> My two years at Google were spent perpetually stressed, acting as an unofficial PM, helping run meetings and document decisions while dealing with sometimes hostile colleagues.
This is the position I found myself in while working on a greenfield project for a FAANG company. Management structure either didn't exist (we didn't have a proper PM for nearly a year) or wasn't competent enough to take pressure off of the devs. It was so hard to fire bad hires and make good new ones that I was the _only_ dev contributing for a long time (then it became 2 devs, and he's still the only competent dev on the team to this day).
I think most of the time when you're in this scenario, the best option is just to quit. Most likely you as an individual won't make enough of a difference to fix the problems, and regardless, it's not worth your health. I eventually left and worked at a decent sized startup for ~8 months before completely burning out. I wasn't forced by a doctor to take leave, but I felt like I had no other choice, and I'm still not working a year later.
TL;DR: Be careful and cognizant of your brain and body. Don't try to run everything at your job, because it likely won't end up getting fixed and you'll just kill yourself.
This is the position I found myself in while working on a greenfield project for a FAANG company. Management structure either didn't exist (we didn't have a proper PM for nearly a year) or wasn't competent enough to take pressure off of the devs. It was so hard to fire bad hires and make good new ones that I was the _only_ dev contributing for a long time (then it became 2 devs, and he's still the only competent dev on the team to this day).
I think most of the time when you're in this scenario, the best option is just to quit. Most likely you as an individual won't make enough of a difference to fix the problems, and regardless, it's not worth your health. I eventually left and worked at a decent sized startup for ~8 months before completely burning out. I wasn't forced by a doctor to take leave, but I felt like I had no other choice, and I'm still not working a year later.
TL;DR: Be careful and cognizant of your brain and body. Don't try to run everything at your job, because it likely won't end up getting fixed and you'll just kill yourself.