Burnt Out as an Engineering Manager: Do I Need to Quit?

In brief

Should I quit my engineering manager job because of burnout?

Burnout is evidence that continuing unchanged is not working, but it does not tell you which career decision to make. Locate the mismatch first, across workload, control, reward, community, fairness and values; then compare staying with defined changes, taking leave, moving to an individual contributor role and leaving; then choose one reversible step that gives you better information.

Should I quit?

When you've lost interest in the things that once were a passion, find yourself sitting in meetings wondering when you stopped giving a damn, and every evening filled with dread about the morning, fantasizing about quitting may seem like the only way out. Maybe the stress of unrealistic demands from both your superiors and your teams has become unbearable. Maybe imposter syndrome is telling you you just can't do it. You find yourself daydreaming about going back to being an individual contributor, or changing careers entirely, just to get some peace.

But the tradeoff is never that easy. You may have a family, kids to get through college, retirement to fund and an entire life built around your current income. And many of us are so identified by our job that walking away feels like losing who we are, a feeling that becomes real when you talk to people who have "retired early", found it excruciating and been unable to rejoin the game. The fear of making a massive mistake: walking away from hard-earned success to land in somewhere worse, keeps you stuck, enduring the pain and watching your health suffer month after month.

Living with that tension doesn't mean you can't make a decision. It means you recognize the consequences of the decision and are wise enough to be careful about it. And when you are experiencing burnout, it's not easy to see all the options or evaluate them accurately.

Maybe you truly do feel drawn to doing something else with your life. Maybe changing to another role would help. Or maybe taking a bit of time to recover, or engaging in a process to quiet your internal demons is the answer. Pressure and stress tend to squash an array of reasonable options into a black or white potentialy catastrophic one.

What is burnout?

The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety describes workplace stress as a harmful response to job demands that conflict with the amount of control a worker has over how to meet them. Engineering leaders feel that all the time - when big projects have to be done faster than ever with too few resources, the wrong tools or unworkable constraints.

Ambiguity about your role, lack of support from your boss, perceptions of unfairness across the organization, interpersonal tension, and lack of the psychological safety to even state your opinion are stress-inducing factors commonly faced by senior leaders. You are often lacking the staffing, authority or time required to deliver what is asked. And your sense of responsibility for your team and desire to protect them makes the tension worse.

Burnout is not a verdict on your capability. It is information about a mismatch between you and the conditions you face.

Where is the mismatch, exactly?

In a 2016 review, Maslach and Leiter state that burnout arises from a mismatch between a person and a job, organizing the research across six areas: workload, control, reward, community, fairness and values.

Workload. This measures hours, effort and fragmentation. One-on-ones, incident reviews, interviews, calibration, planning, escalations, plus individual contribution quickly stacks up.
Control. When you find yourself accountable for something and don't control the staffing, scope, dates or priority to make it happen.
Reward. Much of what we do as managers may feel invisible. You don't get rewarded for the incident that didn't happen, a team that suddenly begins working well together or a person who was planning to quit but didn't.
Community. Management can be lonely. Reports cannot be confidants, peers may be competing with you for headcount, and your boss may be the source of the problems you face.
Fairness. Managers are often asked to communicate and support corporate decisions that appear arbitrary or unfair. Layoffs, calibration outcomes, promotion denials and compensation decisions can cause real distress and disruption.
Values. Being asked to ship something you don't think is ready, to manage someone out for reasons you don't accept, or to carry the corporate message you don't agree with can feel like a moral offense.

Notice which of these areas are affecting you the most. Are there ways to make them malleable - to make or ask for changes that reduce the discomfort? Would any of these factors change if you took a new role, and which might still affect you even if you quit to embrace a new career.

Do you have the capacity to decide?

Months or years of accumulated stress and pressure can leave you acutely depleted and in a state where it feels like quitting is the only solution. And sometimes it's necessary, particularly if harassment or safety is a concern. In other situations, a short period of rest, medical support or distance from the immediate pressure can give you the perspective needed to see and evaluate other options.

If sleep, concentration, mood, substance use or your ability to function has changed significantly, the first step should be a full medical workup with your family doctor. Biological factors can mimic, mask, or compound feelings of stress and burnout. And because these conditions often develop gradually, you may not recognize them and assume they are entirely work related.

