Work-life Balance Q&A and Videos

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.

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!

Having spent over a decade in tech and experienced both sides of the equation, here are my observations:

With the recent shift in the tech industry, many companies, including my own, are moving a large portion of their workforce to India, seemingly due to cost considerations. However, after working with a US-based team for nearly a year, I can confidently say this arrangement often comes at the expense of work-life balance (WLB) and harmony.

The significant time zone difference results in minimal overlap, and flexibility from the US side is generally limited. Few team members are available past 10 PM their time, yet many meetings and office hours fall between 1:00 AM and 3:00 AM IST. While recordings are available, they lack the interactivity needed for effective participation.

For senior engineers like myself, the challenges are amplified. During the day, I manage my India-based team, and it falls on me to sync with the US team during early mornings or late nights. This schedule leaves little room for balance. I've observed that many colleagues appear overworked, with a noticeable number being online well past 10 PM regularly.

This setup often feels unsustainable, especially for those who value a healthy work-life balance.

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!

I work in a high-growth, scaled startup where my organization builds revenue-generating platforms and forms small teams to create new verticals. However, we face challenges such as fast-tracked, inexperienced engineering managers (EMs) who disrupt work-life balance and often expect overtime or weekend work.

Feature requests are typically communicated via Slack messages or one-liners, with frequent status updates focused on completion. There is significant bias and favoritism, yet I can operate in such an environment. Although I know the best long-term solution might be to move to big tech or a more stable team, I’m seeking advice on how to behave in this current setting.

I avoid responding to negative remarks within the team because the EM’s typical reaction to any request is dismissive, suggesting that bugs shouldn't happen or that tasks should be managed independently. I was down-leveled upon joining this team from a similar toxic environment but have since been promoted to SDE 2. My senior, an SDE 3, also struggles emotionally, which makes me question whether this is common in leadership across companies of similar scale and situation.

How do you handle working in such an environment? I am currently taking a course on managing up, which seems relevant. I focus solely on my tasks and avoid reacting to negativity, which is appreciated, but I’ve stopped working weekends due to shifting priorities and deliverables. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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!

Last Thursday, my manager and a senior engineer were sick and still went to the office. Friday, I felt a strong itchiness in my throat. Saturday I started coughing. The timeline really suggests I'm infected by my manager. My spouse is probably going to get infected as well. Luckily we are healthy in general and not immunocompromised. I really want to tell my manager in the face that he infected me, but that doesn't seem like a good way to express my thoughts.

Maybe I can also try to write something anonymously in the weekly Signal survey. How can I best approach this?

Appendix:

A few more quotes from my manager and my senior on Thursday:

• The sick senior: "if it were covid, I would have not come office today"
• The sick manager in the morning: "I should probably go home in the afternoon to not get your guys infected". Then at 3pm in the afternoon, he said "I'm sorry I really need to go home" and then he left.

On Thursday, 6 teammates were in the office. On Friday, only the sick senior and the sick manager were in the office :)

Hi all, hope you're all doing well!

TLDR:
Is it possible to get promoted from L3 to L4 by changing FAANG companies?

Context:

• Currently 1.3YOE Exp as FAANG SWE at L3/fresh graduate Level
• 9 months of prior experience as a graduate SWE at a non-FAANG company

Work Environment

• Extremely high workload+stress: 60-85+ hours per week (everyone on the team works these hours so it's not a question of my inefficiency)
• Consistent weekend work required to meet deadlines
• Unrealistic expectations, tight estimations and tighter deadlines.
• Management unwilling to adjust timelines or provide additional resources - results in employees working on sick leave, solving user issues on PTO etc.
• No senior engineers in my team working within 40 hr/wk, I say this to paint the picture of the working env for people who are 'well settled' into the job.
• I'd go on but hope this gives an idea.

My Performance

• Exceeds expectations in all categories.
• Gained significant experience due to the high project throughput.
• Taking ownership of multiple features.
• Go-to person for user issues related to certain features.
• System design experience for small to mid-sized projects.

Questions/Concerns:

• Is promo from L3 -> L4 in FAANG by moving companies, even possible?
• What should I say if the recruiter asks me for my current job level?
  • I don't want to be down-levelled if I disclose my current L3 level.
  • However, I don't want to be dishonest either.
• What if a recruiter reaches out to my current company to ask about my level?
• What parts of my experience can I highlight to show I'm performing at the L4 level?

