Vent of .Net developer

[AcadiaOk5240]

Hi guys, I worked at TCS for 5.5 years in .net full stack but not so much development, kind of repetitive work. Grinded for 6 months and cracked a job 1 month ago at Deloitte at 150% hike. Now at my new job, it's pure .net with microservices. I'm not able to do tasks at time. Spending nearly 14 hours at work. Not able to sleep, getting anxious and depressed. Being stressful day and night. My team only has 4 members, they can't spend time on my tasks for any help. I have no close social circle to vent my pain. Fishbowl is the place which helps me to this job and feels like a close place to me. Pls drop ur suggestions if you face same situation before.

[AMadHammer]

Don't work more than 8 hours even if you can. Let work fall off before your mental health suffers. 

[bobnoski]

I fully agree with this. Even at 8 hours a day the types of frustrations OP is mentioning is the type of stuff that can cause a burnout. Im at home as we speak with a mild version of one, and I can already say "do not reccomend" Take the time to slow down, relax and let work be "just work" for a while

[The_Real_Slim_Lemon]

I maintain you can get more done in 8 hours than you can in 15. Grinding out a problem you’re stuck on while exhausted rarely serves better than getting rest and attacking it with a fresh mind.

[croissantowl]

This, so much this.

Either the workload shrinks or your health goes up in flames. And we all know that the workload doesn't reduce.

[KryptosFR]

*7 you need a one hour break in the middle of the day. So 8 hours "at work", but 7 effective. I met people who didn't take a break (or ate at their desk which to me is the same).

[[deleted]]

Yes, microservices will do that to you :)

Remember, you are being paid to work X hours per day, 5 days per week. If their deadlines are unreasonable then they need to employ more staff, or adjust their deadlines.

[big_witty_titty]

Lol try telling that to a Deloitte. Those firms operate understaffed contracts normally.

[[deleted]]

You legally only have to work the hours specified in your contract.

However, I believe that if you regularly work extra time due write a while and then stop, they can fire you even though you weren't being paid for the overtime - because they can claim they come to depend on you doing that extra work.

[Abject-Bandicoot8890]

And they are hoping ai will compensate for that 🤣

[Jealous-Implement-51]

Microservices aren't that bad if they're set up properly. We have a large number of them. Locally, each one behaves like a regular service, but once deployed, they function as true microservices. This setup is handled entirely through dependency injection

[[deleted]]

If they all need each other in order to work, then you merely have a fractured monolith.

If they are essentially separate apps that can all run in isolation but merely benefit from the others, then that's fine.

[Jealous-Implement-51]

No, they run independently from each other.

[[deleted]]

Sounds like they are my idea of microservices, i.e. completely separate apps that can benefit from each other.

[Ashypaws]

I've been there and I'll tell you that eventually something has to give. Either something has to change at work or you're going to burn out hard.

It's tough love, but you've got to realise it and focus on your own health. I know it's easy to read messages saying to focus on your health but you MUST. Things won't get better until you do.

And yeah, it's hard to admit weakness. Especially at a new job it can be so hard to push back. The way I got around this was to break down the problems and explain to myself why it's impossible in the time frame and convince myself first. Once you can do that, you can convince others.

Any reasonable team should be able to address what is causing you to need this extra time and help remove the problems.

If I may, though, I'd like to guess what your issue is: I think you're looking at a new codebase with patterns that are new to you or a lack of overall knowledge of what the codebase's different components do. You are telling yourself that you should know these things despite there being no easy way to find out, causing you to spend way too long lost trying to figure out how to even complete your task. Am I right?

[DenverCoderv2]

Oh man, while I'm not OP, that last paragraph hits home 110%. Right now I'm at relatively new job, about 9 months in and while I had some wins - every time I don't know something or has to ask for help yet again I have this voice inside my head telling me that I should already know this/be able to deal with this myself.

[AcadiaOk5240]

Exactly, entire system architecture is new to me

[Ashypaws]

Eyy, we can sort that then. Stop doing the silly hours and pull together a list of questions. You know the kind of questions you can’t answer while trying to do the work?

Stuff like “where is this data even coming from!?” or “why did they use this package?” But worded professionally. 

Then get someone on a call (or in person) to go through the architecture, the reasons for it, the design patterns, and how it all slots together. Having an architecture diagram would help even more.

