WWYD: Having a crisis (software job)
Discussion
I'll try to be succinct here. I work in Software, and have always done so as PAYE. I've taken some really sucky roles in the past to get some variance in experience, and largely dismissed the idea of burnout, but came up a cropper last year.
I'm afraid it gets vaguely technical to explain, which I can only apologise for, but it is relevant. I'll try to be light on that side, though.
I took a role in a small company over a year ago. I'm very senior and experienced and was hired at the top of the hands-on chain. All of the previous engineering employees had quit (quote from CEO) "for some reason" . At the time, this seemed like a good challenge to build a team and some robust/modern standards without worrying about an old guard. There was a contractor, and the CEO was 'mucking in', but was making a mess of things. Pushing untested changes to production, adding print statements for 'debugging', and it was all rather sloppy and chaotic. Lots of customers using a really awful bit of software. Whenever the state of things was brought up, he'd go defensive about 'not having times to do things properly' and all sorts of things like that. The first month was *really* challenging, as there was only one database and it still, to this day, has no contingency planning - no backups, no tested method of doing so. In addition, due to the nature of the platform, the 'production' version was just a matter of traffic routing, and 2 years of old releases still existed in parallel, all pointing at this one database.
The CEO was/is quite the control freak/micro-manager and would panic about any changes that he didn't understand (most of them, as it was written like a school project). He would get flappy and have a contingency bias where anything less than perfect that occurred on a very buggy system would instigate him basically saying "you've broken something, it was fine before" etc. All completely neurotic and not at all based on reality - but it became clear he'd hired a scapegoat. I had a serious breakdown through stress before my 2nd month had ended, and I suffered both cardiac arrest and 2 seizures witnessed by paramedics, and went into hospital (via resus) for a couple of weeks. That basically created a huge amount of PTSD for me and my personal life and health suffered a lot due to needing SSRIs and being unable to return to normal. I have also lost hair and aged a good 10 years in that time. None of this really affected my work, and I took no time off (outside of being in hospital), and the role is remote so not being able to drive for 6 months didn't affect me in that sense. I have continued to plough a huge amount of time and energy, well beyond my contractual commitment, to improving the software and introducing a significant number of improvements that have stabilised the whole thing. Regularly, I'd be messaged outside of working hours and on weekends to investigate "urgent". I probably should have quit much earlier, but I was concerned about having a short hop on my CV, and the market died a bit when Kwarteng and co fiddled with the enconm
Despite my openness about my illness and progress (which has included EEGs, MRIs etc, and me saying to my team 'if I seem stressed/short, it might be my medication, so bear with me') the CEO would continue to act the same - almost like he had Dissociative identity disorder - where sometimes he'd appear on the work tools and would say antagonist or provocative things, patronise, or otherwise make accusations that me, and my now team, were incapable of doing work correctly. In company meetings (in person), he'd make presentations and actively encourage me to not do any testing on things, and would seem to regularly revert to an uncomfortable state of wanting things "back the way they were".
More recently, he has sacked the person who had been brought in as a 'buffer' to keep him away from interfering, and he's seemingly store it all up in that time. I have silently had any concept of responsibility revoked, and he seems to be on a mission now to find something to blame me for. This extends to actively having meetings about "bugs" in the software without involving me, and he's been switching older version of the software to the production to try and prove that something I've done is at fault. There is nothing, so it's all rather fruitless. I have relapsed as a result, and can barely function outside of work (feel sick almost constantly), as the stress is very much physical and manifests itself that way since the original incident.
Of course I have started the process of escaping by applying for other stuff, and I did have an interview a while back that had an outcome that suggested my current job is going to make it difficult for me to get another (in that I was told, via feedback, that I seemed a bit stressed and unhappy, even though I can't say I was projecting this). I think the effect this job has had on me is hard to hide.
I'm starting to wonder if I'm going to do myself damage by trying to ensure I'm still earning (I'm the sole earner with 2 kids and a wife). I'm starting to wonder if I should gamble and put my notice in, and hope that my mental health/outlook improves. I do have some savings to fall back on if needed, but I do risk obliterating them by leaving this job.
I don't particularly have anyone to refer this to who'll understand, so I'm floating the idea out there to others (ideally in the field) to see if they can relate or have any advice/guidance?
I'm afraid it gets vaguely technical to explain, which I can only apologise for, but it is relevant. I'll try to be light on that side, though.
