Work-life Balance Q&A and Videos

tldr; I am a Tech Lead working in of the big tech giants, getting burnt out due to office politics and ignorant managers.

I am one of the few people (~20) who accidentally was made remote, this was the result of one of the irresponsible move from one of the tech giant.

Anyways, I was part of a team for almost more than a year and the company culture was a bit shocking to me as my manager refused to do 1:1, lack of quality work and ignorance because of me being the remote was evident.

Six months before I, including my team, was transferred to another team with a greenfield project (with little or no prior info), we worked really hard but after 3-4months, another reshuffling happened and most of the team was moved to other projects/team. After couple of months the team was finally dismantled, I thought we will go back to our original team but to my surprise, instead of retaining me, they hired two new lead engineers in their location. In between all of this I was surprised to know that my manager (previous) didn't fill my annual review, when I tried to contact him I didn't get any response. I also scheduled a meeting with him but he didn't show up.

Few weeks before, I was moved to another team, which I found was in the mid of big release. The Principal engineer who was responsible for the design and architecture of the system was moved out before I joined so there was no knowledge sharing per se. I tried to contact him but he is too busy to entertain me now. During the first couple of days, my new manager briefed me that I am the owner of this new project and I have to look after each and everything. The project in itself is very huge: It was in design phase since last 1 year, and it depends on 2-3 teams. Everyday I am pulled into random meetings where there is a lot of alignment going on with some crucial decision making as the project is going to be live in new few months. In the daily sprint the manager wants to make sure I have enough work assigned to me as well. In two weeks I am almost burnt out as I have little or no time left after hours of meeting and going through the random documents.

Recently I came to know that there will a week long in-person workshop to get an alignment on the various decisions on the current project and I am not invited, I pinged my manager for the same but there is a long silence.

As of now, I have little or no breathing space to prepare for the interviews and almost on the verge of burnout.

Few important points:

• To my surprise my official manager is still the same manager (first team) and he has still not filled up my performance review.
• I moved countries because of personal issues so leaving the company may not be easy as of now. I have a lot of financial responsibilities, plus the current market and immigration condition has made the condition worse.

I watched the masterclass on finding a new team and understanding my own priorities to lead a fulfilling career and find a new team within Meta.

Currently, I'm being put up for promotion for IC4 (hopefully, I'll know in late Feb about the outcome) and I would like to switch teams.

My priorities in order:

• Work-life balance
• Supportiveness of team + (most of team in NYC)T
• Technical space
• Growth opportunities
• Product space

My technical space interest is mostly in ML infrastructure (partially what my current team works on) and eventually would like to work towards getting to IC5, but more importantly I'm exploring another potential career (i.e. comedy and stand-up!).

I would like to prioritize my WLB, so does anyone have any suggestions on how to go about my search (considering Meta is known more for grind culture)? And what orgs/teams to look at within the company?

I was lucky to join a very competent and lovely platform team when I joined my current company. I have been working in the same team for 18 months but due to re-orgs people have moved out and we are currently 3 people and we were 9 people when we started out.

We have been doing mostly maintenance work for the past 3 months after re-orgs and recently we were given a choice to work on two projects.

There is one project, lets call it Project Hero which my skip level manager wants me to join. I would be the main PIC for this project and it will involve a lot of integration work and system design. This project is with new team mates and a new manager with whom I have not worked but they don't have the best reputation. However, going by FAANG level, they should be good enough to get the job done. Only downside is work-life balance might be skewed if I join here. However, if the project is a success, it sets me up for Senior level promotion.

There is another project, lets call it Project Nero. This will be with my existing team but from a company perspective, it's not a very important project. But I will be working with my existing team mates who are both capable of delivering a solid project and a joy to work with. However, my work here will be overshadowed by other Senior engineers on the project.

Which project should I join? I personally want to do Project Hero but not with the people present there. Also it will be challenging.
Project Nero will be challenging also but more up my comfort zone.
Given the current economic climate, I feel being in more important teams will help keep my job.

