[jplr8922]

I also had similar feelings and experiences very early in my career.

Here are my thoughts

1) Burnout is not a workload problem, it is related to your subjective perception of the meaning behind that workload

2) Ultimately, the 'meaning' you attribute is related to your desired identity

3) The company where you work may change, but you may also change

4) You have to find and negotiate a role related to your long term desired core identity

Good luck!

[Clubber]

>1) Burnout is not a workload problem, it is related to your subjective perception of the meaning behind that workload

When I first started in the 1990s, we didn't have scrum / sprints. We used to release quarterly (this was a software shop that sold to around 200 clients). After each quarterly release, we felt a massive sense of accomplishment, especially when hitting the deadline and our scope. We would all join up and have a party at someone's house to celebrate with a release party. We took a few days off after a release. I feel that scrum / sprint ticketing style of work really took that sense of accomplishment away, or significantly diminished it. I think this also leads to higher burnout. It feels like it's now just a ticket grind and not much of a sense of accomplishment as it was before.

[jplr8922]

Very interesting. I know my opinion on this topic is not normal, but I believe that some kind of 'party' which gives a sense of 'accomplishment' is a missing ritual for scrum-agile. We deeply need some kind of religious celebration to give meaning to our work! Few individual are going to be able to cope in a purely cyclical view of their work, where the pain and sacrifices start over and over again without a sense of accomplishment. Why are programmers expected to behave like Nietzsche's superman?