I took a role in a small company over a year ago. I'm very senior and experienced and was hired at the top of the hands-on chain. All of the previous engineering employees had quit (quote from CEO) "for some reason" . At the time, this seemed like a good challenge to build a team and some robust/modern standards without worrying about an old guard. There was a contractor, and the CEO was 'mucking in', but was making a mess of things. Pushing untested changes to production, adding print statements for 'debugging', and it was all rather sloppy and chaotic. Lots of customers using a really awful bit of software. Whenever the state of things was brought up, he'd go defensive about 'not having times to do things properly' and all sorts of things like that. The first month was *really* challenging, as there was only one database and it still, to this day, has no contingency planning - no backups, no tested method of doing so. In addition, due to the nature of the platform, the 'production' version was just a matter of traffic routing, and 2 years of old releases still existed in parallel, all pointing at this one database.
The CEO was/is quite the control freak/micro-manager and would panic about any changes that he didn't understand (most of them, as it was written like a school project). He would get flappy and have a contingency bias where anything less than perfect that occurred on a very buggy system would instigate him basically saying "you've broken something, it was fine before" etc. All completely neurotic and not at all based on reality - but it became clear he'd hired a scapegoat. I had a serious breakdown through stress before my 2nd month had ended, and I suffered both cardiac arrest and 2 seizures witnessed by paramedics, and went into hospital (via resus) for a couple of weeks. That basically created a huge amount of PTSD for me and my personal life and health suffered a lot due to needing SSRIs and being unable to return to normal. I have also lost hair and aged a good 10 years in that time. None of this really affected my work, and I took no time off (outside of being in hospital), and the role is remote so not being able to drive for 6 months didn't affect me in that sense. I have continued to plough a huge amount of time and energy, well beyond my contractual commitment, to improving the software and introducing a significant number of improvements that have stabilised the whole thing. Regularly, I'd be messaged outside of working hours and on weekends to investigate "urgent". I probably should have quit much earlier, but I was concerned about having a short hop on my CV, and the market died a bit when Kwarteng and co fiddled with the enconm
Despite my openness about my illness and progress (which has included EEGs, MRIs etc, and me saying to my team 'if I seem stressed/short, it might be my medication, so bear with me') the CEO would continue to act the same - almost like he had Dissociative identity disorder - where sometimes he'd appear on the work tools and would say antagonist or provocative things, patronise, or otherwise make accusations that me, and my now team, were incapable of doing work correctly. In company meetings (in person), he'd make presentations and actively encourage me to not do any testing on things, and would seem to regularly revert to an uncomfortable state of wanting things "back the way they were".
More recently, he has sacked the person who had been brought in as a 'buffer' to keep him away from interfering, and he's seemingly store it all up in that time. I have silently had any concept of responsibility revoked, and he seems to be on a mission now to find something to blame me for. This extends to actively having meetings about "bugs" in the software without involving me, and he's been switching older version of the software to the production to try and prove that something I've done is at fault. There is nothing, so it's all rather fruitless. I have relapsed as a result, and can barely function outside of work (feel sick almost constantly), as the stress is very much physical and manifests itself that way since the original incident.
Of course I have started the process of escaping by applying for other stuff, and I did have an interview a while back that had an outcome that suggested my current job is going to make it difficult for me to get another (in that I was told, via feedback, that I seemed a bit stressed and unhappy, even though I can't say I was projecting this). I think the effect this job has had on me is hard to hide.
I'm starting to wonder if I'm going to do myself damage by trying to ensure I'm still earning (I'm the sole earner with 2 kids and a wife). I'm starting to wonder if I should gamble and put my notice in, and hope that my mental health/outlook improves. I do have some savings to fall back on if needed, but I do risk obliterating them by leaving this job.
I don't particularly have anyone to refer this to who'll understand, so I'm floating the idea out there to others (ideally in the field) to see if they can relate or have any advice/guidance?
Awful place to be.
From what you’ve outlined, I doubt things are going to get better at the job.
My advice would be to prioritise health & not even think about going back - it’ll just stress you more even if you hand in your notice on day 1 of returning.
That alone will bring down your stress levels & ease your way to a new job. Remember if the company is that bad, then (unless you are in s big city such as London, Manchester), it’s likely their reputation is widespread.
Good luck, and as the saying has it, “Don’t let the b******ds get you down”.
From what you’ve outlined, I doubt things are going to get better at the job.
My advice would be to prioritise health & not even think about going back - it’ll just stress you more even if you hand in your notice on day 1 of returning.
That alone will bring down your stress levels & ease your way to a new job. Remember if the company is that bad, then (unless you are in s big city such as London, Manchester), it’s likely their reputation is widespread.