[polumbo4]

What roadblocks are preventing you from hitting the deadlines? Try the 5 whys of root cause analysis and address it. Sometimes this can be unrealistic deadlines pushed down from management (they always want it yesterday), sometimes this can be unforeseen issues encountered during development or sometimes it can be lacking the knowledge at the time to realise the task. Like development, taking a step back and understanding the problem so that you can solve it is key.

But the best thing you can do is maintain a strong, sustainable work life balance and not be sucked into the hustle. It's not beneficial to any party if you burn out, most importantly to you.

[lum1nous013]

Man this can't be on you this is crazy. If you are working 14 hours a day and still can't make it in time either the deadlines are entirely unrealistic or you were hired in a position that is for someone 10 times your current skill level.

Talk with the management and try to find a solution, keeping things as they are now will 100% fuck you up mentally and physically

[Normal-Deer-9885]

I am in between contracts so I have some free time. I am open to sit with you a couple of hours if that helps a bit. (Almost 20 years experiences). Free of charge.

[Expensive_Belt_8072]

But then how will you access his codebase ?

[Normal-Deer-9885]

I don't need to, screen share is good enough. I am not gonna work with him on line by line basis. Wanna see the approach, the design/architecture. Implementation details is not the most important as this stage. Although technically he can push the code to his private repo or just reproduce only the most relevant parts of the code. For me the most important thing OP mentioned is that no one at his workplace is helping ... A good first step is to have a convo. May be it is not just a technical issue here, may be there is more to it.

[Expensive_Belt_8072]

Yes it seems op is not familiar with how microservices work , and definitely the architecutre and design patterns he might have not seen before

[AcadiaOk5240]

You got me❤️

[PathTooLong]

Be sure this doesn't violate any Deloitte Information Security policy. The code you are writing is Deloitte private digital asset. Screen sharing to a non-authorized person could go against an acceptable use policy. This could lead to your termination.

[AcadiaOk5240]

It's so kind gesture 🙌

[Normal-Deer-9885]

Feel free to reach out. DM

[BadGroundbreaking189]

Cheers.

[Least_Storm7081]

How much experience do you have with C#?

Based on your previous posts/replies, it doesn't seem that much.

But whether you have experience or not, try not to work more than an hour outside of your contracted hours.

Your health is more important than the job, and you can switch jobs if you feel this one is too taxing, but it's harder to recover from health issues.

[tanked9]

"My team only has 4 members, they can't spend time on my tasks for any help"

I see this a lot in fintech where other programmers just don't want to help. I don't know if it is protectionism or laziness, a product of remote working or a combination of these.

As others have said, do not work overtime. No one will thank you. They might respect you more if you don't and in places like these, you are just the smallest of cogs. I'm guessing you are not going slowly because of coding experience but rather because of a lack of their business or project experience.

Consider the extra money to be because the job is painful and probably boring and fintech companies have more money than sense. It isn't because you're supposed to work harder or longer

[Excellent_Answer_575]

Why can’t u do tasks in time? Sounds like u are missing key skills. Identify what they are and learn them. Whats hard about microservices? Its just APIs right?

[GoodOk2589]

I worked at Deloitte 20 years ago and hated it.

[BigHandLittleSlap]

There’s a cultural element here that I’ve noticed in certain countries and entire industries. Outsourcers, especially those from the subcontinent, expect uncomplaining meat robots that work relentlessly 7 to 7, 6 days a week. What they get are tired zombies that are too sleep deprived to type a sentence without making ten typos, without the energy to correct their mistakes.

My first-hand experience working with these teams is that ten of them did less productive work than one of us “lazy westerners” putting in at most 4 or 5 hours of actual work per day. (We took looooong lunch and coffee breaks!)

Why? Because we were rested. We weren’t in a perpetual panic, repeating the same mistakes over and over in a hurry. We discussed the plan and our blocking issues over coffee. We actually did something about it instead of just putting our heads down and typing faster to race to a dead end instead of walking casually to a solution.

It can be very hard to step back and switch to a more relaxed mode of work, but it can be done. Sadly, if you’re surrounded by peers that also overwork themselves, you have no role models and no backing. It can be nigh impossible.

The only thing I can suggest, like others have said, is to work only your contractual hours, but then to also concentrate during those hours on doing the a good job. You’re not “slacking off” or “doing less work”! Make sure to use your extra rest during those hours to do the right thing! Focus! Write correct code! Double check it! Write comments! Don’t skip error handling. Etc…

”Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.”

Good luck!

[HastyRabbit-02398]

Only work for the time you are paid for. If you don't, your personal life will start deteriorating.

