Post #4164070

2026-07-28 12:49 UTC

This is the thing about being an engineer, especially a senior one: There is always more work. Always. There is no “getting ahead”. There is no “Once I finish this project, I’ll have a break”. There is only ever the next thing. And if you don’t protect your peace, no one else will. I don’t care how good your manager is. To them, you are and will always be a machine for turning coffee and paychecks into code. You just probably drink less water than the AI. (And you should fix that. You should drink more water.)

Replies (3)

@faithisleaping@anarres.family 2026-07-28 12:51

Incidentally, I’m autistic and easily nerd-sniped by the next project so protecting my peace is hard. I’m learning. I’m getting better. But it’s still really easy to overcommit.

Open ##4164109
@CordiallyChloe@tech.lgbt 2026-07-28 12:58

@faithisleaping@anarres.family This is absolutely true. I don't write code but I'm a product manager in software dev. My backlog only ever grows. It's currently 40 items. Tomorrow it'll probably be 41. Next week it might be 39. But the week after? It'll be 42. It doesn't matter what I do. It doesn't matter how many work items I release. There will be more. And I'm at the top of my pay bracket so I'm not gonna make more money. There's no openings for promotions, so that's not happening. So what reason do I have to pump out more work? I get the priority stuff done. I keep my backlog organized, so when someone asks about it I can say "yep, here's the info." And I pump out 5-10 work items per quarter. That's what I offer and it works. I see others running around like chickens with their heads cut off and that just can't be me.

Open ##4164780
@itzyg@wandering.shop 2026-07-28 14:16

@faithisleaping@anarres.family Yeah, the person assigning me work is the worst and just keeps adding shit to my plate (it's me, I assign my own work 😔) The problem is being genuinely excited about my work plus ADHD plus near total work place freedom means anytime I have an idea for something cool it goes on the backlog 😅

Open ##4166035