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Ask HN: Do you feel burnout from being less hands on as you become more senior?
77 points by throwaway2478 65 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 42 comments
I work in a 50-60 person SaaS company and I'm taking on a head of engineering role. At this level, my whole day is spent writing out plans and proposals, responding to communications, checking on projects, connecting resources, etc. On rare occasions, if I have time, I might actually build something small.

I know my job carries value. If done right, the whole company benefits by having clarity in what to do. The whole company is doing so much more than I could do as an individual and they can progress without doubts because of the groundwork I've helped lay down.

So while I don't have a feeling of being worthless, it all feels empty at the same time. I miss being a person who actually does stuff instead of directing it. I don't have long work hours. I receive a good salary. But I still feel like I'm heading towards burnout. It's work I don't want to do anymore. Does anyone else feel this in senior roles? What do you do at this point? Is there a limit I can go in my career with this feeling? Advice and shared experiences are appreciated here.




What you have mentioned are indeed the responsibilities of the "Head of Engineering" role.

Just when I learned how to build high quality, secure, and performant software I was pushed into the role of management. It took me some time to figure out where to draw the line between being an IC and being a manager. But when I realised that the success in the role dependent on the success of my team, I started investing my time in developing and growing the team to create a mindset of building high quality, secure, and performant software.

>> The whole company is doing so much more than I could do as an individual

This realisation is important that as a company grows, you will not be able to do all the things by yourself. You would need reliable, high agency people to take care of things exactly the way you would have. Train them. Build them into next generation leaders. Slowly start delegating more responsibility. Allow them to reach their best potential. These are soft skills and building soft skills takes decades, but they are worth investing time in. Focus on taking high quality decisions and help make sure they are getting delivered while meeting stakeholder expectations.

If you start enjoying the above aspects, you'll feel less burned out. You may not be in a position to build software, but you'll be in a position to build high performing teams and be an invaluable asset to the company.

If you still think IC work interests you more, you should ask your management to move back into the IC role and help them figure out the right person who can take up the people management, process improvement job.

I hope this helps! :)


Personally, most of my burnout comes from being forced to write poor code in order to prioritize short term deadlines over long term productivity.

Therefore, I get less burnt out as I get more senior. If the "10x programmers" insist on overcommitting and then write slop code to meet their commitments, then they are the ones who have to deal with the consequences.


No, kind of.

The only reason you should be less hands on the more senior you become is one of the following:

* objectivity - This means stepping back and taking a bigger view. You must criticize things you would never criticize before and ask better questions.

* administration - When you hit management or principle level your time becomes filled with meetings and things to do. You also have a lot to account for plus other additional responsibilities. These things will take up most of your time and leave you with mental fatigue.

The higher up you get the more time at work you should expect to spend. Although promotions come with raises expect your pay rate per hour to actually decrease with each promotion until you achieve high senior management. Just become you have more administrative and people oriented things to do as you elevate doesn't mean you get to abandon coding. It just means you need to account for that time somewhere else. If this remains your line of work you have to maintain your proficiency.

When people get burnt out its typically not from doing too much work, but doing too much work they don't enjoy. That could mean too much administration or it could also mean writing code that feels ethically dirty that knowing causes harm with in terms of tech debt or in terms of real moral harm in the world.


> When people get burnt out it's typically not from doing too much work, but doing too much work they don't enjoy.

That's where I am :) . It's valuable work that I don't enjoy doing. There's a lot of great advice given so far. I need to spend some time thinking about it.


> I don't have long work hours. I receive a good salary.

Perhaps consider creating your own product as a "micropreneur": a mobile app, a SaaS service, a social media website, etc. Evenings/weekends at first, using your salary money for dev outsourcing and marketing. This kind of endeavor will feel very personal in the context of "ownership" and very hands-on in every respect. Make sure to read a couple of Product-Market-Fit books first (e.g., "Start Small, Stay Small" by Rob Walling), if you are not already familiar with the subject of business development.


