I started my first job at a startup at the beginning of January.
The pay was low, the commute was long, and I knew it wasn’t ideal. I told myself ...
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thanks for sharing this post, Aryan. you're awesome 💯
Thank you for reading Aaron! You too are awesome, breaking down complex topics into easy to read and understand stories!
Ah! So you’re moving on to the next step. I hope you learned a lot and that the experience will be helpful in the future. I’m looking forward to what you do on your next journey!🫡
Thank you so much WDH! There's a lot of things I'm doing in parallel so yeah a lot of stories coming your way!
I've had a similar experience at a startup, not as a dev, but as an artist. I spent 2 years in the sinking ship patching holes before eventually being laid off because they were running out of money. That is to say, I resonate with your experience and am glad you made it out in one piece. Remember to take care of yourselves.
Thank you very much Austin! I'm sorry to hear that... Hope you're doing great now! Wishing you all the luck for your journey as well!
I've never seen a startup work well without respect and trust - when there's nothing, there's everything to do... A person with an idea but no idea how to make it can form a team and do one of two things: either understand the problems in making an idea a reality, or childishly complain when everything isn't perfect. Leadership is not about shouting the loudest; it's not about having all the answers; it's about creating space for ideas and team members to grow, knowing that many things will go wrong. Just saying "it's simple" and presuming everyone else is an idiot is something I've seen many times in my career - I've never seen it work, though.
Looks like a very useful lesson, and the good news is that it's not going to cost you anything permanently :)
Thank you so much for writing this Mike... It really helps me have some perspective and an optimistic lookout.
I am so sorry that you have to experience the stress during that Month, but I am glad that you took something valuable from it.
I haven't work in a Startup before, but I can image the lack of organization and the lack of clarity can bring. Can agree of "tools don’t replace discipline, and speed doesn’t replace structure.".
I hope you are well currently!
Thank you very much Francis. Your kind words are always good to read.
Yes I am doing better now, I hope you yourself are doing well! :)
I can totally relate as I worked in a startup environment with no clear structure and I lasted only a couploe of months. I tried to change things but realised my energy was being spent for nothing as I wasn't being listened to. My next job did the opposite and gave me the support and structure I needed to grow as a developer.
Every experience, negative or positive, is a learning. I like how you frame that here.
Thank you Julien, I really appreciate you taking the time to read through my thoughts and share your honest feedback. You've managed to distill everything down to its core - "every experience, whether it's negative or positive, is an opportunity to learn."
Aryan, your article is a reminder of why I architect my life around three things:
Sovereignty—the ability to choose my moves without being emotionally or structurally cornered. Respect—not flattery, but recognition of my boundaries, my expertise, and my humanity. Return on effort—not just money, but clarity, stability, and non-chaotic growth.
What you described—responsibility without authority, pressure without structure, expectations without compensation, and "trust" that evaporates the moment you assert boundaries—is what happens when a system treats people as leverage instead of as extensions of its own stability.
You don't build sovereignty on top of someone else's chaos. And I think most founders fail to recognize that when you treat people with dignity, clarity, and protection, they amplify the system. When you treat them as disposable, they become failure points.
The fact that you named what was happening, separated the self-doubt from the structural dysfunction, and left from clarity rather than desperation—that's not quitting. That's discernment.
Many blessings and success in your career.
Those 3 things are definitely something to remember, I'll make sure I start applying them for my life as well!
And everything you've said about treating people as extension of our own stability and treating them with dignity, clarity and protection; is just gold for me, as I too plan to lead one day, and I think you put it in a very easy to remember way. And the fact that it's applicable in life in general is just cherry on top.
Thank you for the well wishes and sharing your thoughts! They will definitely help me and anyone who reads this.
I wish you all the luck and success as well!!
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts, Richard. Your support means a lot to me - I really appreciate the kindness you've shown through this comment.
Sounds like a really horrible place you came to. I'm glad you moved on
Thanks for the support! I'm just grateful I learned from that experience and got better opportunities at the right time.
Comments from amazing people, all over the world, such as yourself are what keep me going, really very grateful for that Richard!
Cheers to learning and growing together!
Great post, Aryan—your candid take on the fleeting highs and harsh realities of startup life hits close to home, especially the blurred lines between hustle and true ownership.
It echoes my own raw experience shared in dev where delayed salaries, fear-based management, and burnout culture turned excitement into doubt.
Appreciate you putting this out there—let's keep shining light on these truths so others can navigate smarter. 🚀
Yes Vasu, cheers to sharing these stories to help others navigate.
Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts! I'll definitely be reading your experience as well.
Good for you! I spent couple of years in startups and I know how exhausting it could be to work in that kind of places. But you learned a lot and you know what you DON'T want in your job. That's a big asset!
