Keepin' It Together

Dev Leader Weekly 87

Dev Leader

Mar 15, 2025

TL; DR:

It's not about what, it's about who.
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Keepin' It Together!

This week's newsletter is going to be a little different than usual, so if you're new to these:

Welcome, and thank you for being here!
... Usually I take a hot topic from Code Commute, write about it, and then do an AMA on this on my main Dev Leader YouTube channel.

But over the last couple of months I've been letting it leak out more and more. I can't really keep it in much longer:

I am completely and utterly burnt out.

Exhausted. I can't get out of bed in the morning but I need to get onto meetings. I can barely make it through the workday but I have meetings after hours. There's not much left in me and it's made everything outside of work devoid of enjoyment. That becomes a vicious cycle because I need something that I can enjoy so that I can pull myself out of it.

But I figured this would be good to write about at least because:

It's not going to feel like I'm trying to structure advice or guidance... A little bit less pressure on me.
This is real sh_t. This is what can happen at work -- and I am sure many people have it worse than I do.

Let's Not Panic Though!

Mom, if you're reading this: take a deep breath. Nothing to worry about.

I'm a professional.

Jokes aside, burn out is something that I reflect on very regularly. I need to, because of how I operate normally. I generally operate at right around maximum capacity at all times so it's easy for me to find myself getting overwhelmed or caught up with a commitment that pushes me a bit over the edge.

But these things come in waves or seasons. I might have a point in time where I have a busy period with work but also have to wrap up a course for Dometrain. I may be trying to get something shipped for BrandGhost but I’m behind on my YouTube tutorials for the upcoming week.

This stuff happens all the time so I need to constantly pay attention -- And that's exactly I saw this period of burnout coming at full speed like a big freight train.

The problem? There's not much in my control as it's entirely work-related. And I'm not writing this like a passive-aggressive letter to my boss or my leadership -- I have some incredibly important work that I'm responsible for, that I have ownership over, and it's got to get done. I'm not doing it alone and there are plenty of others busting their butts too. But this needs to get done.

The good news? This is time-boxed. There's a due date. Despite things being difficult and reaching the point of being overwhelming, there's still a finish line we're on track to cross. I know that everything I'm experiencing is temporary and that this is not at risk of becoming "the new norm".

The cherry on top? Over the past couple of weeks while already slipping into peak burnout, there's been yet another work-related "project" that's cropped up for me. Just when I thought I had no additional capacity in my life, I was proven wrong and magically found the rest of my mental and emotional capacity to give to this (which, by the way, also now has a very understood end date).

But there was actually something positive about this... and maybe there's a lesson here...

It's Not What, But Who.

Now many of you may not know my story, but prior to Microsoft, I worked at a startup company. When I started there, it was roughly 7 people across the entire company (development, sales, marketing). By the time I left after 8 years, it was ~250 people. It was rapid growth. It was fast-paced.

It was more productive than I have ever been in my entire life.

I've written about it before and discussed it before, but that environment was a recipe for potential burnout for me. But the super interesting part to me was that when I experienced burnout there it was very different than how I am experiencing burnout now:

Then: It took ~4 years to notice burnout. I was still energized. I still enjoyed work. But everything outside of work had slowly deteriorated. I had very bad social anxiety.
Now: This took less than 2 months to hit burnout. I have extremely low energy. I am physically and emotionally drained from the time I open my eyes in the morning to when I get into bed. I find it very difficult to find enjoyment in anything.

But something very interesting happened with this new surprise "project" that was recently sprung upon me. And no, it wasn't that I realized I actually wanted more work to do.

Despite being completely cranky, rundown, exhausted, and essentially by all of my measures depressed: I found some periods where I was extremely energized while working on this new surprise "project".

So, naturally, I needed to reflect on this:

How could this be simultaneously enjoyable but a taxing project for me to do?
How did I magically seem to have the mental and emotional capacity for this at a point where there was nothing left for me to give?

But I realized what it is for me: People.

The People Factor

Stepping back to try and connect the dots a little bit: When I worked at a startup before Microsoft, I worked with people who would become some of my very best friends for life. It was a small group of people, but it never seemed to matter what challenges we were facing.

We'd stay up late. We'd start early. We'd work all days of the week. We'd kick ass.

Yes, things could get physically draining. Some challenges were frustrating. I'm not saying it was easy, sunshine, and rainbows.

But the entire time I was working with like-minded people who were driven to solve problems relentlessly.

And that's what I noticed about this new surprise "project" -- There are a group of us that (if I had to take a wild guess) aren't super excited we were tasked with this work. But we're a group that is working relentlessly to solve the challenges in front of us.

It ends up looking like this:

A really big looming challenge for all of us
Decomposing difficult problems
Brainstorming sessions
Over-communication
Feedback loops
Rapid iteration
Measuring
Success

It's hard work. It's long hours. I'm still completely burnt out from my other longer-running project. But there's something to be said about solving difficult problems with awesome people.

This is the same feeling I get when I'm building BrandGhost.

We're an underdog in a market with lots of similar tools.
We have seemingly insurmountable challenges.
We're time-constrained to work on it.
We're all driven to make it happen.
We all support each other.
We win together.

So maybe today's lesson is this:

Software engineering is always going to have interesting challenges for you to solve. Being able to solve those difficult challenges with awesome people is what makes the difference.

Dev Leader Weekly