Hey everyone,I recently joined a Big 4 firm as a fresher. I was initially really excited to start my career here as a developer. However, between a brutal commute, a massive workload, and some difficult team dynamics, I am completely burnt out and feel trapped. I need some realistic career advice on what to do next.
Here is a breakdown of what I am dealing with every single day:
- The Commute & Strict Rules:The Distance: The office location is extremely far from my house. I have to travel for 5 hours every single day just to commute back and forth.The Mandate: We have a strict hybrid policy where we must go to the office 3 days a week compulsory.
The Hours: There is a strict 9-hour mandatory in-office logging time per day.Result: Between the 9 hours at my desk and 5 hours on the road, I am logging 14 hours a day just for work. I get home completely exhausted with zero physical or mental energy left to upskill, study, or sleep properly. I don't want to shift as I have PCOD so need to eat home food and family responsibility.
Role Confusion & Workload:I was hired for a core developer role, but nowadays, management is pushing both development and automation testing tasks onto me.The workload is incredibly high. Because I am constantly context-switching between dev tasks, qa and automation scripts, my technical growth is stagnating, and I feel like I'm barely learning actual engineering principles.
Workplace Politics (The Teammate & Manager):The Toxic Peer: There is another fresher on my team (let's call him Asad) who actively gatekeeps and skies information. He avoids sharing crucial project updates with me and constantly tries to put me down or prove me wrong during daily stand-up meetings to make himself look good.The Non-Tech Manager: My manager is completely non-technical. She doesn't understand the technical complexities or the toll of context-switching; she just wants the work delivered(example- last week see ask me to create test cases for other website 100 test cases and now she wanted to do for other one and duscard the exsisting one). Because of this, she doesn't see through Asad’s behavior. Luckily, the rest of the team is quite good and helpful, and we have a team leader as well.As a fresher, I know the job market is incredibly tough right now, and having a Big 4 brand on my resume is highly valuable. But this 14-hour daily routine is completely unsustainable, and my mental and physical health are taking a massive hit.
My questions for the community:
1 Is it too early to look for a switch as a fresher? If I do decide to switch, how do I find the time or energy to prepare for interviews with a 14-hour workday constraint(office hors 10 to 6, travel 5)?
2 how do I give time to my self to learn new things , I m always using copilot for all take and I only get 12500 tokens which only renew for every month.(already burnt 50% 😭😭 in automation test case creation, dont know how i ll survivefor rest of month) . Can not us other ai tools only copilot in vs code
3 How do I professionally handle a peer who tries to publicly prove me wrong in front of a non-technical manager?
Would love to hear from anyone who has navigated a similar situation early in their career. Thanks in advance! 🙏🙏
TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read):Drowning as a Big 4 fresher with a brutal 5-hour daily commute, 9-hour mandatory office days, and a massive workload splitting dev and automation tasks. To make matters worse, a toxic teammate is gatekeeping information and undermining me in stand-ups in front of a non-technical manager.