Sylwia, "knowing what you DON'T want is a big asset" — this hit hard. 💯
I spent 6 months at a startup where "fast-paced" really meant "no documentation, no onboarding, and figure it out yourself at 11 PM." I thought I was the problem. Turns out, some environments just aren't built for growth — they're built for survival.
Left that job, started freelancing, and now I actually enjoy coding again.
Thank you for validating this feeling. ❤️
Thank you so much Sylwia!
You're right, knowing what I DON'T want is better than knowing what I DO, and that is only learned through experiences like these. Silver-lining moment.
Such a thoughtful reflection on your startup experience! Your honest takeaways about the speed vs structure trade-off and the importance of maintaining relationships remind us that every job—whether brief or long-term—teaches valuable lessons. The courage to move on when something isn't right for you is itself a sign of good judgment. Thanks for sharing this candid perspective!
Thank you so much! I'm glad that you liked reading it!
This really captures how intense even a short startup stint can be. The clarity you gain—about people, pace, and priorities—often sticks longer than the job itself.
Exactly Harsh, these experiences all together shape and influence your decisions forever.
Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts!!
“Thanks a lot for reading and sharing your perspective. It truly means a lot!”
This is a powerful and necessary reflection. You’ve hit on a truth many miss: endurance is not the same as progress.
The 'gaslighting' you experienced—being called 'the engineer' while being told to just 'write a better prompt' to fix deep structural debt—is a massive red flag. It’s a disrespect for the craft, and as you said, bad systems quietly make capable people doubt themselves.
I’m glad you listened to your body. Nausea and dread are the 'canary in the coal mine' for a toxic environment. Leaving wasn't quitting; it was a senior-level decision to protect your ability to actually learn and grow.
Huge congrats on the new offer. It sounds like you’re moving from 'survival mode' to a place where you can actually build a foundation.
Thank you so much Shambhavi! Now that you say it, it was a disrespect to the craft and devs.
I always knew I wasn't going to stay there forever, but I didn't expect to leave as early as a month either. My family did expect me to stay for half a year or so but as better and more aligned opportunities came my way, they also agreed on me moving to the next right-er step. I do wonder if my opinions would have been respected if I were more experienced though.
Anyways, wishing you all the best and luck on your own endeavours!!!
"It's clear that pressure without structure leads not just to burnout but to a significant learning block as well. Every time I've encountered instability in a fast-paced environment, it's reinforced the necessity of clear ownership and defined roles. Speed can generate excitement, but without a solid framework, it sows chaos. Remember, growth is ultimately about having the right conditions to flourish! 🌱"
That's exactly right! Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
"Bad systems quietly make capable people doubt themselves" that is definitely a quote I’m carrying forward. Good luck with the new role! I know you will do great Aryan :)
Thank you so much Maame! Glad you found something useful reading my post! I'll say mission accomplished to that!
And thank you for the well wishes. (^^ゞ I wish you all the good luck as well!
Always welcome!
First jobs — especially at startups — are rarely perfect. But they teach you what you don't want, which is sometimes more valuable than knowing what you do want.
Thanks for sharing this honestly. A lot of juniors need to hear that it's okay to outgrow a role quickly and move on with gratitude, not guilt.
Exactly Harsh.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and your story, I sure hope this helps a lot of juniors.
Thank you! I really hope so too. If even a few juniors find it helpful, that makes sharing my story totally worth it!
speed loses structure when bugs began appearing in clusters.
I saw this so many times. No reconciliation, no taking a step back, just force push (pun intended) everything.
Lol nice pun (^^ゞ
Thank you for reading and sharing you thoughts Gábor!
this hits close to home. the startup speed vs quality tradeoff is real and nobody talks about it honestly enough.
i'm running my own thing now (solo indie dev) and the biggest lesson i took from my startup days: ship fast but own your tech debt. if you know it's held together with duct tape, at least write a comment saying "this is duct tape" so future-you doesn't lose a weekend debugging it.
also the "pressure vs growth" distinction is spot on. i've seen both sides — places where pressure made me sharper and places where it just made me tired. the difference is usually whether you're building something you believe in or just burning hours for someone else's vision.
That's great that you took the valuable lesson and now you apply it for yourself and you enjoy it!! Thanks for sharing your thoughts, burning hours for someone else's vision is truly exhausting, where you know you want to do more but after giving those peak performance hours there's barely anything left to do your own thing.
Wishing you the best on your journey!
appreciate that man! yeah exactly — giving your best hours to someone else's dream and then having nothing left for your own stuff is the worst feeling. now building my own things and the energy is completely different. good luck to you too!
"pressure without structure isn’t growth."
That hit hard. So true word.
Last year I was also in same situation except it was not a startup, but a toxic and abusing culture and non-structured pressure.
Almost giving 13-14 hours including the commute daily for whole 10 months, I was becoming unhealthy day-by-day untill they told me to resign. And I left that BS company.