A common question in performance review is "What blockers or challenges did you experience that impacted your ability to achieve goals or meet expectations?". If there was a health emergency or a family situation but one was able to meet and go beyond expectations, what is the take on stating these as 'blockers' in performance review and in promo doc?

Even though I performed at "beyond expectations" level on my assigned projects, I feel I could have taken on more and delivered more if I was not constantly distracted for most parts of the year. I am wondering if it would be appropriate to state this as a blocker and how should one do it.

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Recently, due to health concerns, I consulted a doctor who advised me to take a medical leave for about 4 to 6 weeks, depending on my recovery. As I write this in January, my manager rates my performance at 3 or 4 out of 5. Having worked diligently throughout the year, I am eager to achieve a rating of 4, which will be finalized in August, though typically decisions are made by April.

However, I question the wisdom of deferring my health needs for the sake of a rating, especially since the financial and promotional benefits are not significant. Additionally, I have been contemplating a move to a FAANG or similar company for a better role and salary.

Despite the uncertain job market, I don't want to jeopardize my current position. There are also personal matters I need to address during my medical leave.

I'm seeking advice on how to balance pursuing a favorable performance rating with taking my medical leave, possibly in February. Is there a strategy to achieve both objectives?

what I am leaning towards is prioritizing health & starting the medical process by February. If a company penalizes me by giving me a sh*t rating for taking care of my health, then it’s not a good fit. I haven’t taken a long vacation > than 4 days in 2 years.

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 :)

Hi all,

I was put on PIP today. The PIP period is from 01/2024 till end of 01/2024. He said unsatisfactory performance & had to do this to be fair to others in the team. I think I was being benchmarked against others who work on weekends as outlined in my previous question: .

Yesterday I asked my manager for a 1-week remote and 3 weeks PTO (the company has unlimited PTO) from end of January to 3rd week of February. Do you think this was one of the reasons leading to me being PIP during the month of January?

What should I do now? Should I strive to overcome the PIP or should I find a new job? Anyone successfully overcame the PIP? How do I balance PIP and finding new job?

For more information, my 1st-year stock won't be vested till 06/2024 (so 25% of my RSUs won't be vested till end of the 1st year working for them). I think I'm out looking for a new job, but don't want to lose the RSUs.

For the sake of extreme ownership what could I have done better? If you need more info from me I can definitely provide in the threads below.

Hi All,

Would love to get some advice on how to ask highly pointed questions during a 30 minute conversation with a hiring manager to get the maximum info out of him regarding the team culture and the product.

Regarding my preferences...

I would love to stick fully on the Backend stack. I have experience working with Python, NodeJS, Typescript and a bit of Java, I have experience working with Infra and databases as well. I get excited working with data at scale but do not have stellar industry experience with it such that I can start being impactful on day 1.

Since this will be my first time at a big tech, I want to optimize for a decent to moderate enough ramp up time, good wlb and not being super heavy with oncall at least for my first team.

Once I get used to the pace, I'll jump around to start optimizing for impact, visibility and scope.

Here is what I have in mind for my Hiring Manager meetings but feel free to add/subtract from this.

1. Basics, what is the product/org
2. What is the team size and team structure (how many E5s, E4s etc) and tech stack.
3. What is the code velocity like on average for an E5.
4. Give me a brief idea about what the first project you have in mind for me, if not tell me about a project an E5 is currently working on.

Seeking Medical Leave Assistance in the Bay Area

I'm experiencing significant stress and anxiety but can't afford to be unemployed. I don't currently have a primary care physician (PCP), and therapists won't provide a letter for medical leave.

Has anyone here used Zocdoc to obtain medical leave? Do you know of any one in the Bay Area who can assist with getting such a letter?

How would this impact my current job?

Hello, I am a software engineer at a hardware startup company in the South Bay Area and live in San Francisco.

I make $124K/year and have been at the company for little more than a year (I joined out of college in mid-late 2022). Work-life balance at the company is pretty great (40 hours/week), the company does make exceptions for working remote from other locations from time-to-time (i.e. when you’re traveling) and is generous with PTO (this may change in 2024 as new processes have been put in place). The company raised quite a bit of money in 2021 and receives funds from government research grants so they’re in a good financial position and are even looking to hire a bit in 2024. The company culture is positive, the software team as a whole gets along quite well and I genuinely like my manager; there’s very little office politics. The company also encourages its engineers to learn.