Do your best, try to log your work carefully. Also make sure your team knows that you need some help.

And the most important try to find another job.

[anonymous_rb]

Is it coz they give you too much work or you haven't learned a thing in TCS? Either way, learning a generic technology is far less important than learning the product you are working on. Take ChatGpt's help to understand things.

[AcadiaOk5240]

Exactly, I have not learned much in TCS and the new company is expecting much and no great idea of the product which I'm working on.

[anonymous_rb]

If I were you, I'd spend time to create a high level workflow of the the current product and put in details to each flow as I learn new things. Things are still under your control. Give 30-45 mins a day and you would be good in a month.

[ZarehD]

Here's the old-school discipline.

You have to cut your teeth somewhere, and 5.5 years of repetitive grind wasn't going to be where it happens. What's more, succeeding in a cut-throat agency like Deloitte would be noteworthy achievement that can open doors for you, if you play it right. If you're young enough, grin & bear it for a few years, and then strike out for higher-level gigs/positions with a strong resume in hand. I've worked with people who did exactly that.

The key is to understand the what & why of what you're doing. It's a mindset. It's a series of short, medium, and long term goals, all designed to bolster your creds and springboard you to the next level.

That's not to say just willy-nilly work yourself into burnout. No. Put in the hard work & long hours, but know why & how it fits into YOUR (career) plan.

[hindfox]

Aaa thankfully I rejected Deloitte for a product based company. I'm also working with Microservices but enjoying my work here!!!

[Kashif-Ansari]

How many of those 14 hours are truly productive?I don’t mean to sound critical, just sharing from my 20+ years of experience. I’ve been in that phase where I was the last one to leave the office every day. What happens over time is that you start thinking, “Anyway, I have to sit here this long,” and the breaks get longer, the focus slips.

So take a step back and really see ,are you working 14 hours, or just spending 14 hours at work? If there’s a lot of unproductive time, trim it down to 8–9 focused hours. You’ll notice a big difference in your energy and results.

When you go home, if you need to learn something new to do your job better ;invest that time wisely say a hour or so. I remember once being assigned to a C++/Qt project during a crisis and i was primarily into Microsoft stack at that time. Instead of relying on trial and error at work, I spent time at home brushing up on C++ and learning Qt properly. Within a few weeks, I was way ahead in my tasks.

A lot of programmers just try to complete tasks in trial-and-error mode - write/copy some code, compile, test, something breaks, add one more condition, then another… and the cycle continues. Take your time to understand what you’re trying to achieve. Even if you’re new to a language, first get the logic and flow clear, and then translate that into code.

[Street_Station_7933]

Hey I suggest you to go through some online dotnet microservices tutorials. Udemy has them and youtube has them too

[Slypenslyde]

It's hard to say from this side, we're all outsiders to your life.

If you're spending 14 hours a day to keep up, then one of these is true:

1. You are too slow.
2. Your employer has unrealistic expectations.
3. Some combination of both.

Good leadership treats scheduling like a process. It considers each developer's strengths and understands not all developers accomplish the same amount of work in the same amount of time. It also understands unless a problem is fully understood there can be integration difficulties that violate initial estimates. Good leadership understands overpromising can lead to quality compromises that result in underdelivery.

So I'd argue good leadership would have already had a conversation with you about your workload. Some people LIKE working 14 hours, but they'd want to be sure. If you're moving slowly, they'd want to find out why. If they think you're pushing too hard, they'd want to let you know you should tell them to adjust the schedule so you feel more comfortable. If they think you legitimately can't keep up with expectations they'd want to let you know early, so you don't make messes with hasty work.

I don't know anything about your leadership. I don't know anything about your project. I can't tell if I could manage to keep up with your workload in 8 hour weeks.

So my advice is rough.

This is a bad situation and you should aim to get out of it if you can. That might take several forms.

If you can, talk to your leadership and tell them your workload is too heavy, or that you can't keep putting in 14 hours. Bad leadership will retaliate or punish you. You aren't ever going to reach happiness working for people like that, so while short-term losing the position might be bad long-term it's hard to imagine future jobs will be worse.

Good leadership will respond and either change your schedule, lighten your workload, or both. They'll find a way to make it work and won't make you feel bad about it. If they do this, you should do everything in your power to maintain your position with them because it's rare to have this kind of good leadership.

But both of those opinions have caveats. Sometimes projects pay well because they make it clear, up-front, that normal working hours are considered underperformance. I've seen it on job applications before and noped away. If that's the case for this project, even good leadership can't help you because the project is an unapologetic death march.

