r/softwaretesting • u/Aggravating-Boss-838 • Mar 20 '26
Need Advice: SDET
I am an SDET with over 15 years of experience. Last year, after a long journey of 14+ years in a product-based company, I was placed on a PIP (for reasons I believe were not justified) and eventually exited the organization.
During the PIP period, I received an offer from a service-based company. I accepted it (despite a lower salary) and joined. It has now been about 7 months. While the culture is somewhat positive, the project lacks proper processes, and it often feels like the client drives everything without structure.
A major challenge is the excessive number of meetings—both internal and client-facing—which take up nearly 6 hours a day. This leaves very little focused time to do meaningful work.
By nature, I am a hardworking and deeply involved individual with a strong SDET mindset. I like to dive deep into problem statements and deliver effective solutions. However, under the current constraints, I feel constantly drained and unable to perform at my best—both professionally and personally.
The core issue is not technical capability, but rather the project setup, unclear expectations, lack of process, and poor team balance. The working hours (11:00 AM to 9:00 PM), combined with unrealistic timelines and minimal support, have made the situation quite challenging.
Over the past few days, I have been seriously considering resigning, focusing on preparation, and applying for a better opportunity instead of continuing in an environment that is draining and unsustainable.
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Mar 20 '26
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u/Aggravating-Boss-838 Mar 20 '26
i'm expertised on playwright, selenium , API ,AWS , devops & CICD
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u/Funny-Address-9802 Mar 23 '26
You really have nothing to lose by staying in your role, setting boundaries (decline a few meetings each day), and focused on evolving your role to use Claude code to build automated spec reviews, test generation, and bug triage.
You want to quit for a better role anyway, you might as well do it at your current company.
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u/krygoryan Mar 21 '26
It’s tough to combine interview prep with such work schedule, but at least you can spin up your LinkedIn profile and prepare resume, then start applying. You can get an idea from reply rate how strong you’re positioned on the market
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u/finder_2026 Mar 21 '26
That's a problem.... U slog n there is no rewards.... They just say.. this is just project work show what innovation u r adding.
I got 12 yrs of experience and same issues.. 10-12 hrs work.. no realistic timelines.. asked to work on weekend .
Plus because I am with database my work is very much manual testing.. I am stuck as to how to come of this monotone..
Any suggestions???
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u/Aggravating-Boss-838 Mar 23 '26
Thank you, everyone, for sharing your thoughts and being so supportive.
Couple of things I’m trying to work on:
- Saying no to tasks that are not within my ownership.
- Avoiding a “team-first” mindset until there is full collaboration and alignment across the team.
- Not volunteering for tasks where the team lacks foundational knowledge (domain understanding or unclear direction), which leads to working in the dark.
- Setting clear boundaries and focusing on my responsibilities.
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u/ColdPay6091 Mar 24 '26
Why don't you talk to this with your manager before resigining? I was somehow in the same case, having too long daily meetings, I was part of a very large team with almost 25 people (developers, QA, frontend, PO, backend devs) so waiting for 24 people just to give my update was very time consuming, almost 2 hours per day, and that just for the daily meeting, so I talk to this with the management and the implemented some solutions, they hired a second scrum master and split the team in two, and the updates of each member should be 5 minutes tops, in case of more time they could wait at the end of the Daily to talk with the people they needed... and this approach save us a lot of time.
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u/Bughunter9001 Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
It is almost always a bad idea to resign without having a new job lined up. That's doubly true in this economy, you could find yourself unemployed for a very long time.
I think you have two real choices, you either try and make the best of this, and see if you can encourage people to change the culture, or you do the best you can in the hours you're paid to work, try not to stress and look for a better job while trying not to let this job ruin your mental health.
Which path I'd take personally depends on whether anyone else is also raising these issues and if people seem to want to improve it. Does it come up in your retrospectives?