I am sorry you had to go through that Ashish. Being told to resign because of health problems must have been tough. I hope you are doing better now.
Thank you for sharing you story, and I wish you good health and success in your career ahead!
yupp, rocking hard buddy.
Thanks
I really appreciate how honestly you broke this down. Especially the distinction between pressure and growth.
I’m currently considering joining an early-stage startup as a junior. It would be a strong opportunity to break into the field, but I’ve been reflecting on a similar concern: with heavy AI usage, I worry about becoming more of a prompt-driven bug fixer than actually developing core engineering skills and ownership.
Of course, I don’t know what the environment will look like yet, and I’m keeping an open mind. But your post gave me a clearer lens for what to pay attention to. Structure, trust, real ownership, and whether I’m learning or just bracing.
Thank you for sharing this. It’s a valuable perspective, especially for those of us early in our careers and willing to make tradeoffs to get in the door.
Thank you so very much! It makes me so happy that this is reaching the right audience, and is turning out to be actually helpful for you.
I'll recommend don't judge a book by it's cover, as an optimistic guy I too was impressed at first by the startup energy and speed but it didn't take long to figure out what was really going on here, I'm just happy to get through the month and leave with my salary.
So just go in, you might have a different experience entirely.
Wishing you the best and success in your career!! Don't forget to send a referral for me once you go big (≧︶≦))(￣▽￣ )ゞ
Raw startup truth. One month = lifetime of corporate lessons.
3 takeaways that hit home:
What was the single best decision you made those 30 days? 🚀
That’s a great way to frame it.
If I had to pick one decision, it was choosing to pay attention to my internal signals instead of overriding them just to endure longer.
Early on, I kept assuming that the discomfort was something I needed to “push through” to grow. But over time, I realized there’s a difference between productive pressure and structural instability. Once I saw that clearly, I stopped trying to force learning out of an environment that wasn’t supporting it.
That decision gave me space to redirect my energy toward places where growth felt sustainable again.
It was less about leaving quickly, and more about learning to trust my own judgment earlier.
Great lesson learnt! I hope you the very best :)
Thank you Charan! Wishing you all the best on you own journey!
Welcome to the club.
Now try doing that for 20 years+ = shipping, firefighting, owning systems end-to-end, dealing with chaos, responsibility, and expectations that never really stop.
What you described is real, and you handled it thoughtfully. Just understand this: environments like that aren’t rare - they’re common. Learning to recognize system maturity, ownership boundaries, and respect signals early will save you years of energy.
Take the lessons. Keep building. Protect your health.
Haha thank you, will definitely remember to keep this in mind after learning this lesson the hard way.
Yeah - I learned it the hard way as well.
I burned out badly at one point. Almost a full year where even small amounts of pressure were too much for my mental capacity. That’s the kind of outcome environments like that can lead to if you run in them long enough without boundaries.
So yeah - health really is the most important thing.
The tricky part is that most of us push it aside until it’s too late, and the body forces the lesson on us.
Just something worth keeping in mind as you move forward.
Thanks for sharing your experience and learnings, I will definitely keep them in mind.
This really resonated with me.
What stood out most wasn’t the chaos — it was the clarity you gained from it. You articulated something many early engineers struggle to name: ownership without trust isn’t growth, it’s pressure. And speed without structure eventually collapses under its own weight.
I’ve seen (and experienced) how fragile systems become when fundamentals are skipped in the name of momentum. Tools and prompts can accelerate output, but they can’t replace architecture, accountability, or engineering discipline.
The fact that you were able to separate self-doubt from system failure shows maturity beyond experience level. That awareness will compound far more than any single job ever could.
Wishing you environments that challenge you — not drain you.
Thank you so much Raj, for sharing your thoughts from your own experience, that kind of perspective is rare and also for the well wishes.
this post hit me so hard bc I am currently in a very similar situation (intern for 1 month then I got my full time offer and have been working with them for 1.5 months now) and I'm so tired and stressed all the time, I work 10-13 hours a day and I don't take days off and im also the least one getting paid, im always expected to be available whenever anyone needs me given I'm the only one with my role and it's just too much too handle. I'm planning to start applying at other companies bc I truly don't think I'll be able to handle this for longer. I'm so happy you were able to leave and found a better paying opportunity💗
I am sorry to hear that n. I really do hope that you get a better offer and a more stable job. I wish you all the good luck and strength to make it through this phase, as much as you hate it, I am sure there will be a silver lining in there somewhere for you. Keep working hard, me and all of the devs are proud of you for making it so far.
