This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Meredith Meyer, a 30-year-old in the Bay Area who previously worked as an engineering manager at Apple. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
When I started working at Apple as a software engineer in 2020, I was really excited to be there. The environment was fast-paced, but I was all in.
I had been employed for less than six weeks before we started working from home due to the pandemic. Being stuck at home allowed me to dedicate more time to my work and learn quickly, which I think was a key reason I was promoted to an engineering manager role in just over two years.
It was nice being promoted, but looking back, it was the start of my experience changing for the worse.
My managing job became very stressful
The promotion came with additional responsibilities, including overseeing a team of multiple engineers. But I was still doing much of my prior individual contributor work.
I didn’t feel like my reports were ready to take on much of the work I had been doing. I needed to train them before I could fully hand things off, and in the meantime, I was still doing much of that work myself.
I hoped that we might get a bigger team at some point. But it just felt like there was more and more work for my team, and nowhere for it to go.
Commuting to the office weighed on me mentally
I was promoted in March 2022, and by that September, I was required to work in the office three days a week.
For the first two years, my commute to Apple was under 30 minutes each way. Then in 2024, my friends and I learned that we had to leave the house we’d been renting. We had to scramble to find a new place — and the house we found was about an hour away.
Commuting was frustrating because I felt I’d demonstrated for over two years that I could work from home effectively. On days when I had no meetings — and no real reason to be in the office — I still had to add two hours of commuting to my day.
I’d also gotten a dog during the pandemic, and it was hard to leave my dog at home for long stretches of time. Over time, going into the office weighed on my mental health.
Returning to the office was also challenging because I’d shifted to remote work so soon after starting at Apple. So, I hadn’t gotten to develop relationships with my coworkers as much as I could’ve if I’d had more time in the office at the start. I think I was missing a support system at work — a feeling of belonging and connection with other people.
Read more about people who’ve found themselves at a corporate crossroads
Leaving my job felt like something I needed to do
I started to feel more burned out and unfulfilled by my work as time went on. It got to the point where I realized that no amount of compensation would make up for the stress seeping into my personal life. It eventually felt like my best option was to leave and take an extended break from work.
Last October, I left Apple. My plan was to take at least six months off so I could have a break from work and nurture other areas of my life. I’ve always been financially conservative, saving a lot and maintaining my spending habits even as my compensation increased. While I’m following a general budget plan, I’m not too worried about my spending because the value of this time off outweighs the cost.
I’ve been thinking there’s no time like the present to enjoy myself, so I’ve used this time to ski as much as possible, visit friends, travel, and cross things off my bucket list. I noticed that I enjoyed my hobbies more when I wasn’t working. I think I had been kind of going through the motions with them — not fully enjoying them because my work stress was still affecting me.
My advice for others navigating career challenges
I’m coming up on six months since I left my role, and I’m starting to look at what jobs are out there. I’m open to hybrid roles, but would prefer some flexibility on which days I come in. When I go back to work, I want it to be because I’m interested in what I’m doing, not because I feel I need a job. I want to get to a place where I’m excited to work again.
My advice for other people navigating career challenges is to remember that your career is really long, and that you have time to go at a more comfortable pace — rather than pushing really hard to earn that promotion. I think one of the reasons I ended up having too much on my plate at Apple was that I’d worked very hard and performed well, which made it seem like I could handle more responsibilities than I actually could.
I’d also recommend that people remember that work is just part of life. What’s really important, at least for me, is life outside work.
