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Prioritize work/life balance
These companies don’t give a F about you
If you die slaving for them, they’ll move on like you never existed to begin with.8 -
I work for healthcare client project in a start up, worked two years straight without a break.
Client is very inconsiderate about developers work-life balance, he always wants to release every features yesterday.
Never had a reasonable deadline, worked late nights most of the time. No one had backbone to control this client from our side.
Its only developers team, no project management, scrum masters or anything, everything has to be taken care by Dev's.
I decided to take a week break from work.
The first day of my leave he pinged me 3 times to change an "from email" address for notification email which no one give a damn about.
I never replied or did anything. But the part of myself is dying of guilt.
Now I can't relax myself completely.
Re-thinking of my life choices atm.
I loved programming since high school, I can work on computers 24/7 without tired. That's how much I love it. Now I'm just tired of it.
If anyone who read this till here. Thank you.18 -
Hipsters be like: i aM iN cOnTrOl oF mY oWn LiFe
And then proceed to give away their Calendly link.
Fucking hilarious. They fail to realise that time is the most important entity anyone can have. And they give it away to strangers to control their time.
Imagine, giving access and control of your most important entity of your life to some random stranger on internet.
I coincidently found this. I had to read it three times before I understood what the message was.
I am slowly getting back to my life where I had good work life balance, but this time I am paid well with lots of learning.
I am on my way to become a time millionaire.
10 -
So one day on tech huddle my tech lead got frustrated, don't know why and told me - "the tasks you're doing can be done by interns"
I felt bad. Ofcourse I was putting my 100%.
That day I decided to put the resignation. I didn't discussed with anyone about it and sent the resignation email directly.
After serving 2 months of notice period I was able to land a better job successfully!
I called the lead on the last working day in that company and shared him the news about my offer letter and a little about the company.
His first question was - "Did you cleared all the interview process?"
In my mind - "That's only why I'm sharing the news here with you man! Stop thinking of me as a noob."
I replied with - "yes, if needed/the new company try to get feedback about me then please be honest atleast there by keeping your ego aside."
You shouldn't pull someone's leg if you aren't able to climb higher!!
Lesson I learnt;
DON'T STAY AT A PLACE WHERE THERE'S NO VALUE OF YOUR WORK AND THE DEDICATION TOWARDS IT!
Working in a startup isn't that easy, mostly for those where there's no work life balance.2 -
i don't think that i'm having a burnout but i think that i'm maybe not so far away from it... several people, including friends, my therapist and also a colleague, told me they see me at risk of sliding into a real burnout.
i've known this for longer that i have a crappy work life balance. the habit of making work the most important part of my own life. thinking about work even in my private time, when i fall asleep, when i wake up in the night or in the morning. the tendency to think about problems, plans, coworkers, not being able to quit work mentally. the idea that i have to prove to everybody at work that i'm awesome. the feeling that, after a work day, i'm just "waiting" at home for the next day, in idle mode, so i can continue working on a problem (like a bug) that's occupying my whole mind. and at the same time, feeling totally empty after work, having no energy. i've lost interest and quit several hobbies in the last two years that once were important for me. and i think one important reason is that i didn't have any mental energy left to deal with that.
another factor for this development was also the pandemic for sure, because for some time, i had no real social life except for that at work.
but more important is probably that i find my job most of the time really fun and am highly motivated. i have the tendency to say yes to everything and to really commit to and own the problems that are handed to me. (right now, however i feel like there's not much motivation left)
then again there is the feeling that what i do is never good enough, i have little self confidence in my own abilities as a software engineer. there's a big discrepancy between how i myself perceive my work and how other people do (not only at work). on a rational level, i know that what i do is at least "good enough", otherwise i wouldn't have this job, and i wouldn't receive this amount of positive feedback from people. but it's hard to really deeply understand this thing, when there are deep-rooted beliefs like "only perfect is good enough" or "your colleagues will be disappointed and get a negative idea of you (and something bad will happen), if you don't give your best"... and there's also this idea that i have to be this super nerdy person who also codes in their free time, reads IT magazines and stuff, because only then i will fit this stereotype of a software developer, and only then i can be taken seriously and be good enough. no matter if this is fun for me or not.
anyway, right now i'm at a point in life where i'm realizing all this not only rationally, but with full emotional impact... :/ my life feels like it's gone stale and empty. i've lost creativity, warmth and human connection and that hurts a lot.
i'm trying to change my life.
one thing that really helps me right now is to talk with people who have (made) similar experiences. can you relate? if yes, how do / did you address those problems? i would really appreciate to hear your stories...6 -
them: welcome new project members, this is our CI/CD pipeline which is completely different from the rest of the company, there won't be any great knowledge transfer, we just expect you to be able to know and use everything. but also, we expect you to work on your tasks and don't waste any time.
me: okay, so my tasks aren't going as fast as expected, because I need to invest some learning so i can set up my project correctly.
