Burnout is caused by resentment

That doesn't sound like burnout. It sounds like you lost faith in shitty managers and left. Trust me, this is an experience that almost everyone will have.

The movie portrayal of success is that you become someone's protege and he takes you under his wing. Bud Fox meets Gordon Gekko. The douchebag character that Shia LaBeouf played in that execrable sequel gets a $1.5M check for kissing a suicidal old man on the top of the head. The real world trajectory is rockier. No one powerful gives a shit about you, no one powerful looks out for you. You work your ass off anyway, because it's the right thing to do. You do your best to deliver on promises you make to colleagues, because it's the right thing to do. You get really, really good at a few important skills (written communication, computer programming, and social skills are all very important). If your boss takes interest in your education and career development, you reciprocate with extreme diligence and loyalty. If he doesn't, you steal an education and find ways to learn anyway. Self-mentoring. That's how most successful people will actually come up.

I don't like the term burnout. It suggests finality. It's an artifact of the Western obsession with age and entropy and transience, the idea that people who excel can only persist for so long. It's not true. There's such a thing as "motivational crisis", but it's usually transient. Like earthquakes, most are harmless, and the only ones that are remembered in 10,000 years are those that produce features of beauty. As I get older, they come on quicker but they're of much shorter duration. That tends to be a general pattern. Permanent burnout? No such thing. All fear comes from a fear of permanence (including fear of death) but Buddhism teaches there is no such thing and therefore nothing to fear.

You don't have to sob to be burnt out. You just have to be sick of it all.. and not care.

It really doesn't matter how good the company is, or how well they treat you.

When you're burnt out you just don't want to deal with any of it anymore. You're sick of what you're doing, and you don't want any part of it -- no matter what they offer or how much they coddle you.

Been there.. done that.

It's about more than just feeling appreciated and feeling like you've done a good job.

I had both, and yet I still burnt out.

What was lacking was fulfillment -- the sense that the work you do is meaningful for you.

Ideally, your job should be interesting, fun, stimulating, and you should feel that what you do is important. If it's stressful, it should be at a level of stress you can deal with, and the stress should be of a positive sort, not a negative sort.

At some of my jobs I was greatly appreciated, and I knew I was doing a great job. But the work was boring, I didn't feel it was important, and it was extremely stressful. So I burnt out.

There's the emotion, and things that cause the emotion. One of those those causes is the emotion itself. (Also works with anger and amusement. Anger begets anger. Laughter causes more laughter.)

Oh, I've been to step 7 before. Usually when I hit step 8 is when my friends step in and bluntly point out that it's time for me to move on. "You're on all the time -- you need to be able to turn off". "Yeah, I figured I'd call because no one has heard from you in months. Just making sure you're, well, not dead." Etc.

I once had a girlfriend intervene and "take care of the problem" for me. I was being sent all over the eastern seaboard and was only home for about 12 days in the previous 5 months. I was so displeased with the current situation that for the previous month I was barely even calling her. She went in, demanded a meeting with the Chief Strategy Officer and told him that she sincerely hoped his kids died in a car fire. She probably said a few other things, but that was the one she seemed to be most "proud of".

I quit my last job last month. I've been very picky with what I'm targeting, and if they don't respond, I particularly don't care. I've told headhunters I'm not interested in their clients, and I'm not on the job boards and recruiters would get shot down if they did manage to find my number. In the meantime, I always wanted to make video games so I'm giving that a shot. I plan on documenting things in a blog once I get closer to having the first title close to release.