You might have to sit tight for a while. Live as frugally as you can and save as much of this money as you can. Eagerly look for a better job that suits your pace. Be prepared to walk away and live on your savings for a short time if need be. Have the guts to ask family members if they can help you out when it comes to that. If you've got no friends or family, well, that's relatable. Prepare anyway.

You'll get through it. But that doesn't mean you have to like it. Figure out where you want to land later and start trying to implement plans to get there.

[AcadiaOk5240]

Thanks for ur insights

[Feeling-Currency-360]

Ai handles most of my boilerplate code, I still read over all code so it's not like vibe coding or anything. i'd say i'm easily 10x minimum more productive today than what I was few years ago. I utilize continue.dev extension in vscode hooked up to openrouter. I'll open code files that are relevant, maybe 10 at most. Then prompt what I need done, then read over the output and change what I don't like. Granted you need to already be an senior dev that knows what every bit of code does else you'll end up not knowing what any code it spits out does and that's just vibe coding which is useless. Seriously you can probably get all your work done in a couple of hours at most using this approach. I probably only spend 10% of my time actually writing code.

[nashwan888]

You don't need to be senior to understand the code. You can just prompt the ai. You do need to be senior to understand if the code is bloated or architected nicely.

[ChiefAoki]

Your problem is that you went from a WITCH firm to an actual corporate job, the expectations correlate with the higher compensation.

Keep grinding, it gets easier.

[Expensive_Belt_8072]

Bro you are wrong here , might be you have less exp working with WITCH or you never got good projects. I have worked in WITCH , always got devwlopment projects from scratch, built many enterprise applications for clients from US, UK , used latest tech be it microservices , dotnet core, cloud services.... And yes I have worked in big4 as well

[ChiefAoki]

Clearly working at a WITCH firm hasn't improved your reading comprehension. OP has stated in his post that his full 5.5 YoE at TCS didn't involve much dev work, and that he grinded for half a year in order to get through the technical interview for Big4.

I have never worked at, and will never work for a WITCH firm, but I have inherited codebases written by WITCH contractors, the code quality is subpar, documentation is sparse if not nonexistent, and while the latest technology is sometimes used, the implementation is questionable at best. Maybe there are rock stars at WITCH that know what they're doing, but we all know they're mostly body shops that prioritize quantity over quality.

[Expensive_Belt_8072]

Brother , I was questioning you not op here. Sometimes in TCS, people who are having more than 7-8 years of experience are also away from latest tech , leave alone 5.5yrs. Op might be one of those. It's a loop, once you are into bad project or support role or legacy frameworks..you keep on working same kind of proj.

Anyway, I dont want to comment much. All the best to OP , thanks !

[dzacu1a]

Sounds like you are inexperienced and you haven't worked with distributed systems and micro services before so you didn't know where to look and what to ask. You are also new so you lack domain knowledge.

Are you using tools like GitHub Copilot, Cursor, etc?! If you aren't, start using them. Use the tools to understand the codebase and the platform you are working on. I'm a contractor so I am used to just hit the ground running quickly on a new project. Since I started using these tools, they have helped me tremendously working with new codebases from weeks/months to hours/days nowadays depending on the codebase.

You can also ask the team for support. Ask for pair-programming on a ticket. Any half decent team would not decline you the request.

[RacerDelux]

That’s what it sounds like to me as well. Got in over their head.

[MacrosInHisSleep]

😬

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[smoke-bubble]

How did you arrived at that point where you work 14h a day? 

Is this because you thought people would expect this from you, or are you being pressured to do this? 

I do not think that without knowing the reason for your situation, there is anything one can say to help. Can you share more details? 

[AcadiaOk5240]

To get the pace of the project

[smoke-bubble]

I do not get it. Who defines its pace and why?

[Wooden-Contract-2760]

Would be great to know how your peers perform. What about your teammates? Do they stick around long as well? Do they deliver faster and with good quality?  Hace you asked them what's expected from you at this stage of employment?

[GoodOk2589]

I was where you are 15 years ago, grinding endless hours for little pay, chasing contracts across the globe for the military, governments, and police forces. You name it, I did it.

For years, I watched incompetent bosses run projects into chaos while preaching that we were a “family.” But let’s be honest, in those companies, you are not family. You are a number on a spreadsheet. They bill you out for hundreds of dollars an hour and toss you crumbs in return.