Several conditions produce fatigue, low mood, poor concentration and reduced stress tolerance that are difficult to distinguish from burnout. Worth ruling out:

Thyroid dysfunction, including subclinical hypothyroidism.
Adrenal and cortisol disorders.
Sex hormone changes, including perimenopause and low testosterone.
Sleep apnea, restless legs and other disorders that fragment sleep without fully waking you.
Iron, B12 and vitamin D deficiency.
Autoimmune and inflammatory conditions, including celiac disease.
Myalgic encephalomyelitis and post-viral syndromes, including long COVID.
Insulin resistance, and autonomic problems such as POTS.

Your family doctor can order most of this.

Workplace options

Before making a decision, it's worth looking over the options your workplace and related legislation provide. Most of us never take the time to read:

Your employment agreement. It's worth checking how notice periods, termination provisions, non-solicitation clauses, equity vesting may be affected if you resign.
Your benefits booklet, not the summary page. Short-term and long-term disability provisions may provide more options than you realize. Look into waiting periods, durations, pay rates, and whether the definition of disability is your own occupation or any occupation.
The statutory minimum. If your employer's provisions are limited, review Ontario's sick leave rules as the baseline.
Federal support. You may also want to consider Employment Insurance sickness benefits. These require a medical certificate. Eligibility for EI benefits can be affected if you leave voluntarily, so check with an employment professional or Service Canada before you resign.

If you are asking for workplace accommodation based on a health condition, the Ontario Human Rights Commission's policy defines your employer's obligation, which may be bigger than you think. They can only refuse accommodations if they will cause undue hardship, and the way your request is considered matters too. Note also that employers are generally entitled to information about your limitations, your ability to perform the essential duties of the role and the nature of the condition, but not your specific diagnosis.

To understand this better, consult an employment lawyer, union representative or human resources professional.

If you need help settling the immediate pressure before making the career decision, Floyd's article on When pressure at work feels unbearable may be helpful.

What each path can tell you

The four paths form hypotheses about how a particular change might work for you and provide an opportunity to test each one before making a decision.

Make the changes needed to stay

Although it may not feel like it today, it's possible that defined changes in your role and how you approach your job could make staying tenable. A new or revised role with fewer reports, better aligned decision authority and accountability, or with less uncertainty might be possible. It's important, however that these changes are tangible and well defined. “We will try to support you” is not enough.

Four questions can make a proposed change tangible.

What exactly will change?
Who has the authority to make it happen?
By when?
When and who will agree on whether it worked?

Summarize your understanding in writing. A change that nobody wrote down will not survive the next reorg. And question 4 gives you the mechanism to test whether this organization is serious and whether the promised change actually worked.

You've likely invested a lot in this organization. You have built friendships, working relationships, corporate knowledge, a reputation and the ability to get things done in that context. That's worth a lot, both to you and your organization, so it may be worth testing whether changes can allow you to take advantage of those assets rather than abandon them.

Pause, take leave or reduce scope

If you had a medical condition or needed surgery, it would be an easy decision to take the time to properly recover before re-entering the workplace. Unfortunately many of us don't treat psychological stress the same way. A vacation, leave, or temporary assignment could provide much needed recovery time, test how much of your distress is actually related to your current position, and potentially give you the perspective to make a more informed decision.

Rest may not be enough. A meta-analysis showed that vacations bring small but positive effects on health and wellbeing, but that they can fade quickly upon return. Two weeks off may put a dent in your level of exhaustion, but it's not enough to determine if your job needs to change.

If you take leave, use it to recover, and prepare yourself for the most constructive conversation possible on your return. Settle what you can before you go back: how many reports, what scope, whether you are on call, what happens in the first ninety days, and who will review it with you.

Move to an individual contributor or different internal role

Returning to individual contribution or a smaller role is not necessarily a demotion. Sometimes you can create more value through deep work, intense problem solving or innovative work that fits you better. Some people later return to management with new perspective and clarity on what kind of roles work for them. Others find they do not miss it.

The important question is whether a move would actually help. The six areas listed earlier are a useful guide. An IC role in the same organization, under the same leadership, changes workload and possibly control, but may present the same challenges, or completely different ones.