Good luck, and as the saying has it, “Don’t let the b******ds get you down”.
What they all said.
I was at "get the f
k out of there" about a third of the way through your post. There's loads of work out there for good developers. If you want a period of (relative) calm and consideration for your mental health there's lots of demand for developers in the public sector.
Even if you joined at a relatively junior level, you'd move up pretty quickly.
I was at "get the f
k out of there" about a third of the way through your post. There's loads of work out there for good developers. If you want a period of (relative) calm and consideration for your mental health there's lots of demand for developers in the public sector. Even if you joined at a relatively junior level, you'd move up pretty quickly.
I'm a software engineer, I have been for a long time.
Firstly, well done for being candid about your health. It's a strength.
Your work environment is toxic and you need to leave. You are a passenger and a victim of this and at some point, now passed, it is no longer your responsibility to resolve it. What did you get taught in software architecture? Decoupling and separation of concerns. If you play your cards right, this software product will be dead and gone long before you are, so decouple your life and sense of value from it. It is not your life.
The remaining questions are:
Job searching is hard and emotionally draining. Some Americans I know have put in 100+ applications - these are senior, skilled people. I'm not saying you need to do that in the UK but you will probably have to go through a bunch of them and I want you to realise upfront that failure and rejection is normal. And hiring processes are st, often optimised for entirely the wrong thing. That doesn't make it any easier on you, especially at first, but it isn't a reflection on you.
Before you can have better hiring experiences, you will probably need to navigate to a truly positive, optimistic outlook regarding your potential next roles, which I think will be difficult for you given the circumstances. Start by having small hiring conversations for roles you aren't necessarily very invested in - a low stakes primer. This might be interesting and demonstrate to you that something else is possible. Then graduate to the things you really do want.
And in terms of mitigation, there are lots of strategies, but you'll have to set some boundaries. Start saying no, and start caring less about this job. Start creating whatever you need to form a safety margin and improved wellbeing:
Firstly, well done for being candid about your health. It's a strength.
Your work environment is toxic and you need to leave. You are a passenger and a victim of this and at some point, now passed, it is no longer your responsibility to resolve it. What did you get taught in software architecture? Decoupling and separation of concerns. If you play your cards right, this software product will be dead and gone long before you are, so decouple your life and sense of value from it. It is not your life.
The remaining questions are:
- How and when can you leave?
- How can you mitigate the damage in the meantime?
Job searching is hard and emotionally draining. Some Americans I know have put in 100+ applications - these are senior, skilled people. I'm not saying you need to do that in the UK but you will probably have to go through a bunch of them and I want you to realise upfront that failure and rejection is normal. And hiring processes are s
t, often optimised for entirely the wrong thing. That doesn't make it any easier on you, especially at first, but it isn't a reflection on you.Before you can have better hiring experiences, you will probably need to navigate to a truly positive, optimistic outlook regarding your potential next roles, which I think will be difficult for you given the circumstances. Start by having small hiring conversations for roles you aren't necessarily very invested in - a low stakes primer. This might be interesting and demonstrate to you that something else is possible. Then graduate to the things you really do want.
And in terms of mitigation, there are lots of strategies, but you'll have to set some boundaries. Start saying no, and start caring less about this job. Start creating whatever you need to form a safety margin and improved wellbeing:
- savings
- cost reductions
- time for skills refresh and interview preparation
- non-work activity to occupy your time and mind
- career coaching and/or mentoring
- connections with other people in industry
- psychotherapy and/or counselling
- speak to your GP
Edited by trashbat on Tuesday 11th July 22:07
Thanks for the replies. I feel a little better, at least, knowing that I'm not being irrational.
My o/h is positing that I could quite easily have some time off on the grounds of stress/illness, but I'm concerned that looking to be employed in another job whilst being off with stress/illness would not improve my employability (even if it isn't outwardly disclosed, my concern is that some will outwardly ask and potentially withdraw an offer. I'm not sure how much I'm over-thinking that).
The main issue, as I think I explained, is that I'm concerned that I will screw up any interviews I have by coming across as stressed/depressed/unenthusiastic. I have come off SSRIs completely now, as they were having side effects, but I do find that reaching for phrases/words is occasionally frustrating (maybe it's just age), so in a technical role I might interview badly by seemingly having brain fog. Even though I'm at/near the top of seniority in my field, there are still plenty of employers who will ask 'book questions', as I call them, that are essentially university exam type questions that just have no real relevance in the reality of the job (e.g. something technical/architectural about memory allocation in multi-threaded applications, when the code they want you to work on looks like 'hello world' written by a 5 year old, expanded to 500k lines).
