Have about 5 yoe, with 2.5 at Amazon. Feeling extremely burned out like I need a break. I find myself day dreaming of taking a 1 year break where I just do the things I want to like spend time with family and friends, travel to countries I have never seen, get back in shape and focus on my health again. But this market is obviously terrible and there's no guarantee how easily I can find a job once I come back with a gap on my resume. The thing is, I consider myself a solid but mediocre engineer. I am consistently rated "meets bar" at Amazon. I am also still L4 because I got down leveled in my interview. Due to a couple reorgs in my tenure here, it has been difficult to get promo. I say this because I always hear the job market is good for top SWEs, but in all honesty I am just an average SWE with years of experience. So this makes me think that I may not be so lucky as to get another job at F500 level again. Have been trying to recover from burnout while keeping the job by adopting healthy habits, sleep, diet, etc but amazon and life keeps kicking me down. I feel my mental health getting worse and worse, including anxiety attacks once in a while. I never used to get anxiety attacks ever in my life. But I also worry about what I will do if I cannot find a job down the line. Looking for perspectives. Has anyone here taken a gap year around the same YOE? Is this a bad idea? TC 180
You need to work on establishing good time management habits so you can do the things you listed above while keeping a job. You can start working on that right now, without quitting. Don’t take a gap year without a solid plan for the time, otherwise you’re likely to waste the time off.
I agree but as I mentioned I've been trying this: > Have been trying to recover from burnout while keeping the job by adopting healthy habits, sleep, diet, etc but amazon and life keeps kicking me down it's been extremely difficult to adopt these habits when I'm overrun daily by stress of work and mentally I'm already in bad shape. I have also had a few life events that have been hard to cope with alongside my job. I wish I could switch to a chill company and develop these habits but I have no energy to leetcode and interviewing in this market feels like a low reward/risk ratio.
I do have a plan for my time off but it would not be anything related to my career or earning income. I have a concrete outline of where I would travel, who I would visit, how I'm going to get into shape, and how to budget for all of it. But I'm wondering if you mean I should have a plan to maintain income
Get a chill job to coast for a year
Have been applying since january, got a couple final rounds but I can never convert to an offer. This was Q1 though, the last few months I've barely gotten any interviews.
I'd just find a new job. The SDE market is substantially better than earlier this year but, still in retrospect there's like 3-5 people for every tech job at the moment.
I'm just curious, why not take all your PTO? And just chill? Then when you come back, take it slow.
I agree with this. Aim for PTO and maybe even, depending on your relationship with your manager and how much they value you, ask for a sabbatical. A year is a pretty long time, longer than most realize, when there's no goals to accomplish.
But that's just me. My answer to op is that it's not a death sentence. But I'd recommend making sure they can get a good rec from their current manager to help out for those companies who will presume it as sus
You sound like me from a year ago, although I was L5. After 4 years at high ops load team I was thoroughly burnt out. I was stressed and dreaded going to work every morning. Just the thought of going to work, even if it’s at another company, stressed me out. There was no way I would be doing my best work even if I jumped ship. I finally pulled the trigger 6 months ago after thinking about for a year. I've been thoroughly enjoying my time off. Traveling, visiting family abroad, and spending time doing my hobbies was exactly what I needed to recharge. I'm starting to get excited about where I could end up next, and interview prep doesn't feel as much of a chore anymore as it was. Yes, the market is not as good as it was couple years ago. And yes, the stress of not knowing if you'll find your next job will start to creep in after you leave. But that was what I was willing to go through to be free from the dread that I was feeling everyday. Maybe I just haven't experienced the constant interview rejection that everyone is talking about yet so I'm still hopeful. I just started applying this week after a few months of doing a few leetcode everyday, so I guess I'll find out where I'll end up. Another option for you is to take 3 months of FMLA if you don't wanna go full nuclear on your job. If you're not feeling it by the end of the 3 months, you can still decide to quit after.
How does one do FMLA?
can you take leave instead?
Join a company like LinkedIn and get paid for taking a 1yr break
I’ve been in the same situation as you last year this time. EXCEPT that at 5 Yoe (2.5 at amazon) I’d already secured a promotion from L5 to L6 and dont consider myself average. I had the same thoughts as yours, burn out health not on track, personal life was non existent. So I thought long and hard about it and decided to do nothing. I’ve stayed in this role for the last year, done the bare minimum to do my goals but refused to take extra initiatives. Took plenty of sick leaves, Mental health recovery days, annual days off to travel across 6 countries all while making my L6 salary. Around now I’ve made up mind to quit and am interviewing with some good companies for better TC and definitely better roles which are more aligned to my long term career ambitions. Sometime the best thing to do is nothing. Full disclosure: I had the rest of the team who’s in their promo cycle take the slack (fair deal as I overworked during mine) and my manager is also cruising post his promotion (so he empathises and cares less). it turned out way better than I imagined but i was prepared to manually give up at work for the next year, draw boundaries as needed and that helped recover the rest of the areas of my life
Find a therapist. You can’t escape yourself.
Take pto? Wait for pip? Don’t fire yourself
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If Trump can’t reverse the situation then quit I will say
not a bad idea. I'm thinking of hanging in there to see what happens after the election plus Fed hopefully cutting interest rates in the fall
Market doesn’t like Biden right now, if elections go R I suspect there will be another bull run