Admittedly though, strong mentorship is lacking; something that I think I’d be highly receptive to given that I deeply cherish and frequently act upon feedback.

As for the company's future, I think the company has established a solid technology moat and might do well (maybe unicorn?). But I don’t think the company will explode into wealth anytime soon (5+ years to get there) and the equity payoff is OK (I might make an additional $280K/yr if the company 20x in valuation to be a unicorn).

The reason I am seriously considering resigning is the commute. The company has a hybrid model (3 days in-office, 2 days remote) so it’s about 1hr 30 min one-way, (3hr roundtrip) 3 days a week and it’s really getting to me.

To commute, I walk 30 min (or 20 min by bus) and then drive for an hour, sometimes in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 101-South to 280-South. Then I repeat this going back, one hour drive, and a 30 min walk (or 20 min by bus). In multiple ways, this is costing me.

Financially-speaking, I’m paying $545/month ($250 parking and $300 for gas, that’s $12,500 gross, meaning pre-tax), so effectively I make $111,500/year. I could maybe pay more for parking ($350-$500) and skip the 30 min walk, then I’d be making even less.

While I could live near Caltrain in SF, even taking Caltrain would involve taking a bus and then a 8 min walk (still roughly 1 hr 30 min one-way). Additionally, I really enjoy where I live in the city and would strongly oppose any move (as a last, last resort only).

Time-wise, I strongly feel that it’s a waste of my time to sit in traffic! I often put on podcasts + songs to distract myself from staring at the bumpers of vehicles in front of me. Getting back 9 hours of my time per week (effectively a whole day) would be incredibly beneficial. This is time and energy that I want to put towards things that are deeply, deeply important to me, one of which being health (gym, yoga, movement in general).

Health is a really important pillar for me and so having reduced time & energy to go to the gym strikes me as a major red flag for this job. I value my health far, far over compensation and career growth.

Energy-wise, on the days that I commute, I feel incredibly low energy after work. I typically come home, eat junk food, watch some on Youtube and sleep late. It's not the person that I am when I’m not commuting.

While I recognize that the market may not be so great, I am considering quitting my job in the beginning of next year and diverting my efforts to looking for a new job within the city, either startup or Big Tech (generally a company where the profit center is technology) and something with a much shorter commute (a bus or walk to somewhere in the city is perfectly fine). Alternatively, a remote job w/ healthy culture would also be OK.

I also have 6+ months of savings and am not at a risk of being deported (a U.S. citizen).

Additionally, I have multiple friends who live & work in SF, others who commute 1/week to South Bay and even some who work entirely remote. Some also work at SF startups that are actually looking for engineers right now!

So in my head, it’s quite hard to justify driving each day, paying all this money, spending all this time & energy to work at a company so far away for equivalent, or many times, less money than I would be making here in the city or even working remote.

Would greatly appreciate any thoughts y'all have! Any and all feedback is welcome :)

I used to be a mid-level Business Engineer at a FAANG company and recently joined this company as a SWE 4 months ago. Although it was a pleasant surprise to be uplevelled during the interview, I feel like I am not performing at my level now. There are backend engineering conversations where I lose context pretty fast. In fact the mid level engineers in my team are much more knowledgeable and faster than me. I don't want to bother them to explain too much because it feels like everyone else (even those who are relatively new) "gets it" except for me.

I have a young toddler who only goes to daycare twice a week (due to affordability). The rest of the days I have to cook and get him to eat and attend to him during work hours occasionally. As a result, I stretch my day but it feels like I am going to burn out soon. I work from 5am to 11pm daily and work weekends because I feel I am lagging behind too much, but new things always pile up.

I feel really mentally drained out doing work continuously over the past few months. At the same time, I don't want the company to think they made a wrong decision to hire me at this level.