My o/h is positing that I could quite easily have some time off on the grounds of stress/illness, but I'm concerned that looking to be employed in another job whilst being off with stress/illness would not improve my employability (even if it isn't outwardly disclosed, my concern is that some will outwardly ask and potentially withdraw an offer. I'm not sure how much I'm over-thinking that).
The main issue, as I think I explained, is that I'm concerned that I will screw up any interviews I have by coming across as stressed/depressed/unenthusiastic. I have come off SSRIs completely now, as they were having side effects, but I do find that reaching for phrases/words is occasionally frustrating (maybe it's just age), so in a technical role I might interview badly by seemingly having brain fog. Even though I'm at/near the top of seniority in my field, there are still plenty of employers who will ask 'book questions', as I call them, that are essentially university exam type questions that just have no real relevance in the reality of the job (e.g. something technical/architectural about memory allocation in multi-threaded applications, when the code they want you to work on looks like 'hello world' written by a 5 year old, expanded to 500k lines).
JOldcastle said:
I'm not sure I can add a huge amount other than to say "get the hell out". Your health comes first. Good software developers are not easy to find. Where are you based and what is your skill set/industry?
I'm in the North West. I am somewhat of a polyglot & full stack capable, but primarily I work in Java as that is my main subject area. It's usually in high demand, but I have worked remotely since lockdown began in pretty much every job I've done since, and I would say that I've seen a trend for companies to revert back to demanding office-based roles, with pay reverting back to 2014 rates (e.g. a year ago, I had grads expecting £50k and many getting it, whereas that has - by the ads - seemingly become the rate for a senior).I got to this line:
"There was a contractor, and the CEO was 'mucking in'"
and realised immediately what the problem was and who was causing it.
Clue - it isn't you or the contractor!
You are NOT going to change anything. The situation is a lost cause. Walk away and re-group.
The world is full of these people. Just another Stockton Rush.
"There was a contractor, and the CEO was 'mucking in'"
and realised immediately what the problem was and who was causing it.
Clue - it isn't you or the contractor!
You are NOT going to change anything. The situation is a lost cause. Walk away and re-group.
The world is full of these people. Just another Stockton Rush.
Get out while you still have some health left.
If you don't find something during your notice period then take stock, if asked about the gap be candid, had health issues, needed some time to get ontop of your meds and get yourself straight, now you're piss bored and want to get back to work. Or words to that effect.
If you don't find something during your notice period then take stock, if asked about the gap be candid, had health issues, needed some time to get ontop of your meds and get yourself straight, now you're piss bored and want to get back to work. Or words to that effect.
Greenmantle said:
I got to this line:
"There was a contractor, and the CEO was 'mucking in'"
and realised immediately what the problem was and who was causing it.
Clue - it isn't you or the contractor!
You are NOT going to change anything. The situation is a lost cause. Walk away and re-group.
The world is full of these people. Just another Stockton Rush.
As implied, lots of people have come and gone and seem to be the disposable factor."There was a contractor, and the CEO was 'mucking in'"
and realised immediately what the problem was and who was causing it.
Clue - it isn't you or the contractor!
You are NOT going to change anything. The situation is a lost cause. Walk away and re-group.
The world is full of these people. Just another Stockton Rush.
We've spent several days now doing no work and watching logs for something which will not happen, because the CEO has hired a contractor (who has never been a dev, but has been an engineering manager) agrees with him that we must have broken the code, even though neither (including the contractor) has any familiarity with cloud. He's on a day rate, so I half expect he's not exactly looking to rush any of this.
Part of the issue is the CEO (founder) is, by nature, quite a convincing person - part of the reason why I accepted the job. I imagine that the easiest thing to believe is what the CEO says, even though none of the symptoms or evidence is remotely supporting the concept of a software change being at fault.
(it's a latency issue with the cloud provider's product, where our logs show instant insertion on our side, but the data isn't actual propagating instantly. Cloud provider have already said that they don't actually guarantee 'instant' reads after a write, and >20 mins is considered 'normal'. They're still obsessed it's basically my fault though, even though it can't be reproduced and is intermittent if not sporadic, with no patterns. All quite stressful).
In car related terms, it's like a mechanic being dragged over the coals and told that when they changed the rear wiper blade, it must have caused the timing belt to fail because it was fine before, etc.
geeks said:
Get out while you still have some health left.
