Mental health impacts of a big tech job

Lucky you. I've heard that Google was pretty relaxed. I've just started working in a big tech company myself. It's a bit early to tell but so far, I find that my colleagues are good (probably better than me) and efficient. It's not especially stressful yet, in the sense there are no hard deadlines or anything really critical, and the project is super interesting. But I can tell that if I were slacking, that would show and I wouldn't compare favorably with them. And it seems everybody is quite anxious with performance evaluations.

What are the odds of finding a good therapist? I fear that many psychologists chose their line of work not because of their analytical capabilities.

This isn't really a big tech phenomenon as similar situations occur all the time at startups and in other industries.

Sometimes the juice is worth the squeeze and sometimes it is not.

Be aware of your work-life balance or lack thereof, the impact on your health and relationships, how work affects your non-work goals, etc. and make the choice you need to make:

1) Try to set boundaries or manage up.

2) Leave for a role that is a better fit.

3) Sometimes it's worth the grind if you are learning enough or being paid enough to stick it out for a bit.

Blog like this makes me wonder if I even want to work for FAANG companies anymore. I have never worked for a big corp and never for FAANG companies in particular.

>What I found was that the decent salary and excellent benefits came at a much greater cost.

I know you can get in with a big paycheck work your ass for 10 years and get out with lot of money in your bank. Maybe it my early 20s. Now I'm 35+ I don;t have the motivation to be a Google or Apple Software Engineer. I work in small firm and on interesting problems, and I'm OK with it.

> If it was after 6PM and I heard a notification on my phone, the hair on the back of my neck would stand up. Often times it was someone from work asking a seemingly innocent question.

This happens to me at my current job. But I don't have similar reaction to it. I'm more like "Oh, someone is working late..." And I respond to their queries. I believe performance and getting your task done faster has to do something? I know Amazon PIP thing is scary place to end with. No idea just read it on HN.

> but the big difference between then and now was that when I was home, I was home. Work stopped, and I could do something else for a bit and didn’t have to worry about anything until the next work day. I didn’t feel much of the mental fatigue I do now.

This really has nothing to do with Big Tech and is a nearly universal characteristic of any job that requires mental effort instead of physical. Yeah, if you're getting paid to move boxes all day, the boxes don't follow you home. If you get paid to think all day, the thoughts do. Nothing much you can do about that other than learn to deal with it.

My friends who are scientists think about their research in their free time, and worry about upcoming conference deadlines, etc. My friends who are lawyers think about their cases and upcoming filing deadlines. My friends on the business and sales side think about clients and deals and marketing. That's just how it goes. Be glad someone is willing to pay you for it and that your brain doesn't wear out from thinking the way your back wears out from carrying boxes.

This person just sounds like they have trouble setting boundaries and some general anxiety issues. I am a SWE at a FANG company right now, in a reasonably important and high-profile area, and the work-life balance is way better than any other job I've had at smaller companies both in and out of "tech".