Experiencing Burnout in IT? Here’s Why

Leadership

Are you feeling sick to your stomach on Sunday afternoon when you think about starting work on Monday? Or maybe you are under constant stress and pressure of not delivering everything you have on your task list? Not being up to date with everything that’s changing in the Tech world? Do you have moments of energy so low that you don’t even want to get out of bed to start working?

If you said “YES” to at least one of the above, it might mean that you’re in the middle of burnout. A lack of power, energy, intrinsic motivation, and engagement to do things at work.

Why is burnout a new pandemic, especially in the tech world? I see so many leaders, startup Founders and team members who are experiencing that state than I can count. That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the subject and give you 2 things: The root cause analyses and some solutions that you can take and implement. So, if you are this person or you know somebody who is in the burnout zone, keep reading.

Burnout Root Cause No. 1: Stretching Too Much

The first root cause of burnout is staying in the stretch zone too much. In the article about OKRs, I gave you 4 zones of efficiency and growth: Bored, Comfort, Stretch, and Burnout Zone. When we are in the Comfort Zone too much, there’s no growth, and we can go into the Bored Zone. When we are in the Stretch Zone too much, we can go into the Burnout Zone.

If you put yourself under too much pressure, you want to learn too much in a super short period of time, if you take on responsibilities that you’re not ready for or prepared to… You can go into burnout very easily.

So, the question is: Do you push yourself too hard? Do you demand of yourself the things that you’re not so demanding about when it comes to others?

And don’t get me wrong here. I’m a demanding person. I push myself every single day, but it costs a lot. And I’ve learned it the hard way because I pushed myself and then pushed myself and then I got sick. So, it was the wakeup call for me: To take care of my health and get my priorities straight. Do I still have moments of exhaustion? Sure, I have. But I also know that the best way is to move from Comfort to Stretch Zone in balance to prevent burnout.

Diluted focus gives you diluted results. Always.

The burnout among IT professionals, leaders, C-level people, Founders, and Co-founders in the startup setup is well-documented and a growing issue. So, it’s not like it wasn’t visible in the past, and it appeared like today. It’s growing, and it’s a lot of research, a lot of studies about this issue.

Burnout Root Cause No. 2: Excessive Workload

Another root cause is excessive workload and working long hours. Of course. Especially when you are a Founder or Co-founder, when you are building your business from scratch. But it should be a phase, not a day-to-day reality until the rest of your life.

So, we have heavy workloads and frequent overtime. When you work as a highly responsible person (the higher position in the org chart, the more responsibilities you have), there’s a pattern of an expectation, mostly unspoken, to be constantly available. It’s also attached to the SME level; it seems like everybody experiences it. And we have numbers to show us how much it cost. The research of the ISACA Tech Workplace and Culture survey from March 2025 shows that 54 % of IT professionals have heavy workloads, and 43 % point to long hours as the primary drivers of burnout.

We have more. The same research is talking about tight deadlines, 41% respondents say that they lack resources, 41 % underlines unsupportive management, also 41% the lack of appreciation.

Burnout Root Cause No. 3: Constant High Pressure

Another bucket of the burnout root causes in tech is high pressure work environment. When you work in a startup environment, it is super high-pressure because we are going for the next round of investment, or maybe we have a VC on board, and they require results because they invested and they want to get the money back. There’s always going to be pressure when it comes to money, startup setup or the corporate world.

But we also have a high pressure of an expectation for innovation and rapid delivery. Because the world is shifting, and technology is changing so fast that it’s like being on a mission all the time. Tight deadlines, high expectations. Constant misery of the business because they’re not happy with the deadlines, with the functionalities that we deliver.

Burnout Root Cause No. 4: Continuous Learning Demand

In connection with that, the next part is the rapid technological change in continuous learning demand. So, it adds up to the pressure as well, because we need to continually update skills, especially Subject Matter Experts, engineers, and leaders.

We like it or not, we cannot know everything. And I know that a lot of Thinkers are not on board with me on that one, but it is impossible to be up to date with everything. But a lot of professionals are overwhelmed by the pressure to learn new tools and practices while managing the existing responsibilities, tasks, projects, and initiatives, because it is like having two jobs. So, one, my day job is to keep the machine running, and the next job, the second part of it, is to keep up. And it can be a cause of burnout because it’s impossible. After all, it’s a never-ending story. It’s impossible to know everything.