Wish you a successful career ahead! You're doing great! And with this experience here I am sure you'll find a better job in no time!
thank you so much for this💗
Your line about being "expected to fix things through prompts alone" really stood out. I've seen this exact pattern from the other side — as someone who's worked at Microsoft and now runs a dev agency. Founders who discover AI tools sometimes start believing the engineering is the easy part, and that anyone should be able to "just prompt it into working." That mindset creates exactly the dynamic you described: responsibility without ownership.
The part about your body reacting before your brain is something I wish more engineers talked about. Nausea on a commute isn't just stress — it's data. Good on you for reading it correctly and acting on it early rather than powering through for another six months.
Yes, exactly. That shift in perception, where prompting starts being seen as a substitute for engineering judgment, was at the center of the dynamic I experienced. It creates this strange situation where you're expected to deliver outcomes, but without being given the space to actually reason about the system.
What you said about the body reacting first really resonates. At the time I didn’t have the language for it, but in hindsight it was clear signal, not weakness. Learning to treat that as information instead of something to suppress was an important lesson for me.
I really appreciate you sharing your perspective, especially coming from both engineering and leadership. It helps put the experience into a broader context. Wishing you continued success with your agency as well!
Great post Aryan
Thank you very much Jubin!
I respect how you didn’t just paint the startup as bad or yourself as a victim , instead explained the system mismatch really well !!
wishing you a much healthier and more empowering journey ahead
Thanks a lot Ameen - I really appreciate how closely you read my comment. I was trying hard to stay positive and avoid anything negative, so it feels good that you picked up on the detail. Your well wishes are really kind, thank you! I wish you all the best with your health and your journey as well.
Your most welcome !!
This resonates deeply with my own early career transitions. The distinction you make between pressure and structure is spot-on - I've seen too many talented engineers burn out not because they can't handle challenges, but because they're trying to build on unstable foundations.
What struck me most was your point about responsibility without authority. That mismatch is toxic in any organization, but especially devastating in startups where every decision compounds. The fact that you recognized the difference between your self-worth and the system's dysfunction shows real maturity.
Your experience reinforces something I learned transitioning from large tech companies to smaller teams: good systems don't just organize work, they organize trust. When that breaks down, even the most motivated people start doubting themselves.
Thanks for sharing this honest reflection - these stories matter for helping others recognize when they're in similar situations.
Thank you for this, Mahima. The way you described systems organizing trust, not just work, is really going to stay with me.
At the time, I didn’t fully understand why the environment was affecting me so deeply, but in hindsight it makes sense. Without clarity and ownership, it becomes hard to stay confident in your own judgment, even if your fundamentals are sound.
I’m grateful I was able to step back early and see it for what it was. I really appreciate you sharing your perspective, especially coming from both large tech and smaller teams.
Yeah that happens when people are wearing blinders, and aren't listening to employees (coz they're "junior", so how are they supposed to know anything) ...
Good that you learned something there, but even better that you found something else and moved on!
Exactly leob. Thanks for writing this, really appreciate it.
P.S. u gave me a meme idea lol:
“Bad systems can quietly make capable people doubt themselves.”
It's no secret that a strong supporting environment can elevate anyone's self-confidence regardless of their capabilities. The right supporting system shall enhance and support personal growth while providing an individual with the opportunity to achieve great things based on their ability and potential. Conversely, an inadequate supporting system can hinder someone from becoming the person they were meant to be.
Exactly! Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this! Really appreciate it!
Thanks for sharing! I can relate to the subject since I spent 2 years in a Software Consulting Firm and the main thing I got out is an overwhelming sense of burnout.
I agree on the point you make about trust and respect. In small team environments, they are almost always the bottlenck.
Looking forward your next article!!🥇
Exactly Giacomo, trust and respect are the fundamentals that should always be there in no matter where you are.
Thank you so much for the support!!
Thanks for sharing your experience 👍🏼
Thank you for reading!!
thanks for sharing this post,
Thank you so much Gaurav!
Can you elaborate more on this- How to communicate in high-pressure environments?
Something I’m still learning myself, honestly.
For me, “communicating in high-pressure environments” means a few very practical things, nothing fancy.
Separating the problem from the emotion in the room. When things were tense, I had to focus on describing what was happening technically instead of reacting to how people were reacting.
Being very clear and simple. Under pressure, long explanations don’t land and are more likely to be misunderstood. I learned to stick to basics:
“Here’s the issue.”
“Here’s what’s causing it.”
“Here are the next steps.”
Nothing more.
Recognizing when communication isn’t about solving the problem, but about protecting your boundaries. Sometimes the healthiest thing is calmly stating what you can and cannot control, instead of trying to absorb responsibility for everything.
And maybe the hardest lesson: in very chaotic environments, good communication doesn’t always change outcomes, sometimes it just helps you stay clear-headed and not internalize stress that isn’t yours.
What stayed with me was this:
“What others say to you is a projection of them, and what you take from it is a reflection of you.”
I’m still figuring it out, but those were the main things that stayed with me from that period.