Closing thoughts:

By the time I prep for interviews and likely land a job I'll probably have 1.7yrs of FAANG exp (L3) and 9 months of non FAANG exp. Hopefully, this is enough for a L4 promo.

Ideally, I don't want to grind my health down for a promo.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Awesome platform by the way, it's really helped in my career development and I can't express how grateful I am for Taro :)

As an intern undertaking my first industry-relevant experience, I often find myself drawn to continue working on projects beyond my scheduled work hours. Should this extra time be considered overtime and discussed with my manager, or is it expected to be unpaid and regarded as a personal choice?

I've done 4 interviews with a company in the finance space that pays pretty well. I've completed my technical interviews and have advanced to the cultural/behavioural rounds where I'm set to speak with senior business folks, including the COO and the CEO.

Initially, I was excited to be at this stage and resolved to prepare by talking to former employees of the company who could give me insights into the work and culture that I could use to impress my interviewers. However, my conversations with these folks served to turn me off of the company. Everyone said it's a grind culture where people are expected to work 60 hours a week. I've done the math and on a per-hour worked basis, the pay's not actually that great.

Based on the lack of challenge to my interviews so far and my convos, I get the sense the company is desperate to fill the role because the former employees I spoke to had enough of the bad work-life balance and quit.

I'm pretty sure I can get the offer, but I don't see much point anymore. I won't accept it at the salary the recruiter gave and even if I can bump it up 15% I still won't. So I think the best thing to do is to cancel my interviews and save everyone time.

My question is, how do I back out gracefully? I don't think telling the truth ("your culture stinks") is appropriate here. I was thinking of saying that I got another offer, but if they really care, they'll be able to see that my LinkedIn hasn't changed, and maybe that'll leave a bad taste.

Any insights are welcome :)

For the record, I’m not personally interested in game development - I’m just quite curious.

Everyone hears the following complaints across the gaming industry in general:

• Crunch time

• Lower TCs

I find this quite curious, because I imagine there’s a lot of technical complexity in building games and the numerous tools and engines needed to make them. 

Games are interdisciplinary, combining art, music, sound design, acting, writing, and game design, to create interactive entertainment software - so I would imagine this presents a unique world of challenges that make it just as complex as “regular” software. 

Plus, MMOs and games like Fortnite or Counter-Strike have to deal with all the technical complexity of ensuring a good player experience while having millions of players (clients) playing concurrently.

In fact, Gergely Orosz has on the subject that I found fascinating.

Yet, game developers typically complain of lots of crunch time and being underpaid - and, subjectively, the game dev industry is less “prestigious” than SWE.

Also, I’ve almost always seen devs listed as “game programmer” or “UI programmer” in the credits, as if their primary job is to just write code (and not build good, complex software at scale).

What might be the reason for the differences between game development and regular software engineering?

I joined this company which is known for their stability and wlb one month ago. However, upon joining the team, I first got put on two work streams in the sister team, then got pulled into critical path for launch. I found myself working over time, taking late night calls, going to daily stand ups and having to let work take over my life( skipping gyms, meals, socials) to meet the launch deadlines ( while ramping up). Note I'm not even 2 months in.

On one hand, I want to progress in my career. On the other hand, I feel overwhelmed - to be honest, a bit burned out. After work, I just lie in bed, feeling exhausted and think what’s the point of all this? I really want to question my manager why are they putting me into this pressure cooker while ramping? Or perhaps that is the expectation for a senior software engineer? But obviously, i can’t just do that. I do think they are a good manager and care about my career growth, and the company does feel nice culture wise. What’s some good advices for a new hire who hasn’t established themselves to try to set boundary for work life balance? Or the truth is you can only pick one from wlb or career progression.

I recently worked on a project that took away nights and weekends for three months since the work was more than what could be accomplished within the deadlines. Since we had a hard deadline for the project, we could not advocate for work-life balance.

How common are such scenarios in tech?

My onboarding buddy is getting a business phone for email + slack. He says it's important for keeping good WLB and mental health.

Is this standard practice?