Taking in a nights and weekends side project when you’re already burned out in your day job is how you burn out even harder. I would absolutely not recommend this to someone struggling with burnout.


Thank you. I do feel emotionally drained at the end of the day. It is really hard to try and get in any work later. Also I always spend the evenings with my wife and kids till at least the kids go to bed which they did a little while ago :)


Possibly, but not necessarily. You burn out even harder if you do even more of the same kind of work that has burned you out already. The OP mentions: "if I have time, I might actually build something small", "I miss being a person who actually does stuff" and specifically "[directing] [is] work I don't want to do anymore". If, after work, you try doing completely different kind of work (within reason, of course), especially the kind that you've always liked, you might find some motivation and get reinvigorated. A hands-on side project might work the same way a work-unrelated hobby would.


> Perhaps consider creating your own product as a "micropreneur": a mobile app, a SaaS service, a social media website, etc

Part of being burnt out is not caring about any one problem enough to want to solve it yourself.


Can you not move back to a less managerial, more hands-on role? I know people who've tested the waters by moving from IC into management, learned they didn't like it, and moved back. There's usually a pay cut involved if that happens, but if you were living well enough on an IC salary and you like it more, why not?


This is what I did. I ended up moving from an IC role to more of a management role for a year, before asking for someone else to take over so I could move back to being an IC.

4-5 years later, here is the issue I ran into… I was put in a position to take a managerial role, because I was performing a lot of those duties in an unofficial capacity already. Projects needed to be organized, decisions on what work was worth doing needed to be made, roadmaps defined, resources allocated, metrics collected and reviewed, team members needed evaluations, etc. When I moved back to be an IC I stopped doing these things, thinking the people whose job it was to do these things now would do them. They didn’t. I feel like I need to step up and do this stuff again, because the last several years have gone so poorly, but then I’m stepping back on the ladder I actively stepped off of. I know where it leads, so I kick the can down the road and hope for someone to start actually managing the team. I meantime our whole team starts looking worse and worse.

Maybe OP works are a place with more competent management, but if they are rising up and taking on these tasks because no one else is able or willing to do the work, going back to being an IC will leave a vacuum that may not get filled.


This isn't your business though right? Why would you be worrying the owner is letting management be shit, and letting their asset crumble?

The only step up you should be considering is to a better role, at a better company, with better leadership.


> This isn't your business though right? Why would you be worrying the owner is letting management be shit, and letting their asset crumble?

I really don't like this take to be honest, I will only work at a company that I want to work at. It's not like working a mindless 9-5 where I just want to clock out and leave. I'm there because I want to be and believe in the product/company I'm working for.

There's nothing wrong with that, regardless of managment, if I'm working towards something, I already feel I want to improve it.

It's not a "Hero syndrome" as you mentioned in your other comment, it's more having self respect for your work.


If you believe in a company you do actually have problems IMO. The corporation exists to exploit you and tries to make that okay by giving you money. You do not owe it anything, certainly not faith.

Self-respect has to do with doing the work you're asked to do well, not making sure the corporation runs better than it's leadership facilitates.


The main reason I think about stepping back in is not to help the owners, but to protect my own sanity by bringing order to the chaos.


I understand exactly where you are coming from but I just want to warn you. This sounds very familiar to me and could lead to a classic burnout. I am saying this out of care and not to judge you but, you may be too invested in something that you don't have a big enough stake in. And also, if bringing order to the chaos is not an overarching goal of to business, your work is even misaligned. Ask yourself this: could I reduce my work hours significantly or take a sabbatical? If daily business would continue as usual, it would be an indication that the extra work and ordering you do is not visible anyway. If this is only to keep your own sanity, don't you think it would be much nicer to put that effort behind something you made and control?


OP Listen to the take above, please


I was in your shoes. Stepped into management because the alternative was being managed by someone I knew couldn’t handle it, and I was given the choice. It didn’t take long for me to wind up doing three jobs, two of them management.

I switched companies for one with more professional management. Flat org structure just means “squeeze all the juice out of your experienced engineers until they quit.”


So it's like a hero syndrome? You want to be the saviour?