later: some help would be nice, i'm stuck right now
coworker: *helps me to fix my problems, which were partly due to misconfigured build servers* i know it's a lot, and unfortunately, for this topic sources on the web aren't so good. i can really recommend this book, this will give a deeper understanding of the topic.
me: okay, yeah i mean, tbh, i'll read the book if the project invests some time for me so i can learn everything that's required, but this won't happen. also, some initial workshop on the topic or anything would have been nice.
coworker: well, i mean, i am a software developer. for me, it is normal that i learn all that stuff in my free time. and i think that's what the PM expects from us.
me: okay, that's fine for you, i mean, if i'm interested in a topic, i will invest my private time. but in this case, PM would just expect me to do unpaid labor, to gain knowledge and skills that i can use in this specific project. i'm not willing to do that.
coworker: ...
me: ...
it's not that i don't want to learn. the thing is that there isn't any energy left by the end of the day. i'm actually trying to find some work life balance, because i don't feel balanced right now, haven't felt since i started this job.
also, this is only one of several projects i'm working on. it's like they expect me this project has top priority in my life. if it wasn't so annoying on different levels, maybe i'd have a more positive attitude towards it.
also, at the moment i find it fucking annoying that i have to invest so much time in this dev ops bullshit and this keeps me from doing my actual work.
if they are unhappy with my skills, either they can invest in my learning or kick me out. at this point, either is fine for me..12 -
Update: https://devrant.com/rants/5220410/...
I resigned from my second job.
First job tenure: 7.5 years
Second job tenure: 10 months
This job taught me a lot and paid me decent, but not enough to cope up with the bullshit and sacrifice, WLB, and happiness.
I landed a job at one of my dream companies I always wanted to be and possibly the best company in my city. Also the role is B2C in nature and one of only profitable start-ups from India. The domain is second favourite of mine (Music > Art/Events > Travel).
Second job was in travel domain, world's largest OTA but the timezone fucked my happiness and that is what my first job offered me.
I could easily score better offers with higher pay and benefits but I was optimising for a work life balance and team in same time zone along with some impacting work.
I do have some interesting interviews coming up and I am not sure how will I end up performing.
When I got this first offer, this job hunting season, I initially rejected some silly policies. I regretted the decision and thankfully after having a transparent conversation with the recruiter, I accepted it. Funnily, the resignation from second job isn't making me feel emotional, guilty, or any negative emotion. Which evidently signals that the job was toxic and I had to step out asap.
The purpose it served in my journey was bring my remuneration to market levels and teach me a lot more skills in just short span.
Excited to see how the future unrolls. I'll keep my fellows here posted.
I really want to spend more time here talking and hanging out with you all. Hopefully I shall be back soon. Until then keep safe my lovelies :)6 -
Regain work life balance.
The last few years especially with COVID I've started to do way to much for the company's I've worked for. Working while I was coughing my lungs out when I had COVID. Working during my holiday because it was finally a fun feature to develop. Working in lunch breaks because people would call me all the time (remote there are no boundaries)
I left that company on a good note, started actually healthy as the new company actually understands flex working. However as I gained responsibly more meetings started to appear also causing rushed lunches no more walks of sport activities. Than I was lead in a project and because of some personal circumstances (death in the family) that was running long. Again started to work overtime trying to catch up.
I need to stop doing this. Caring is fine but I just give to much when I feel responsible. Good thing is that my current company actually wants to help me with this.1 -
I used to be at a company where it was kind of expected that you worked long days, which made it quite difficult to balance work and private life. It got so out of control that I was even called to work while I was on my holiday. At first I started with shutting off my phone after work hours, but the real solution I found was moving away from that company.
Pretty much everyone at my new company just stops working when the clock hits 4 or 5 pm unless there is something critical that needs to be done. Seeing that also discourages me (and everyone else) from working long days. We are also quite open about our workload so if anyone thinks they’re overwhelmed they can find a relevant person to talk to and eventually a solution is found. The salary isn’t incredible, but the work/life balance and the benefits I get are just way better than getting paid more and living to work.
I think a lot of people go for the high salaries, most of the time disregarding the other part of the equation. If the company has a meh work culture with low regard to employees’ work/life balance, there isn’t much the employee can do besides finding a place to work with better wlb. I’d pick a great work/life balance and peace of mind to a high salary any day.1 -
@zlice I am going to ...subtweet you? (Screenshot included)
Basically, so much what you said. 100%.
You stumble your way around different companies until you find something that sits right with you.
There are so many contributing factors to the "good company" and as many definitions as everyone will value different aspects of work. Good management? Tech stack to your liking? Kick ass colleagues? Interesting product? Good work life balance? Company contributing to world's welfare?
I can go on. Each of you will decide what is good, good enough, or decent and what sacrifices and tradeoffs are acceptable.