You should also be sure you understand the implications of requesting a change, both short and long term. Your agreement to take a reduced role might impact your ability to claim constructive dismissal in future, though it is a complicated area. Get legal and employment advice before you sign anything.

Leaving

Leaving may be the right option when the environment is unsafe, when your health continues to deteriorate, or when the role clearly conflicts with your values. It can also be costly and frightening; both can be true at once. To properly calibrate your fears, try to gather as much practical information as you can.

Runway. How many months could you go without employment without endangering your family or your future. Recognize that burnout might affect your ability to secure a new role and that the process might take longer than you expect.
Coverage. Travel insurance, drug, paramedical and psychotherapy benefits generally end with employment, and can be difficult to replace with private coverage. Switching to generic medications, or self-funding options may cushion the blow but these are expenses not everyone is prepared for.
Income support. Voluntary resignation may limit your ability to collect Employment Insurance. Check with Service Canada or an employment professional rather than assuming either way.
People. Speak with two or three people who have made an adjacent move, including at least one who found it harder than expected.

Remember that running away is very different than running towards something. The same patterns that drove you to escape may reappear in your next role if you aren't clear on what needs to change.

Test and fail fast

It's very human to spend a ton of energy deciding whether a request is reasonable before making it. A more effective alternative may be to just try asking and watch what happens. How your manager and your organization responds to a request tells you a lot about what is possible and how much flexibility they can offer.

Suppose you tell your manager, “I am running three projects right now, and the work in process is causing churn. I would like to put the third one on hold until the other two are past their riskiest phase to ensure a better outcome.” You may not get the answer you want. But the way they engage with the conversation, clarify the facts, negotiate different options, or follow through may broaden your perspective on what's possible. A manager who refuses to listen, avoids the facts, retaliates against people who bring bad news, or says one thing and does another gives you more evidence about what kind of change you need.

This doesn't require you to disclose your private health situation to your employer or confront a toxic leader. Sometimes it's helpful to have a confidential conversation with a physician, therapist, employment lawyer, mentor or former colleague before testing your organization.

Four ways this decision gets distorted

Burnout involves more than exhaustion - it changes how you see the world. Some common distortions:

Sunk cost fallacy. The years you have already invested in becoming a manager are not recoverable by staying, but they feel like they are. A useful test: if you were offered this exact role today, at this compensation, with this scope and this leadership, would you take it? If the honest answer is no, the only thing keeping you is the past.

Identity fusion. For many engineering leaders the title carries years of effort, belonging and evidence that you can be trusted with responsibility. Questioning the role therefore feels like questioning whether you are that person at all, which raises the stakes of an ordinary career decision to something much larger.

Deciding at the trough. Sustained stress narrows the field of options a person can see, which is the subject of the companion article on unbearable work pressure. A decision made in the worst week of the worst quarter is not necessarily wrong, but it is worth knowing which week you are in.

The private deadline. I'll leave after this release, after the reorg is announced, at the end of next quarter. It's private, it moves, and nobody else knows it exists. Write yours down and put a date and conditions on it.

Finding myself in an unexpected way

Another way your decision can become distorted is by missing the opportunity in front of you. For decades I was drawn to the helping professions: teaching, counselling and the like. It wasn't until a friend observed that the common factor between those and leadership was inspiration that I realized the unique value I brought to technical leadership. The gift of the job was not software architecture, though that can be an attractive puzzle; it was the joy of inspiring others, helping them see situations in a more constructive way, and stitching the story that connected everyday contribution to the corporate goal.

In fact I accepted my last position precisely because I knew it would allow me to continue to do the work of integrating teams, building a common culture, facilitating communication and inspiring positive action despite the many things that added to my stress.

In my case, I was finally able to recognize the unique value I brought to the job, and how my harsh inner critic was causing more pain than the failures of my organization. Sometimes talking to a friend or professional can help you see things in a new light and discover what's most important to you.

What if I don't know what I want?

Burnout can flatten desire, making it seem like nothing can make you happy. You fixate on what you want to escape, unable to be curious about your ambitions or pleasure. “What is my ideal career?” is not the best question to ask when you are physiologically and mentally drained.

Try smaller ones. Which moments in your week brought the most joy? What activities do you feel created value, and which did you dread and despise? What kind of problem do you still care about when nobody is evaluating you?

