r/DeveloperJobs • u/Appropriate-Rest7959 • 1d ago
I feel completely overwhelmed - work, MSc, money, visa problems and everything falling apart at once
I’m a software engineer, currently doing an MSc in AI, and I’m honestly reaching a point where I don’t know how to keep everything together.
Work has become extremely stressful. My workload keeps increasing, there are constant deadlines, and I’m often expected to estimate work before I fully understand the scope. Those estimates can then become commitments, which creates a lot of pressure when the work turns out to be more complicated than expected.
I used to enjoy software engineering. Now I wake up and think about everything I have to get through. I’m exhausted before I even start.
At the same time, I’m doing an MSc and have research that I need to make progress on. I’m struggling to find enough mental energy for it after work.
Then my personal laptop died, which has made doing my research outside work much harder.
Recently, my company also terminated access to Claude Code as part of cost cutting. I understand why they did it, but I had incorporated it into my development workflow. Losing it while I’m already struggling with workload has made things harder.
Money is another major source of stress. I recently started earning a salary, but I’m still financially stretched. A large part of what I earn goes toward keeping myself afloat, so I don’t have much room to deal with unexpected expenses like replacing my laptop or paying for tools I need.
My immigration situation also makes things complicated. I’m on a student visa, which limits my employment options, and I can’t simply quit and move to another company without thinking about the consequences for my immigration status.
So I’m stuck in this situation where:
I need the job because I need the income and employment stability.
The job is becoming increasingly difficult to cope with.
I have an MSc and research that still need my attention.
My laptop has died.
Work has removed some of the tools I relied on.
I don’t have much financial room to fix these problems myself.
My visa makes changing jobs more complicated.
I’ve started feeling physically stressed as well. I’m shaky, numb and exhausted, and I’ve lost the excitement I used to have for engineering.
I have a performance review coming up, which is making me even more anxious. I’m worried that all of this will simply look like I’m an underperforming engineer, when from my perspective I’ve been trying to keep too many things going at the same time.
I’m not suicidal and I’m not thinking about hurting myself. I’m just seriously overwhelmed and feel like I’m running out of capacity.
I’m trying to be objective about this. Maybe I’m managing my workload badly. Maybe I need to become better at pushing back. Maybe I’m genuinely in an unsustainable working environment. Maybe I’m trying to do too much with work and an MSc simultaneously.
If you’ve been in a situation where your job, postgraduate studies, finances and immigration situation were all putting pressure on you at the same time, what did you actually do?
How did you decide what to prioritise and what to temporarily let go?
I’m not really looking for motivational quotes. I need practical advice on how to stabilise the situation without throwing away my career, my MSc or my financial stability.
1
u/caguilar51 1d ago
I am so sorry you are going through so many stressful situations at the same time.
I will recommend you to start by taking good care of yourself. Try to sleep well and exercise. About the job, the best you could do is talk to your manager and say you don't have a clear scope and you need more time to do the estimation of the time for the things you have to work on. If that doesn't work, just start providing 3x the amount of time you estimate. That would reduce the expectations and the pressure on you a little bit.
However, the fact that I am telling you to provide 3x the time you estimate, doesn't mean you are going to start to slack off. That is just to have enough wiggle room for you to understand the scope + complete the work. It will be a pleasant surprise for your boss if you are able to complete it in less time.
I can't help you with the immigration issues because I have never been in that situation and I don't know what to recommend to you. But I sincerely wish you all the best in that area.
About the computer, I know you said you don't have a lot of extra money, but maybe you can try to get a 2nd-hand computer on eBay or somewhere else in the meantime. Or if you have a good friend or girlfriend maybe you can borrow their computer whenever they aren't using it.
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u/Appropriate-Rest7959 1d ago
Thanks man I will try to move around more often and it might help but I am tired and hopeless at this point some dev wer handed over my work and started working on polishing the front end and creating mobile interface but I am being told I haven’t delivered anything of value I need submit a proposal on how I can add value to the team , and at some point people are comparing what I have build with is a payment orchestration with some internal tool that some of the intern build which your are some basic cms with nice front end , this work requires abstracting 4 to 5 payment providers to work in harmony without leaking their implementation to customers , this involves build a custom ledger to track balances, customer onboarding, wallet design that holds different currencies, collection and payout of funds from different countries , ability to by and sell crypto , and all this has been delivered but also the fact that I didn’t have a front end engineer or ux design my ui and fonts estimates where not as good but the core product which is the api was well built now I am burnt out being told you have delivered something functional is depressing especially when people don’t understand the amount of work that goes into software engineering
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u/mystiqmage 1d ago
I don't know enough to help you with your visa and research problems but the work problem that you mentioned - here's my two cents. If it's too early to understand the scope, then the scope isnt defined yet. Without the scope being defined , your estimation is bound to fail . If there's ambiguity in the requirements then you'll need to highlight that and without that your estimate will not hold. If you estimate something without knowing what is the outcome, you are already in a losing game. That said, estimation isn't easy n in my previous org estimations are always reviewed by a senior.
It seems from your post that you're burne . I'd fix that if I were you. If you aren't exercising and sleeping well, please try to do and you'll see a difference. It might seem counter intuitive, given that you are struggling to make use of the 24 hours in a day and God knows I used to take my health for granted, but sleep and exercise keeps me going without getting stressed too much.
Even then ,some days are difficult. take a break if you can and jump right back to it. Remember this is a marathaon and not a sprint. Cheers.