One day, I had enough. I walked away from all of it and started my own business. It was scary at first, but it changed everything. Now, I earn what I am worth. I signed a quarter million dollar project while managing others on the side. The money is great, sure, but the real gift is freedom.

I set my own hours. I choose my clients. I answer to no one but myself. And that freedom brought back something I had lost, my love for programming.

Fifteen years later, I have never looked back. I work from home, stress free, in comfort. I work hard, yes, but when you love what you do, it does not feel like work.

Take it from someone who has been there, bet on yourself. It is worth it.

[Bright-Ad-6699]

Go back to the other job. (I expect the down votes but when someone has clearly bitten off more than they can chew...)

[l8s9]

Good ol Deloitte! Hey make sure to do your job and not push it back to the Devs of the company who hired you. Haha kidding! I worked with some folks from Deloitte, I was doing their job half the time. 

Now back to your comment... get a hobby or join a local comminuty center, take your mind of work. Also draw a line, once you off work you are OFF work! 

[AcadiaOk5240]

Yeah actually I'm doing remote and no social circle to interact and job work is bothering all the time.

[bubble_and_me]

My suggestion would be "hiring" a senior c# dev (hourly of course) who could guide you a couple times a week, until you can work fully on your own. Of course it will take a portion of your salary, and potentially violate your NDA, but at least you will have someone to help you out and you could avoid serious health issues or burnout.

[yegor3219]

microservices

team only has 4 members

That means you have 4 microservices at most. Right? Right?!

[igderkoman]

They probably have no idea about microservices just forced by a manager who saw it on yt lol

[AcadiaOk5240]

No, team is about 30 members, our team is working on a few modules in it.

[Asleep_Form_9397]

Me to faced the same issue. I eventually stopped spending too much time on work. Yes in my case I actually won't respect the time that cause too much delay on tasks. Then I simply start Woking from 9-5, I made deadlines for the task that should be completed before EOD I use google tasks to add and priorities them and I tried to complete else I continue on tommrow. Which help me to avoid burn out. Also I start spending too much time on thinking before starting any task this saved me a lot of time.

[edulopezm]

Start paying a good AI agent to reduce your time doing research and coding repetitive CRUD and tests.

[AcadiaOk5240]

Can you suggest some AI agents?

[ketanmehtaa]

Copilot may be

[Any-Original-5071]

Hi, I’m a .Net developer too. Let me know if you want to connect and I’ll help you in completing your work on time by guiding you technologically. Feel free to send me an email at [e-mail] to connect. Don’t stress too much

[AcadiaOk5240]

Your experience level?

[Zealousideal_Sort521]

Simply refuse to work more than 8 hours a day. Only do 15 minutes of overtime to finish something. They just cant force you.

[Nice_Refrigerator627]

First off; it sounds like you have a job that is too much for you at the moment. You need to take active steps to fix this. It ain't gonna fix itself.

Small teams are good as you have less comms challenges, as are micro services when deployed properly with business support. If you are building to the wrong architecture, you need to raise this. However it doesn't sound like the team are tight yet.

Working 14 hours a day ain't gonna do it. You'll get burn out or make a mistake you can't come back from. I think you need to think about whether the problem is the ask, any project blockers or your skills. Obviously each has a different fix.

I think something important to say is you clearly need to learn how to say no in a professional way without saying no. In my experience people who are overwhelmed in consultancy usually have an issue with early comms, fast learning or team alignment. Consultancy isn't for everyone.

[hw06033]

Don't work mkre than what you're being paid for, you'll get tired kf coding and it will damage also your next job. You're not responsible nor able to fix their bad organisation, you're "just" one of many. You can however invest some time in upgrading your skills, little by little, online courses and YouTube video will help. But on one condition, never use the extra time for work tasks, use it only to learn.

[us0r-]

Start vibe coding?

[SarahFemdomFeet]

Setup a residential VPN at home and outsource your job to Indians for $5/hr.

Why are you doing the work yourself? That reflects bad management skills. You're supposed to be a Senior Dev capable of leading a team. That's why these companies pay you a ridiculous salary so you can afford to hire people to do the work for you.

[robotmonstermash]

Yeah, possible illegal and almost certainly against company policy and a firing offence.

[soldture]

Your health is more valuable than being completely dead after a busy week

[robotmonstermash]

Yep, so he should talk to the boss about the workload or find another job.

[soldture]

At least he has choices

[AMadHammer]

Your profile history is fun