I recently accepted a job that pays roughly four to five times more than my previous one, so it has been a major financial improvement. The downside is that I'm the only developer at a fast-moving agency, and there are no reliable working hours. The founder pushes for rapid delivery, while project scope sometimes expands after work has already started.
I understand that some of this comes with agency and startup work, but it is affecting the rest of my life. By the end of the day, I have almost no energy for exercise, hobbies, learning, or working on my own ideas. I often feel completely drained and spend my evenings doing nothing.
I don't want to resign impulsively because the salary is excellent, but I also don't want to spend the next year consumed by work. I'm considering setting clearer boundaries, asking for additional support, or looking for a better-balanced role without giving up too much income. For anyone who has dealt with something similar, what practical steps helped you protect your health and personal time?
4 Answers
Don’t quit without a plan, especially in a difficult job market. Keep the income for now, build an emergency fund, and quietly search for roles with similar pay and better boundaries. A strong salary can give you the freedom to leave later, but only if you save enough and set a concrete target instead of endlessly tolerating the situation. Also remember that being busy every evening has a real cost: less health, fewer relationships, and no energy for the things you actually care about.
It sounds like you may be questioning whether this career is what you want long term, especially since you’re interested in psychology, philosophy, and creating your own products. Don’t pressure yourself to build a SaaS or completely reinvent your life while exhausted. First recover some energy through sleep, proper meals, time off, and firm work limits. Once you have breathing room, you can decide whether to stay, change jobs, or gradually build something else.
The fear of losing the job can make it feel impossible to set boundaries, but constantly operating at full capacity is not sustainable either. Protecting your health is part of protecting your ability to work.
Try fixing the working arrangement before giving up the salary. You could commit to a normal workweek except for genuinely urgent situations and explain that the workload requires another developer. Another option is offering to take a somewhat lower salary in exchange for hiring someone to share the workload. If the company refuses every reasonable boundary, that tells you the problem is structural rather than temporary.
If the work is important enough to demand constant availability, it is important enough to have more than one person responsible for it. A company that depends entirely on one exhausted developer is already taking a serious risk.
Have an honest conversation with the founder before deciding to leave. Explain that the current pace is causing burnout and propose specific changes: defined working hours, clearer priorities, limits on last-minute scope changes, and realistic deadlines. Since you’re the only developer, replacing you would probably be difficult, so you may have more leverage than you think. The key is to raise the issue now instead of waiting until your performance or health collapses.
I made the mistake of waiting too long in a similar situation. Once I finally spoke up, the founder was more understanding than expected because they had assumed everything was fine since I kept delivering.
I eventually took a lower-paying, part-time contract after a long period of stress, and the improvement in my happiness was enormous. The highest salary is not always the best overall deal if it leaves you with no life outside work.