Why Smart Engineers Feel Like Shit

The quiet burnout hiding under the cult of optimization.

Last week, I was talking to a 27-year-old backend engineer at a YC startup. Bright guy. MIT grad. Spends his weekends learning Rust “for fun,” wakes up at 6 a.m., works out, eats clean, and has a side hustle building an AI tool to optimize hiring funnels.

He asked for career advice. But a few minutes into the call, he asked something else.

“I feel like I’…