Hi all,

I joined my current company (known in our industry for not-so-good WLB) 6 months ago as a Senior Software Engineer and have been doing side hustle in the evening and weekends over past 6 months beside my main job. This means I still completed the 9am to 6pm work schedule before doing my side hustle.

Now my manager is saying I have low bug fix count and my team consists of some weekends workaholics which I suspect I’m being benchmarked against. My upcoming performance review is due end of December 2023 (1 month away). The expectation for my level is ramping up in 3 months which means the last 3 months are no longer considered ramp-up period.

What should I do in this last 1 month leading to the performance review? Should I go all in on the weekends too or should I keep the pace I’m working (I’ve started working in the evening from 7PM to 10PM since receiving this feedback 2-3 weeks ago but on weekends I still hustle). Was I wrong in doing side gigs / projects while ramping up for my full time job and should have instead pushed weekends to ramp up? What could have I done better in the past 6 months and moving forward in 1 month ahead?

I know Rahul talked about doing side contract gigs and Alex talked about doing side projects while both are still at Meta (a very demanding big tech company). How did you guys handle the pressure and what are your schedules like? (Wake up @ 4AM, work on side hustle till 6-7AM, then go to sleep at night around 12AM LOL)? I'm curious about how people organize their side gigs schedule.

Thank you for your advices. I really appreciate it.

I'm at a crossroads considering a team change because the current work environment is taking a toll on my mental health. It's a tough situation—most of my colleagues (especially juniors) view my actions negatively, except for my manager and probably my Principal Engineer and Distinguished Engineer. Despite being a senior software engineer, the work has shifted heavily towards operational tasks, thanks to a change in leadership focusing on fixing legacy code due to recent outages.

I explored moving to another team but found potential hurdles in advancing to a higher role there. The new manager emphasized the need to impress the new leadership for growth, which feels like playing politics, something I'm not keen on. Meanwhile, my current manager's expectations for my advancement seem vague despite assurances.

My contributions mainly revolve around operational tasks and bug fixes. I'm starting to doubt if this aligns with the requirements for a higher staff position that demands more substantial technical input.

The nail in the coffin is that my manager is leaving no personal space and constantly calling me for discussing trivial operational tasks during evenings, late nights and early mornings. Her behaviour has made other team members also comfortable in calling me at any time for confirming on small things. I'm ok to help the team at late nights if it's an outage or urgent issue, but the lack of boundary is just making me more frustrated.

I've been open about my frustrations to my manager and even my skip level manager. However, I only see assurances and nothing major changing on ground.

I'm at a point where I need to decide between enduring the toxic environment and unclear growth path in my current team or potentially facing similar challenges in a new team's advancement and politics. I'm seeking a balance where my work speaks for itself without the constant need for politicking or unclear expectations for progression.

I was hoping to wait until July to start looking out, so that the stocks vesting happens. Please suggest how can I navigate this situation better! Should I anyways make the move to switch teams? Or should I look for switching company?

I've had 5+ friends leave Meta or quit software engineering altogether after E6. Either the responsibilities and stress were too much or what they were being asked to work on wasn't really aligned with their core interests. Business needs are always changing, so it can be a common occurrence to take a lot of ownership over a project you don't have personal interest in.

It's important to be adaptable, but I think intrinsic motivation can be hard to sustain if the people, project, or priorities are in flux.

For the older crowd, what really typifies career longevity in a software engineering?

My Role is Senior SRE

I received my second performance review and it came in at a -M which means Sometimes meets expectations. This is my first year in big tech and I'm at a loss for words. I worked 12-hour days since I started. The first 6 months I just winged it and did not realize how strategic and crucial these performance reviews were.

So for my second 6 months, I aligned with my team lead and manager. I executed every project they asked me to and even created some projects to help the entire team. I was led to believe I was doing good work. However, this Tuesday I received the news that my rating is again a -M. They said that they did not put me on a PIP because they saw improvement from the last PR.

