34 posts tagged with "mental-health"

Let's talk about something most tech teams pretend doesn't exist: the fact that nearly half of us are struggling with mental health issues. Not "feeling a bit stressed" or "having a rough week" – I'm talking about real anxiety, depression, and burnout that affects how we code, how we collaborate, and how we show up for our teams.

We've built an industry that celebrates grinding until 3 AM, shipping features at breakneck speed, and treating work-life balance like it's a nice-to-have rather than essential infrastructure. Then we act surprised when developers burn out.

Three months into my first senior developer role, I found myself staring at my screen at 2 AM, debugging the same function for the fourth consecutive hour. The code wasn't particularly complex, but my brain felt like it was running through molasses. When my alarm went off six hours later, the thought of opening my laptop made my stomach clench.

That's when I realized I wasn't just tired - I was burning out.

Developer burnout isn't just about working too many hours or dealing with difficult stakeholders. It's a systematic erosion of the passion, creativity, and problem-solving joy that drew us to coding in the first place. If you're reading this at 1 AM wondering if your love for development is permanently broken, you're not alone - and more importantly, it's fixable.