You don't need a five-year plan to make a good decision, but you do need accurate information and enough capacity to evaluate it objectively in a way that respects your wellbeing and obligations.

When psychotherapy can help

Psychotherapy cannot decide whether you should quit, guarantee that a workplace will change, or replace medical, legal and financial advice. But it can help you think more clearly about the alternatives you have. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy focuses on psychological flexibility, which targets that exact black and white feeling that comes when you've reached the end of your rope. It helps by reducing the emotional charge that gives particular thoughts more energy than they deserve, by separating thoughts and emotions so that they can each be evaluated cleanly, and by connecting your thoughts and actions to the things that matter most to you.

Therapy can also help you notice when fear, shame, loyalty or identity has collapsed your decision into false choices. Processing emotions like anger and grief can help, and you can learn to communicate limits more effectively and better tolerate uncertainty. You can read more about therapy for tech leaders facing burnout.

If the pressure has become a crisis

This article provides general information, not individual clinical, legal or crisis advice. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. If you are thinking about suicide, call or text 9-8-8 in Canada, available 24 hours a day.

Sources and further reading

Frequently asked questions

Should I quit my engineering manager job because of burnout?

Not necessarily, but continuing unchanged is rarely a sufficient answer. Before deciding, work out where the mismatch actually sits: workload, control, reward, community, fairness or values, and whether your present health or life outside work is also involved. Then compare staying with specific changes, taking leave or reducing scope, moving to an individual contributor role and leaving the organization or leadership altogether. Choose one reversible step that produces better evidence.

Should I go back to being an individual contributor after management burnout?

Returning to an individual contributor role can be a healthy choice if the work fits your strengths, values and preferred kind of responsibility. It is not automatically a retreat, and it will not resolve burnout caused by a harmful organization, an impossible workload or inadequate recovery. Test what would actually change first: the same company, the same leadership and the same values conflict may follow you into the new role.

Should I take leave from work because of burnout?

Leave may create needed distance when your health or capacity to function has been significantly affected, and a physician can advise whether it is indicated. Recovery time alone does not repair the conditions you would return to. A systematic review of return-to-work interventions for burnout found that individually focused programs generally did not shorten the time to return to work, while the one workplace-directed study reviewed did show a difference, though the authors caution that the overall evidence is weak. Settle what will be different in the work before you go back.

How do I know if engineering management is making me burn out?

Look for evidence across more than one setting. Ask whether the strain follows the practice of management itself, or whether it is more closely tied to this organization's expectations, your authority, staffing, conflict, values or life outside work. If you have had a manager role elsewhere that felt different, that is useful evidence. A small reversible change usually tells you more than another quarter of endurance.

Is it normal to want to quit engineering management?

Wanting out is common enough that it says little on its own. The more useful question is what you want out of, because the fantasy of quitting can attach to very different things: the volume of work, the loss of decision-making authority, delivering decisions you did not make, the absence of peers, or the loss of hands-on work. Naming which one is loudest tends to point at a more specific option than resignation.

Should I tell my employer I am burnt out?

Start by asking what you want the disclosure to accomplish, because “I am burnt out” and “I need this to change” are different conversations and only one of them is a request. Many people disclose hoping to be understood, then feel worse when sympathy arrives and nothing else does. Safety matters too: if the pressure is coming from the person you would be telling, or you have reason to think it would be used against you, a physician, employment lawyer or union representative is a better first conversation. You can also ask for a change to your workload or scope without disclosing a diagnosis, as described earlier on this page.

Burnt out as an engineering manager: do I need to quit?

Should I quit my engineering manager job because of burnout?

Should I quit?

What is burnout?

Where is the mismatch, exactly?

Do you have the capacity to decide?

Workplace options

What each path can tell you

Make the changes needed to stay

Pause, take leave or reduce scope

Move to an individual contributor or different internal role

Leaving

Test and fail fast

Four ways this decision gets distorted

Finding myself in an unexpected way

What if I don't know what I want?

When psychotherapy can help

Sources and further reading

Frequently asked questions

Should I quit my engineering manager job because of burnout?

Should I go back to being an individual contributor after management burnout?

Should I take leave from work because of burnout?

How do I know if engineering management is making me burn out?

Is it normal to want to quit engineering management?

Should I tell my employer I am burnt out?

Floyd Kelly

A career decision can be practical and deeply personal