Mid-Level Software Engineer [SWE4] at Mercari

I'm trying to figure out how to have a better disconnect between work and outside of work. Sometimes I'll get carried away on a task and I'll work pretty late on it, which negatively affects my sleep schedule. It’s all been kind of blurred, I can’t even remember when I stopped working sometimes. I'm also working with people in different time zones, so I'll work later than the traditional 9 to 5.

Overall, it's not *too* bad though. I'm mostly not working weekends, and this is mainly a thing on me: I don't have external pressure/crazy deadlines to overwork.

I find myself getting carried away and working late sometimes - How can I have better WLB?

Should I be focusing initially on quick wins or higher-impact, high-priority projects that could potentially take longer?

What kind of tasks should I work on as an onboarding engineer?

I’m okay at planning out short-term projects, but I have trouble with longer time horizons. As a new engineer here at Mercari, I'm currently working on a 90 day plan and I've been thinking about how to estimate projects. I want to figure out timelines in particular, so I can properly manage expectations. A lot of the time, I’m over-optimistic about what I can achieve, so I want to build a better muscle there.

For reference, I consider <1 month to be short-term and 2+ months to be long-term.

How can I get better at estimating long-term projects?

I'm a new engineer at Mercari, and I want to make a big impact. So in terms of OKRs and the overall team roadmap, how do you think about how you can integrate that into your work as an engineer? More specifically, I want to influence the team's product direction instead of only doing the work that I'm given. Do you just need to have a good product sense in order to work in this style?

How do I affect the roadmap of my team and get some of my project ideas incorporated into it?

Mercari, Inc. is a Japanese e-commerce company founded in 2013, with offices in the United States. The Mercari app has been downloaded over 100 million times worldwide and the company is the first in Japan to reach unicorn status.

Mercari

Mid-Level Software Engineer [SWE4]

- Quickest tactic: Set a recurring daily alarm to tell yourself to stop working. From there, it's up to you to respect the alarm.
- Having clean, healthy work/life boundaries is another thing that manifests as a habit. The hardest part is the beginning: Get into the groove of respecting that groove/time cut-off 5-10 times and actually stopping work, and from there, your brain will start automatically doing it.
- A more extreme option is to insert hard commitments to stop yourself from working. For example, you want to stop working at 7PM, so you set up dinner with a friend around that time.
- Make sure that the technology is cleanly split as well. Don't look at your work laptop after working hours. Mute work notifications. Pretend your work devices don't exist after working hours (unless you are oncall).

Related resources:
- ["How can I have less burnout and better work-life balance?"](https://link.jointaro.com/6PFe7nqyk2AoZ1A79)
- ["How does work-life balance shift across levels?"](https://link.jointaro.com/BFCfBroY9tDL2CWt6)
- ["How can I pursue growth while maintaining work-life balance?"](https://link.jointaro.com/7puzoYGhaogdYjTv8)

Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero, PayPal

Alex Chiou

In my experience, what works best for me is to block off times on work my calendar dedicated for
- workout
- cooking
- winding down
It acts both as a reminder to myself and also a note to co-workers.

I also encourage you to take a step back what is the problem you are trying to solve here. WLB is a tricky word because it's you that need to find the balance. 9 - 5 is not necessarily what you should aim for based on your circumstance. 

Sounds like you are in a flow state working on something you are passionate about. That's a good thing. If it's impacting your sleep because of you cannot turn off your mind soon enough, work on that.

Staff Software Engineer @ DoorDash, ex-FB, ex-Klaviyo

Seed Zeng

Mid-level engineers have very strong technical proficiency, able to execute on small to medium-sized projects with minimal hand-holding, leveling up from junior engineers.

Work-life balance (WLB) is the state of equilibrium where a person equally prioritizes the demands of one's career and the demands of one's personal life. Having too many responsibilities at work is the primary cause of poor WLB.

I find myself getting carried away and working late sometimes - How can I have better WLB?

Mercari

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Mercari