You're choosing to dwell in that chaos. You've always the option of looking in the mirror, asking hard questions on your motives, and then moving on to somewhere peaceful.


The company is small enough that it would be chaotic to do that kind of transfer. That makes me feel guilty. But nothing ventured... It's not like I'll be able to keep going much longer in this manner. Better some chaos now than worse chaos later I suppose.


If you like the company and they like you, wouldn't you be a better asset in a role that actually fits you? You're not going to help anyone if you just burn out and leave.

Your needs matter too, and while no job is perfect, it sucks to dread work every day! I hope you can talk to them and find a better balance.


As someone who's been in this position a few times and observed it even more: The company will be fine. If you give them some heads up and are helpful in handover you might be shocked to see how smoothly things are carried on by people who appeared helpless just a month prior.


"Guilt is a useless emotion"

https://youtu.be/qpaEqvSCcVs

Guilt helps no-one. Better to take that energy you're expending on guilt and redirect it into making this situation work for both you and those around you.


If you don't enjoy it, go back. There's no law saying you have to keep going up the ladder.

I've tried more senior roles and didn't enjoy them. Just coding is much more immediately rewarding for me. OTOH, I'm starting a business and plan to scale once I gain some traction. But I'm looking forward to that since I'll have actual ownership, unlimited upside potential and control.

Personally, being stuck in the middle where you don't have any significant ownership but are managing people doesn't work for me. I've worked in jobs before that have got me down and there's only so long you can stick them out before they really affect you.

I normally find contracts now where I'm one of the most senior devs (they normally pay quite well). They are out there.

Find what works for you. There's more than one way to do it.


I have a similar situation, managing a lot of different threads in very different contexts (teaching and projects) at our university.

I miss the state of flow very much, not being able to focus on one thing and diving deep for a couple of hours or even a couple of days. The constant context switch and firehosing of incoming messages I have to fend off is draining.

Just as you say, some days feel like having been completely busy while not achieving anything of substance. I know I am lubricating others work, but I'd love to be with my own toughts for a while also.

For the next project I am attempting to dedicate full and exclusive days to the different contexts, so that at least on that single day my mind is not concerned with all the contexts, threads and their TODOs.

I am already tagging my incoming emails with "TODO" and "waiting for reply" and sorting them into their respective folders and then afterwards heading for the tag stacks and working on them. I think I will add tags for contexts and set up filters, so that I can open the right TODO stack for the topic of the day I am working on, to conceal any "not today" work.


I was terribly burnt out back in 2019 when I was in a very hands on role.

Once I recovered, I've moved 'up the chain' into a COO role and it didn't help at all - I felt exactly as you described.

With a lot of reflection, I've come to believe that I love 'doing' much more than I love 'managing' and that was a big contributor towards the empty, lethargic feeling.

I've now left that style of work and have started building bootstrapped products with a co-founder, and it's amazing. New energy, hands-on every day, fun!

Hope that's helpful


Isn't there a problem of perspective here? As a head of engineering you are hands on at getting entire projects and strategies done - which are not measured in single lines of code. You are not hands on at pushing a few lines of code. As you "move up the hierarchy" - for an antiquated phrase - your ambition and interest better track and you better be aware of what this scope of authority is about? You are "getting stuff done" - just not the same stuff.

Revisit what the firm is about, and what actually is your responsibility in this. Your responsibility is not to push paper and run meetings - these are just some of your means.

You also do get to take pride in what "your" people got built. That's not unfair just because you were not the one at that keyboard.


So you want to be an individual contributor but don't want to be a manager of resources and people (resources aren't people and vice versa).

The difference is between being a "Senior Developer" or some other title that implies the seniority of your contribution compared to a "Head of" or "Senior" in the management hierarchy which is about budgets and P/Ls and GANTT charts and etc.

Your company needs to revise it's hierarchies to allow for ICs to be promoted to a similar level as management and have the same power over the area that you are senior (ie design, tools, versioning, SRE work, etc).