They told me the reason was that I am one of 3 Sr. Engineers and that two of them are performing more than I am. Since we are rated on a curve I am last. 9 out of my 10, 360 reviews were positive and an M or above. I have a follow-up meeting next week with my manager to discuss my improvement plan. I also set up a call with my manager's manager for a coaching/mentorship call.
Here are my questions.

• I feel like my manager sees others as more proficient than me. Even though other colleagues tell me I am better than the other senior engineers how can I break out of this perception my manager has?
• How can I avoid a PIP? Our next performance review is in 2-3 months due to some changes they made in the yearly PR schedule. I don't think I can make enough changes during that time.
• What should my approach be towards my manager and his manager?
  • I want to be humble but also direct.
  • I feel I am not being treated fairly but I also think the system may be designed this way. I don't want to appear like I am a victim either.
• I fear that I will get a PIP due to my manager's subjective opinion I will lose my job, my apartment, and I will have lost the last 2 years of working myself to the bone. How can I escape being in this state of survival?

Graduated in 2019, joined a FAANG that is notorious for really bad work life balance, so I was always on the edge, switched companies during pandemic times and first few months started good then pace picked up really quick after that, and I found myself losing sleep again due to stress, then I got laid off 2023. Now, I joined a startup and is the most stressful of all of my previous jobs, some weeks I have to work up to 9-10pm (taking breaks of course) because some very urgent issue needs to be fixed, stuff is always breaking and we might go under if we don’t resolve well.

To be honest, I’m burned out (I think that’s why I got laid off, showed in performance) but I ignore it and keep going with a A+ game because layoffs are a big thing right now, and I’m scared of losing my job again.

Has the industry always been like this? Or I have really bad luck?

How can I get better work life balance? Or less stress?

I started working at TikTok last September. So far I feel like I have learned a lot but am unhappy with the work-life balance and the expectations to work long hours. I don't see a path for promotion here so I would like to move to a company that isn't under so much political pressure and the path to career development is clear. One caveat is that my official title is DevOps but I am doing SRE work. I like SRE work and would like to get that official title.

1. I have 11 months to prepare for my next role. What should my preparation look like?
2. What kind of companies should I aim for? I made a list from blind of the 2023 prestige companies and wanted to shoot for high TC. I am thinking that after the prep phase, I would start interviewing at companies I don't want to work at and get practice and offers so I have some leverage during negotiations.
3. How can I connect with other SREs from top companies that I can ask them how it is to actually work there?

At this stage of my life, I need to begin more focus on my social life. I have been working on my career only and I don't have the abundance in my social life to justify the work I have been doing. So I am hoping to land a role at a company with prestige, solid TC, and work-life balance so I can accomplish both my personal goals and my career goals.

I'm contemplating moving from Canada to the US, hoping to secure a Staff role. My sole reason is money but I do not want to sacrifice work-life balance or mental health for that. A few extra hours of work each week in the initial few months of transition are expected and acceptable.

1. Is it a pipe dream to expect work-life balance at Staff+ roles that pay $0.5mil/year?
2. How stressful are these roles? I understand that ability to handle stress varies by individual, but it speaks volumes if most folks at Staff+ roles feel very stressed.

I am currently a senior fullstack software engineer with 7 YOE. I'm employed at a retail establishment where tech/engineering is not the primary product. Before this, I worked as a business intelligence analyst for two years writing Python and R scripts. As an engineer in my late thirties, I'm looking to grow my career at a big tech company. I hope to secure a position with significant growth opportunities, a good work-life balance, and a high salary. What are some companies (possibly FAANG or FAANG adjacent) to which I can apply to achieve this objective. Any other advice you can give (interview, negotiation, etc.) will be useful as well. Thank you.

Should you take all your allocated PTO at "FAANG" companies or will that affect you when it comes to performance reviews or promotions?

I have unlimited PTO at my company, but I'm not sure how much I can/should reasonably take. Any advice on this? How much do you take?

I just started my software engineer journey and have a typical 9 - 6 working schedule. I feel like the time is getting so limited after I get back home. My goal is to keep some personal time for learning and personal projects every day but still achieve a good balance.

Genuinely look for time management or scheduling advice for newbies in the industry. Thanks a lot!