If you don't find something during your notice period then take stock, if asked about the gap be candid, had health issues, needed some time to get ontop of your meds and get yourself straight, now you're piss bored and want to get back to work. Or words to that effect.
It's difficult, as I did cover that with the o/h last night, but as I'm the only earner and we're going through a mortgage application, I think there's some level where she'd prefer I find a way through it.If you don't find something during your notice period then take stock, if asked about the gap be candid, had health issues, needed some time to get ontop of your meds and get yourself straight, now you're piss bored and want to get back to work. Or words to that effect.
It's frustrating having a few applications in the pipeline and not knowing if you'll ever hear anything from then, or when. Sometimes it can be 2 months before you even get a 'no' from a sift
cj2013 said:
geeks said:
Get out while you still have some health left.
If you don't find something during your notice period then take stock, if asked about the gap be candid, had health issues, needed some time to get ontop of your meds and get yourself straight, now you're piss bored and want to get back to work. Or words to that effect.
It's difficult, as I did cover that with the o/h last night, but as I'm the only earner and we're going through a mortgage application, I think there's some level where she'd prefer I find a way through it.If you don't find something during your notice period then take stock, if asked about the gap be candid, had health issues, needed some time to get ontop of your meds and get yourself straight, now you're piss bored and want to get back to work. Or words to that effect.
It's frustrating having a few applications in the pipeline and not knowing if you'll ever hear anything from then, or when. Sometimes it can be 2 months before you even get a 'no' from a sift
"I had a serious breakdown through stress before my 2nd month had ended, and I suffered both cardiac arrest and 2 seizures witnessed by paramedics, and went into hospital (via resus) for a couple of weeks. That basically created a huge amount of PTSD for me and my personal life and health suffered a lot due to needing SSRIs and being unable to return to normal. I have also lost hair and aged a good 10 years in that time."
cj2013 said:
I'm in the North West. I am somewhat of a polyglot & full stack capable, but primarily I work in Java as that is my main subject area. It's usually in high demand, but I have worked remotely since lockdown began in pretty much every job I've done since, and I would say that I've seen a trend for companies to revert back to demanding office-based roles, with pay reverting back to 2014 rates (e.g. a year ago, I had grads expecting £50k and many getting it, whereas that has - by the ads - seemingly become the rate for a senior).
They exist - I recently moved jobs and wanted remote-only and there were loads of options. Certainly more than I'd of found within a commutable distance.If one heart attack hasn't convinced you something needs to change, I'm not sure what else will...
cj2013 said:
All of the previous engineering employees had quit (quote from CEO) "for some reason"
The CEO was/is quite the control freak/micro-manager
All completely neurotic and not at all based on reality - but it became clear he'd hired a scapegoat.
I had a serious breakdown through stress before my 2nd month had ended
None of this really affected my work, and I took no time off (outside of being in hospital)
I have continued to plough a huge amount of time and energy, well beyond my contractual commitment but I was concerned about having a short hop on my CV
Despite my openness the CEO would continue to act the same
I have silently had any concept of responsibility revoked, and he seems to be on a mission now to find something to blame me for.
I have relapsed as a result, and can barely function outside of work
Of course I have started the process of escaping by applying for other stuff
I was told, via feedback, that I seemed a bit stressed and unhappy
I'm starting to wonder if I'm going to do myself damage by trying to ensure I'm still earning
I'm starting to wonder if I should gamble and put my notice in, and hope that my mental health/outlook improves.
Those are the pertinent points I took from your post and how I would handle it.The CEO was/is quite the control freak/micro-manager
All completely neurotic and not at all based on reality - but it became clear he'd hired a scapegoat.
I had a serious breakdown through stress before my 2nd month had ended
None of this really affected my work, and I took no time off (outside of being in hospital)
I have continued to plough a huge amount of time and energy, well beyond my contractual commitment but I was concerned about having a short hop on my CV
Despite my openness the CEO would continue to act the same
I have silently had any concept of responsibility revoked, and he seems to be on a mission now to find something to blame me for.
I have relapsed as a result, and can barely function outside of work
Of course I have started the process of escaping by applying for other stuff
I was told, via feedback, that I seemed a bit stressed and unhappy
I'm starting to wonder if I'm going to do myself damage by trying to ensure I'm still earning
I'm starting to wonder if I should gamble and put my notice in, and hope that my mental health/outlook improves.
Do no more than your contract defines
Only work during office hours
Take your permitted breaks
Apply for everything available and take the first role you are offered, even if it means taking a 50% pay cut
Get out as soon as you can
Please.
Gassing Station | Jobs & Employment Matters | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff