Burnout, Stress and Work-Life Balance

Burnout rarely announces itself. These episodes cover overwork and crunch, the boredom and disengagement that look like laziness but are not, unrealistic deadlines, on-call that never lets up, and what recovery actually takes.

34 episodes of Soft Skills Engineering, the weekly advice podcast where Dave Smith and Jamison Dance answer software engineers' questions. Every episode is free, and each page below has the listener's question in full.

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Every episode about burnout and work-life balance

  1. Episode 506: I hate my job with AI and my team-mate thinks I suck
  2. Episode 481: I'm bored and will I ever find out why I was fired?
  3. Episode 477: Four months and I already hate my job and grumpy and fuzzy
  4. Episode 473: Mental health support and overcoming FOMO of taking a break from work
  5. Episode 468: Should I take a mini-retirement and doubling down on anachronisms
  6. Episode 457: How do I get off the on-call rotation and "big tech" == "big leagues"?
  7. Episode 455: UX designer without a mentor and I get bored too easily and stressed too easily
  8. Episode 443: Does my PM hate me? and My coworker has anxiety when I help
  9. Episode 440: How do I help my boss not burn out and should I tell people I'm older than I am?
  10. Episode 438: Software job after prison and working 60 hours per week at age 20 and feeling unfulfilled
  11. Episode 426: I got too many promotions and I have anxiety about getting fired
  12. Episode 412: Work-life-team balance and getting code-sniped
  13. Episode 397: Skunkworks and too much work/life balance
  14. Episode 385: Attention to detail and sabbatical
  15. Episode 374: Secret burnout and no room for failure
  16. Episode 306: Sabbaticals and betray my team
  17. Episode 283: Jealousy and burnout
  18. Episode 263: Why am I bored and ver-boss-ity
  19. Episode 255: Only positive feedback and overworked and siloed
  20. Episode 233: Manual unit testing and WFH demotivation
  21. Episode 179: Pushing preemptive promotion and de-motivated by promotion
  22. Episode 177: Work life vertigo and work life interviews
  23. Episode 169: Conspiracy theories and flexible schedules
  24. Episode 165: I don't play videogames and quarter-career burnout
  25. Episode 164: Fear of firing and disengaged teammates
  26. Episode 155: What do you think about employee monitoring software and how do I get un-demotivated after losing interest in software dev?
  27. Episode 153: Informal Leadership and Dealing With Burnout (rerun of episode 71)
  28. Episode 138: Should I ask for a raise before my annual review and how to keep up with young, single, overtime-working co-workers
  29. Episode 134: Boredom vs Money and Agile vs Long-Term Schedules
  30. Episode 120: Layoff Decisions and Overworking Peers
  31. Episode 71: Informal Leadership and Dealing With Burnout
  32. Episode 64: Negative Peer Reviews and On Call
  33. Episode 36: Unlimited Vacation and Enforcing Best Practices
  34. Episode 8: Work life balance and on-boarding new engineers

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Browse all 527 episodes or ask Dave and Jamison your own question.