[cwitty88]

I kinda figured I might be going through some burnout. I have thought about taking a sabbatical to try and recoup from it a bit.

The company itself is great. All of the feedback I receive is very respectful and understanding, it still just eats at me though. We're even working on a plan to address some of the tech debt/complexity in 2022.

I think my self-doubt is just being on a podium at work teamed up with being burnt out. Maybe an extended vacation is really what I need to do.

[adjkant]

> Maybe an extended vacation is really what I need to do.

100% adding a +1 here that this sounds like the right thing to do to start.

> it still just eats at me though

To me, this stands out. I think it's important to answer the "why" here at some point, whether that be before/during/after an extended break. Some potential things to investigate:

- Maybe the company is respectful, but the environment is still too critical / focused on bettering code constantly rather than focusing on product.

- Maybe there's too much focus on code quality over product generally, to the point that it's not helpful.

- Maybe it's not actually as respectful and understanding as you originally thought.

- Maybe the way it's delivered works for others but you need a different format and can communicate that need to others.

- Maybe the feedback coming from people below you (reading into "on a podium") is different than from peers and you're internalizing it.

Whatever it is, I hope a break helps you reset and gives you space to figure it out!

[adriand]

I was CTO at a company and ended up managing a team of just under 20 developers and although I didn't feel the same way as you do right now, I did absolutely feel that my technical skills were becoming increasingly rusty. The Javascript revolution passed me by, Typescript was a mystery to me, all sorts of interesting things were happening in the cloud and I just wasn't hands-on with any of it.

Although my management and business skills were continuing to improve (and, I think, got to be quite strong), the loss of my technical competence did bother me. I ended up leaving and now I'm working as a CTO but with no team - more of an individual contributor, at a senior level in the company. I write code every day and over the past year my technical skills have mostly returned, and I've gotten to learn all sorts of exciting new stuff.

With that said, one of the biggest things I've learned is that, once you know how to write software, it's not that hard to get back into it. Learning Typescript has been straightforward. VS Code is a joy to use, but hey, Xcode was pretty great too. If having strong technical skills is important to you, then you have to change your focus and get back into it. But know that you can do this any time you want. On the other hand, if you value the skills of people management, reporting to a board, managing investments, etc., those are things that are hard AND valuable.

At the end of the day it's just about choices, you can't be great at everything. Good luck!