timing my tasks), I forget to eat meals or do basic things (like use the bathroom)? It is much like the stereotype of Poppy Li in Mythic Quest unfortunately. How do we manage this better when there is a value in being productive in output, but an undervaluing of our bodies, and sustainability?

Do we need extra reminders on our Apple Watch (or other Smart Watches), pomodoro technique to be able to tell us to take more breaks even if we are on a roll finishing a ton of code? What strategies have worked well for the code machine archetype to get their work done but without burning themselves out?