

At what point do you leave a stressful job for your health? - throwaway05345

I feel sort of silly asking about this because the answer seems sort of obvious, but I can&#x27;t help but feel like the decision in my case is a little more complicated.<p>About a year ago and a half ago I started working for a startup as their first full time tech hire. After about 3 months I got promotion to VP of Engineering and since then we&#x27;ve hired 5 more engineers full time.<p>Currently I&#x27;m still filling roles that run the gambit and it&#x27;s just starting to be too much. I have a chronic auto-immune condition, and the stresses of working at a startup have caused my condition to get worse. Last year I had to take some time off because my condition flared up, but I recovered. Since then I&#x27;ve gotten better with managing my stress, but now my condition is starting to get worse again. It&#x27;s not as bad as it was before, but I&#x27;m worried it could start to really go downhill again.<p>It makes sense to me that I need preserve my health. Which means leaving this job and finding one with a healthier environment.   My main concerns in doing that are:
- This is basically my first job out of college. What if I get another job and it sucks? What if I get another job and I have the same issues with stress + illness?
- I&#x27;d be giving up everything that I&#x27;ve worked towards over the past year and a half. It means giving up my options (3% in seed round, not a ton, but something).
- I feel like I would be leaving a pretty big hole in the company. It feels like I would be putting an unfair strain on the rest of the team by leaving.<p>Has anyone ever been in a similar situation? Any thoughts? Thanks!
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ScottBurson
Unless you really want to leave -- and it sounds like you don't -- I would
think your best strategy would be to negotiate a reduced role. Get together
with the owners and figure out, of all the things you're doing, which are
critical and can't be delegated. Maybe one of the newer engineers can take on
team leader responsibilities. Or, maybe they need to find another VP of
Engineering and let you be team leader, or even go back to an individual
contributor role.

Unless there are hard feelings involved -- and you haven't said anything to
that effect -- I think, surely something can be worked out here.