You decide what the work required is, both for new and ongoing, but it is then the management hierarchy that incorporates that into prioritizing the tasks against customer deliverables, budgets etc.


The feeling is understandable when transitioning to a more managerial role. However, nowadays I focus more on the coaching opportunities and making sure my people grow, which is a huge reward in itself. Additionally, I see how spending 5-10 minutes sending messages can create clarity and an action plan for engineers, which has a multiplicative effect on the org. After a few cycles, I was able to appreciate leveraging my time in this way, although it took some getting used to (about 6 months).

I think there is a silver lining and opportunity if you choose to look at it that way. That’s how I overcame similar feelings.


Do you have any hobbies outside work? I find that this seems quite a common theme among people who have focused a lot on their professional careers and derive most of the meaning from life from it.


Yes, that's why I don't do that work anymore and write code instead. I found this early on: my second company, which I founded at 19 (over 30 years ago), grew to 500 people in a few years, so I became director of engineering (cto in english basically) at 22. I burnt out and sold, 'retired', got bored and went back; I will never do that again; I mean, I have to a bit sometimes but I make sure it gets limited to the bare minimum I can do. Some people like it, I don't, it's life.


You might consider reading up about Patrick Lencioni's Working Genius models. He has a book that, in my opinion, is a blog post of content turned into a book, so you can get the information distilled in better places. He has a podcast about it which is much better than the book. But sounds like you don't get energy from the type of work you get from a leadership/management position. That's totally fine and normal!


Remember that senior roles are about building teams around you to get the job done. I'm wondering if your current experience reflects what the job has to be, or whether you could shape your team so that your job gives you energy, and other people do jobs that give them energy, and together you get the job done.


The context switching gets more painful. You can no longer lock yourself away for a day or a week to bash out code. You have responsibilities, like "come to this meeting", "review that code from jnr person", "get me this usage data". Your business value is becoming decoupled from time spent thinking about your own code, and you think about other's code and wider business tasks and problems.


Trust your gut. Don't bens until you break. If you can realign your role within your current company to spend more focus on what brings you a sense of value in your work, great. If not, I guess you have "grown apart" (no shame in that) and you might seriously consider a break. Maybe an extended unpaid leave or "sabbatical" if the employer is open for it.


As I get more experience I actually prefer being less hands-on ... except when a job lets me use unfamiliar tools that I'm excited about. If someone offered me a job using dependent types (in any language) I'd immediately jump ship. Would probably do the same for Erlang or Prolog.


Yep. I make up for the lost coding time in the evening. But totally understand the ability to do that is very life dependent. Like some Saturdays I put in a full 8 on other coding projects (open source, personal things, work related code) just to scratch that itch.


Some people enjoy being an air traffic controller, others enjoy being a pilot. It's good to try people management because it will give you an appreciation for great managers, but it isn't forever.

I can tell you from personal experience that there is room at companies for super senior ICs. they still might do some plans and and communications, but they can also do hands on work.

I can also tell you from personal experience that if you contort yourself into a shape you don't enjoy because the company needs it, eventually you'll leave and the company will lose a solid team member. That doesn't mean declare you need to be an IC right now, but if you need to move back to that kind of role, there are paths to it (hiring a different head of engineering, for example).

Good luck.


Absolutely. My skills atrophy as well. I used to be a walking encyclopedia, now I have no interest. Been turned into a part time streamer thanks to meeting volume and feigned collaboration

Wish I knew what to do. The work I enjoyed doesn't exist anymore. It's all executive bullshit


> It's work I don't want to do anymore.

Is this a bad thing?

> I miss being a person who actually does stuff instead of directing it.

Do you actually miss this or are you just in a role where you’re uncomfortable for the first time and want to get back to what’s comfortable?

> Does anyone else feel this in senior roles?

Yes.

> What do you do at this point?

You either figure out how to be satisfied doing the work you’re doing or you find a new job.


do you have life outside work sir


dont downvote me it hurts my feelings

im genuinely asking if op has hobbies or interests that should be alleviating the dreadfulness you get from boring repetitive work.




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