I’ve settled pretty comfortably into unemployment, so I figured it was way past time for me to make a proper post about my job, quitting, and mental health. Part of my motivation is to document my experience as a cautionary tale for my future self, if/when I return to industry.

Work burnout for me wasn’t a sudden thing… it had been happening gradually over the past few years. I will say though that the current trend toward AI and rapid iteration definitely accelerated it and brought it to a head, for me. Work got to the point where I felt largely ineffectual in my role, spending the majority of my time swinging between rapidly changing priorities and having alignment conversations with other architects and senior management.

I think most engineers can probably relate to the sentiment that the best part of software is shipping, and getting your code (and product) in the hands of real users. You get a real sense of pride and accomplishment from it. Even though I’d gotten senior enough that my main output was no longer code, that still applied… I produced technical overview documents, specs, and other design documents that were consumed by engineers to build products. I felt like I was making a difference. And then, with the AI work, it didn’t feel that way anymore. Things were changing so rapidly — and there were so many asks coming in from so many different areas — that it became impossible to actually generate meaningful technical documents that could be executed on. Driving alignment became my main role, and while it’s definitely important, it didn’t feel impactful.

The other impact of AI was work hours. There were many periods where I would work 12-14 hour days just to keep up. To be clear here, this was not an expectation from management (and my manager actually kept encouraging me to work less and take time off), but I felt a responsibility to my teammates. I literally did not take a vacation (nor any time off that wasn’t “I’m travelling today”) in 2025 until I went on medical leave. I visited my mom for a week and literally woke up at 6 AM to start working and stopped after 7 every night, leaving me exhausted and unable to spend time with her. It was not a healthy situation with regards to work/life balance.

So all of that together kind of caused me to break. Following a few weeks of increasing mental anguish (such as literally crying when asked to decide what kind of tea I wanted, or having insomnia that kept me up until 4 AM every night), I had what I’m calling a mental breakdown (you might call it a severe anxiety attack, even though such a term apparently has no official medical definition) that was a wake-up call to me that I couldn’t keep pushing on and waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel. Some points I want to reiterate to myself, for future reference (and hopefully others find this useful too):

• Doctors are your friends and allies. I went into my doctor’s appointment for medical leave filled with anxiety that she wouldn’t believe me. But it went more than well. Don’t be afraid of doctors.
• Companies differ on what kind of medical leave they offer. In my case, Salesforce offers a combination of FMLA (federally mandated leave that means you have a job to return to afterward), short-term disability (provides pay while you’re on leave), and medical leave (as far as I can tell, the same as FMLA, except it can run longer, and protects your job), and all three of these ran concurrently for me for three months. However…
• The requirements for each kind of leave are different. FMLA can be signed off on by many different providers (including my therapist, who is not an MD or DO, but is licensed and has a Masters), while disability pay and medical leave had stricter requirements (I believe has to be an MD or DO). For simplicity, having an MD or DO sign off on everything seems to make it easier, but the distinction between the leaves was not clear to me, and I spent a lot of stressful time (when I didn’t have the mental capacity for it) figuring out who I needed to sign off.
• Disability pay has to be renewed while you’re on leave (whereas FMLA and medical leave can just be signed off for the entire time with no renewals needed). In my case, renewal was every 15-30 days, and required updates from my therapist sent to the leave company, who would evaluate that I was still unable to return to work. Specifics here probably vary wildly, depending on the leave company.
• Leave can be retroactive. I didn’t take advantage of this (there’s an entire anxiety spiral I had around starting my leave that I won’t go into here), but if you’re truly in crisis, you can start leave immediately and have your doctor backdate the paperwork to support the leave. (This of course would cause me extra stress around “What if I’m on leave and my doctor doesn’t agree”, so YMMV.)
• Meds (I was on Lexapro) can take 6+ weeks to have a therapeutic effect. In my case, I found the therapy (CBT) significantly more useful in my recovery than the meds were, although it’s of course hard to say how much the general mood stabilization effect actually mattered in the end. Also, starting a medication can make you feel like you’re seasick for a few days… be warned.
• Go to therapy. Sooner than I did. Don’t wait for things to spill over and become a crisis.
• This may vary by company, but Salesforce provides health insurance for the entire month after your last day. So make your last day as close to the beginning of a month as possible, for “free” insurance.

In any case, as I started transitioning out of work, there were surprisingly many benefits that I started losing, some of which I hadn’t really considered. In no particular order:

• Health insurance is the most obvious one. Fortunately that can be replaced with insurance through the exchange, although it’ll cost significantly more than what you were paying through work. (You can also of course elect COBRA any time up to 60 days following the termination of benefits, and it’s retroactive to the termination date if you do.)
• Life insurance. The insurer had the option for me to continue coverage myself, but it didn’t seem worthwhile.
• Travel insurance. My company provided (limited) international coverage that worked even if I was travelling for pleasure rather than business. It’s something else I have to think about now when planning international trips.
• EAP and similar. I intentionally chose not to go through my company’s EAP for therapy, but if you tie your recovery to that benefit, you may need to start paying out of pocket to continue, if the benefit is still available at all.
• Discount programs. I made a few purchases using company discounts while still employed, but if you regularly use an ongoing discount (like a specific rental car company), this can cause sticker shock after you leave.
• Direct deposit. Many (traditional) banks will waive their account fees if you have direct deposits, and/or offer money for opening an account with direct deposit. Leaving your job means you’ll no longer have direct deposit, and may start incurring account fees.
• Daily social interactions. Even though it’s work, and you’re talking to people about work (most of the time), it’s still hard to replace that daily dose of human interaction.

In any case, despite all of the above, I have no regrets about leaving. My goal is to take some time for myself to continue my recovery, and also to see where/how AI settles in the tech industry. After that… we’ll see.

Photos and life have been updated (on time), so I’ll end this huge wall of text with a photo that makes me happy: all of my coworkers at my farewell party in San Francisco.

Life is good.