2 -
Work/life balance doesn’t exist!
I have no personal life outside what I do. My creative expression. It heavily influences my every decision and makes up who I am, and it is not possible to draw the line where my creativity ends and my personal life with my partner, friends and stuff begins. Coincidentally, it is also my “job”.
The day my creativity stops will mark the end of what makes my life meaningful.7 -
you know that feel when you're in one or two weeks of vacation and one day, you look into the mirror and you notice you look like 5 years younger and also you're able to actually enjoy things in life and try out new things, and you wonder, what am i doing with my life...2
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For the game devs out there … Is following a game developer career a good idea ? We always hear about crunch and no work life balance. Im thinking about changing my job( currently a dev at a fintech company) for a while and need some insights from you guys :)6
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How is everyone handling their day job lately? I'm feeling pretty safe about my position, but my day-to-day is definitely suffering as my mind wanders off.
Cost of living crisis, trying to have a social life, impending fatherhood, all while trying to do good work and improve my knowledge. Not easy.3 -
I am thinking about leaving my job cause even though the work life balance is amazing and team is great, it doesn’t pay as much as tech companies around where I live (HCOL) and I feel like a terrible person for feeling that way.2
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So, I have joined this new company where I used to work few years back. Something happened before I rejoined, so no one is working there now except me. It's web agency run by my boss and I am the only employee working on over 7 projects including front end, back end, mobile, devops, and some marketing also.
Now, I got offers from couple of other series a funded startups who are willing to pay me 30% more salary. I know I will have less responsibility and more work life balance. But I hate the politics in those companies.
My current company is making good revenue but my boss isn't giving me the salary I am expecting.
He said it will take few more months to give me the salary I demanded.
I also want to build my own company and provide services someday. That's why I thought it'll be better to stick with the company so that I cam learn other aspects of the business.
So. If the company is making say over 200k usd a year and its paying me around 23k usd per year, isn't this kinda low salary for my experience, skills and value I bring?
How should I go about asking a raise?
Also, I don't wanna move to another big tech company. I hate coding questions in the interview as its been years I have prepared for a proper tech interview.
Also, how secure do you think my job is? Is there any future working here? Will I ever be able to reach a salary comparable to big tech companies?
Is it a good place be in right now? (i jave over 5 years of experience)5 -
update : we are at hr round baby!!!
part 1 : https://devrant.com/rants/5528056/...
part 2 (in comments) : https://devrant.com/rants/5550145/...
the tech market is crazy mann! it's one of the top indie fintech companies in our country and has a great valuation.
i totally felt that they i am crashing the interviews , and am seriously not trying to be humble. before the dsa round , i was trying to mug up how insertion sort works 🥲
--------
now my dilemma is should i switch if i get the offer. in a summary:
current company:
- small valuation but profitable (haven't picked funding for last 3 years , so poast valuation is some double digit million $, but can easily be a unicorn company)
- very major b2b player in my country. almost all unicorns (including this fintech company) and some major MNCs are their client and they have recently acquired a few other companies of us and eu too, making them- a decent global player
- meh work : i love being a cutting edge performer in android but here we make sdks that need to support even legacy banking apps. so tech stack is a lot of verbose java and daily routine includes making very minor changes to actual code and more towards adding tests , maintaining wrapper sdks in react/cordova/unity etc, checking client side code etc.
- awesome work life balance : since work is shit and i am fast enough, i am usually working only 2-4 hours a day. i joined gym, got into shape , and have already vsited 5 places in last 6 months, and i am a guy who didn't used to have time even on sundays. here, we get mote paid leaves than what i would usually need.
- learning opportunities: not exactly from the company codebase, but they provide unlimited access to various course learning platforms like linkedin learning, udemy and others, so i joined some web dev baches and i now know decent frontend too. plus those hybrid sdks also give a light context to new things
new company :
- positives : multi billion valuation, one of the top players in fintech , have been mostly profitable ( except a few quarters)
- positive : b2c so its (hopefully) going to put me back into racing shoes with kotlin, jetpack and latest libraries.
- more $$$ for your boy :)
- negetive : they seem to be on hiring spree and am afraid to junp ship after seeing the recent coinbase layoffs. fintech is scary these days
- negetive : if they are hiring people like me, then then they are probably hiring people worse than me 😂. although thats not my concern what my main concer is how they interviewed. they have hired a 3rd party company that takes interviews of people FOR THEM! i find that extremely impolite, like they don't even wanna spare their devs to hire people they are gonna work with. i find this a toxic, robotic culture and if these are the people in there then i would have a terrible time finding some buddy engineer or some helpful senior.
- negetive : most probably a bad wlb : i worked for an year for a fast paced b2c edtech startup. no matter how old these are , b2c are always shipping new stuff and are therefore hectic. i don't like the boredom here but i would miss the free time to workout :(
so ... any thoughts about it?4
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