Burnout Root Cause No. 5: Work-Life Imbalance

The next one is work-life imbalance and blurred boundaries. So, it is a shift, and I think it started around 2015-2016 when more companies decided to allow remote work, especially global organizations. And then COVID happened, and a lot of teams, especially tech teams, started to work 100 % remote. A lot of them never came back to the offices and maybe never will. But as beautiful as it looks, the shifts to remote work blurred the lines between professional and personal life, making it much harder to disconnect, recharge, just stop working or thinking about work because the work is at home and home is at work. So quite often, there is no boundary, even a physical boundary like the doors of the car or the subway that we take to go to the office.

Coming back to the study on ISACA, 19 % of IT professionals report a lack of work-life balance. So, one-fifth of the population has a problem like that. They cannot rest. They cannot recharge. They don’t spend quality time with their families, with their friends. They don’t invest time in learning, having hobbies or sports, eating healthy, or sleeping. Lack of care about their mental and physical health, as well as good quality relationships they have in their lives, drags them down into the burnout rabbit hole.

Burnout Root Cause No. 6: Lack of Recognition

The last bucket is a lack of recognition. People are not seen for what they do, who they are, and what value they give to the clients, team members, the organization or the community. They often event don’t get a simple “thank you”, which brings them to conclusion that what they do… Doesn’t even matter.

The question is, if we have a checklist here, which ones and how many would you pick?

Do you have an excessive workload and you work long hours?
Do you have a feeling that and thought in your brain that you are always having something on your list and you’re never doing everything you want?
Are you lacking time?
Are you lacking energy or lacking mental capabilities to cover tasks?
Do you have moments of sitting in front of your computer, staring at it, and you cannot do anything?
Are you working on the weekends, in the evenings, at night, maybe, because the work is never finished?
Is there a high-pressure environment in the place where you work?
Are you under pressure due to the necessity of learning all the time?
Do you have this feeling or thought that you are not up to date enough because things are changing all the time?
Do you observe work-life imbalance and blurred boundaries?
Do you work mostly from home and cannot set a boundary between work and life?
Are you recognized by others?
Do you recognize yourself? Do you reward yourself? Or do still thinking that you’re not enough?

So, the question is: How many of these items did you take as a YES? 2? 7? All of them?

It is not a test, but I will put some ranges to map it out better:

0-2: You’re good. Keep going with what you’re doing, take care of your balance, and share your practices with others.
3-6: There’s a risk of going into the burnout rabbit hole. Start with one number and make some decisions there to cross it off your list.
7-10: You’re in the burnout zone. Plan what to do, reach for some help, because if you stay there, you might experience some severe health consequences.
11-13: You’re deep in burnout. You need support; it might be hard for you to do it on your own. Reach out to a specialized coach or mentor, as well as a therapist who will help you to make a plan and keep you accountable for taking action. Your health is on the line here.

Being mindful and recognizing your bucket is the first step to seeing what we can do about it. Because without the recognition, you cannot do anything. So, regardless of which bucket you find yourself in right now, you can do something about it to prevent or to address it if you are in the risk or burnout zone.

First Steps to Quit the Burnout Rabbit Hole

This article is about burnout root cause analysis, but I don’t want to leave you without some first steps you can take if you see a risk of your own burnout situation. So, here’s the IT Burnout Framework I’ve created for you, so you don’t reinvent the wheel, and you can start taking action right away:

Do a proper analysis. Take this list of questions and be honest with yourself. You can do it on your own or with the support of a professional (it’s for sure going to be faster).
Decide on which one thing you want to start. We all need low-hanging fruit, so our brain has evidence that it’s worth continuing with the uncomfortable action. Start with one, take action on that one, then move to the next one on your list.
Build a plan. Take a piece of paper, open an Excel spreadsheet, or a MIRO wall. Draw your plan, get yourself a timeline, and set small milestones that you’ll reach on the way. You can’t grow what you don’t measure.
Reach for support. Identify who can help you: It might be a coach or mentor, a therapist or psychologist, or a colleague that went through the same thing and can share with you what they did to get out of the burnout zone. It’s not a weakness or a laziness to use other people’s wisdom; it’s a strategy.
Set micro-goals: As mentioned before, our brain needs evidence. And the smaller the goals will be, the more frequently we’re going to see that what we do matters and brings the difference.
Compare yourself to yourself: Don’t look at others, because you’ll always find a person on this planet who has more of something you crave. See your progress, compare you to you from yesterday, a week ago, a month ago. Recognize yourself for what you’re doing consistently to become the best version of yourself.

And you know what? You’ve got this. If you’re reading this article, I’m more than sure that you want to take massive action, to change something, to feel the relief. Because our life is too short to stay in the burnout zone and be miserable.

So, what action will you take today?

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