I am a victim of hi tech burnout and I want to share some insights I have on it. It’s the common story right, 60-80 hour weeks, multiple all nighters, lots of caffiene, and a drive to get that software written. After years of the physical and mental stress you hit the wall.

I think there is a common denominator for this burn out. I mean, if we’re working in a field we love, technology, then why do we get burnt out?

I am recovering from this burn out and wanted to share my story briefly in an attempt to draw out some insights.

My Short Story

I was a technophile at a young age… starting in elementary school in the early 90’s BBSing into university systems, developing simple DOS games and the like. Taught myself assembly and C for writing DOS device drivers, bootstraps, and TSRs – in pursuit of developing graphics libraries for a mini-OS a friend and I were working on. In high school I moved into web technologies as well as systems and applications development on the Windows platform.

After high school I was offered a scholarship from the Sacramento State dean of computer science to pursue both math and computer science BS degrees concurrently. I did for two semesters. I was recruited out of the university to become a developer and eventual CTO of WebRaiser Technologies.

WebRaiser is where my first burnout occured. I was part of the founding team that led to WebRaiser being bought by Flextronics Intl. I personally wrote most of the WebRaiser software and was the architect of it all. I also was a key player in operations and a minor player in sales, marketing, biz dev, and all those other hats you have to wear in a small business.

Building WebRaiser through organic growth and non-institutional financing was rough. Small startup, small team, small funding. But we built a hell of a product suite, a million lines of code, and one of the premier software players in the industry… we won the industry awards and reviews to prove it. And selling the company was the final validation of our efforts.

So with such a success story, successfully exiting a startup, how come this burn out still occured?

Note: You can read some more on my About page or at Lowe*Software.

Some Burnout Reasons

I’m a fan of lists, so let me list the reasons I burnt out:

1. Narrow focus. In order to succeed you need to have laser focus. This means limiting yourself to developing within tight guidelines and specifications. Nothing frivolous.
2. Budget based development. Time is money. Engineers like to write software, it’s in our nature. But in business it doesn’t always make sense to build everything and you have to ask yourself that “Make or buy?” question. Often times the answer is buy. Software integration is not as interesting as building from the ground up.
3. Business beckons. Working in hi-tech is not all technology. Whether it’s management and administration or documentation and requirements there is an element of business that you simply can’t escape, even if your title is “Software Engineer”. It’s even worse if your title is “CTO”. Working at high levels and working on the business is fun, but it encompasses a lot of time that a purist like myself would like to use focusing on tech.
4. The time warp. Small business moves fast, technology moves fast, and markets move fast. The speed of these things is often overestimated. It is very easy to get caught to the point that you’re over working compulsively and always feel like you’re behind.

The Common Denominator 

So what do these four points have in common, what is the common denominator? For me the common denominator is I strayed away from my passion of technology and the immersion in that technology. I strayed without knowing I had. I have a passion for technology and I have a passion to learn and discover. My career, even beyond WebRaiser, put blinders on my and forced me to go in a single direction.

The overcommitment of time, the narrow focus, the wearing of multiple hats. All forced me to abandon time for me to fulfill that need to create, explore, and discover; the immersion in technology that I love.

Progressively through my career, for the reasons above, I phased out personal research, projects, and group associations more and more. The time commitment, competitiveness, and drive gave me a skewed view on what I needed to do to succeed (well, I’m sure all the airplane rides also were a part of the lack of time).

I learned an immense amount through WebRaiser and through my career so far. I know I’ll continue to learn. I wouldn’t trade the time spent there for anything; I made some great relationships (shout out to you Dave!) and learned so much.

What do I do now?

So what would I suggest now? Well, I would suggest making time, remembering why you got into technology, and don’t get caught up in the percieved speed of the startup. We need to work hard, but we don’t need to self sacrafice.

If you are going to overcommit yourself to a single cause, it is a great experience, but be cognizant of what’s going on. Don’t get lost. And keep your passions fed, whatever they are.