War Story: How I Burned Out as a Senior Engineer at Google and Switched to a 40-Hour Work Week at Stripe

I still remember the day I hit send on my resignation email to Google. It was a Tuesday at 5:03 PM, exactly three minutes after I’d finished my last 70-hour work week. For seven years, I’d worn my senior engineer title like a badge of honor, racking up promotions, leading high-impact infrastructure projects, and telling myself the 60- to 70-hour weeks, constant on-call shifts, and weekend code reviews were just part of the gig.

By month 84, the gig was killing me. I’d lost 15 pounds I didn’t have to lose, my sleep was a mess of 3-hour stretches interrupted by Slack notifications, and I’d missed my daughter’s kindergarten graduation, my anniversary dinner, and three consecutive therapy appointments because of last-minute production outages. The final straw came during a 2 AM on-call shift: I was debugging a latency spike in Google Cloud’s storage layer when I had a full-blown panic attack, gasping for air in my home office while my pager blared. That’s when I admitted I was burned out.

The Google Grind

When I joined Google out of grad school, the pace felt exciting. Free meals, top-tier colleagues, the chance to work on systems used by billions of people. But as I moved up to senior engineer, the expectations shifted. I was expected to mentor junior engineers, lead cross-team initiatives, review 50+ pull requests a week, and be available for meetings across three time zones. “Crunch time” wasn’t a phase, it was the default. When I asked my manager about cutting back to 50 hours a week, they laughed: “You’re a senior engineer at Google. If you’re not working 60 hours, you’re not pulling your weight.”

I tried to push back anyway. I turned off Slack notifications after 8 PM. I stopped volunteering for extra projects. But the culture was relentless: colleagues would email me at 10 PM expecting responses by morning, production issues didn’t care about my boundaries, and I still felt guilty every time I left the office before 7 PM. The burnout crept in slowly: first I lost my passion for coding, then I started dreading waking up, then I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt happy.

Looking for an Out

I started applying to jobs quietly in January 2023. I didn’t care about titles or prestige anymore. I cared about one thing: a 40-hour work week, no exceptions. I interviewed at three FAANG companies, all of which gave me the same line: “We value work-life balance, but we’re fast-paced, so occasional overtime is expected.” Then I got a call from a recruiter at Stripe.

During my first phone screen, I asked the hiring manager point-blank: “What’s the average work week here? Do people work weekends? Is on-call mandatory?” They didn’t hesitate: “We have a strict 40-hour work week policy. No one is expected to work past 6 PM or on weekends. On-call shifts are 1 week every 8 weeks, with a dedicated backup, and we encourage people to take mental health days whenever they need them. We measure output, not hours.” I almost cried on the phone.

Adjusting to 40 Hours

I joined Stripe’s payments infrastructure team in March 2023, and the first month was weird. I kept waking up at 6 AM ready to start work, then realized I didn’t have to. I’d finish my tasks by 4 PM and sit at my desk staring at my screen, waiting for more work to appear. My manager noticed and pulled me aside: “You’re done when your work is done. Go for a walk. Pick up your kid from school. We don’t want you burning out.”

It took three months to fully adjust. I started going to the gym again. I coached my son’s soccer team. I read books that weren’t technical manuals. I slept 8 hours a night for the first time in years. And here’s the kicker: I’m more productive now than I was at Google. When I was working 70 hours, I spent half my time in meetings, context-switching between 10 projects, and fixing mistakes I’d made because I was exhausted. At Stripe, I work 40 focused hours, and I get more done in a week than I used to in two.

What I Learned

Burnout isn’t a badge of honor. It’s not a sign that you’re working hard enough, it’s a sign that you’re working too hard. The tech industry has normalized 60-hour work weeks as a requirement for success, but that’s a lie. You don’t have to grind yourself into the ground to be a good engineer. You don’t have to stay at a prestigious company if it’s destroying your mental health.

Switching to a 40-hour work week didn’t stall my career. I’m still a senior engineer, I’m still working on impactful projects, and I’m still learning every day. The difference is I go home at 5 PM and actually want to be there. I haven’t had a panic attack in 18 months. I remember my anniversary now. And for the first time in years, I love coding again.

If you’re reading this and you’re burned out: it’s okay to leave. It’s okay to prioritize your health over a title. It’s okay to work 40 hours a week. You’re not lazy. You’re human.