Microsoft is great for people who values work life balance or wanna get a foot in tech. I joined Microsoft as a ng after an internship there. Internship was okay in terms of perks and pay but it did not really teach me much tech wise. I was on a legacy team looking at some legacy code, trying to make a tiny change in a huge codebase. Some of the code are even older than me. I returned as a full time after rejs from fb and google. I joined early 2020. Covid hit and my onboarding was rough. People are nice on my team but I don’t feel motivated at all. I don’t feel any excitement or enthusiasm on our work. Everyone barely even smiles during meetings. People just try to get through them. Most people don’t turn on their cameras anymore. I also suffer a lot from Covid and mental health issues. Without a support system, I fell apart. There were weeks I barely eat anything or talk to anyone. I realize I might lose my job if I can’t even take care myself. Work was not interesting or impactful. My relationship with the team worsened. I knew I had to leave. My doctor prescribed me two drugs after I was diagnosed with depression and general anxiety disorder. I went through a hard time adjusting to those pills. After 20-30 sessions of counseling sessions, I felt hopeful and motivated for the first time in a long time. I started to leetcode and learn system design again, little by little. I still got rejected like a million times, but I’m grateful I’m able to work at Google. It’s not another cliche story of joining google. Coz deeply I know I’m still not good enough. But I’m glad I have the motivation and determination to improve now. It’s like a rebirth
I’m glad you sought therapy
Joined during pandemic and can agree . It has hardly been months but I already don’t like it here and looking to move out once I finish a year
I am in the same boat
I left during the pandemic.
Or both
Lmao
That sounds eerily similar to my experience in Azure org known for poor wlb
I'd like to know what org there is known for poor WLB... I know Identity and DocumentDB were messes but I don't really recall hearing about many orgs that were notorious.
I understand how u feel, OP. IMO I felt the same but things changed when I stopped looking for motivation from my job.
Can you develop this concept? How did you do, everyone is usually looking to be motivated
I started thinking about what I want my life to look like 10-15-20 years from now. I started thinking of what life I want me and my family to have in the future. I started thinking of my career as a way to earn money to achieve these goals instead of thinking I even need to have a corporate career. Doing this I was able to not care too much about daily ups and downs of my job. I stopped caring about achieving certain titles or promotions in specific time periods and I became more open to opportunities that would help me achieve my life goals. a mindset change is the beginning. Not everyone will be able to do this. If you have an urgent, serious need then yes you won’t be able to follow this advice.
Power to you my friend! Adjusting to remote is not easy, and a lot of people burn out. Super proud of you that you picked yourself up, worked hard on yourself and skills and got into Google. Keep working on yourself, one day at a time, work is just a part of your whole life, keep crushing those tiny improvements on yourself and you’ll shine bright always. Good luck!
Thank you for the kind words!
I love this person’s energy :)
This is pretty common across tech companies right now. I see it at amazon too. This is why wfh doesn’t work
I think wfh makes more sense for senior people who already know how to work everything
What noogler said. WFH has given me a lot more time with my child that I can’t put a dollar figure on. Also, I live in MCOL making serious money for my location. That would be impossible without remote options. Like everything in this world, it’s not one size that fits all. Glad you were able to find help there noogler.
Most people laugh and have cameras on in my current role. At MSFT when I was there , having cameras on caused instability in Teams so over time most people would turn them off after a short while. Not shocking people eventually stopped turning them on. Definitely a culture thing that varies per team
Yeah coming from EA, I had a better team culture there for sure and much more opportunities to connect with my peers. I do miss that.
But your TC, what is it?
What is your area of focus? Backend engineering or desktop?
Probably laptop.
Fr. Why I left Microsoft: I have depression
I agree but in my view we should avoid compounding negativity on this platform.