Posted on: May 31, 2025
When I talk about burnout, people often expect a dramatic moment: a developer vanishes, a manager explodes, a team breaks down. But more often — burnout doesn’t explode. It simmers. Quietly, under the surface.
It starts when people stop believing. Believing they can change something. That they are heard. That their work matters. And while this change doesn’t have to come with a bang — the bang will come, eventually. Unless we catch it early.
That’s what happened in one of the projects I started as a senior manager. The team was enthusiastic at first — excited to learn a new toolset, build apps for satellites to fly with, and make a real difference.
And then… milestones slipped. Quality processes on the client side turned out very different than expected. And worst of all — blame crept in. People started looking tired. Retrospectives felt hollow. We said the right words — but avoided the real ones.
Since I didn’t exercise direct control in that role, the boom hit me sideways: a team lead approached me and said he wanted to quit the company.
That’s when I started asking around. Not about metrics. Not about timelines. I asked: “How are you doing?”
I made a list. And there were quite a few things: lack of training, unspoken conflicts, an overwhelming backlog, zero-defect policy on the customer side, a PM who meant well but added pressure instead of removing it. None of these were disasters — but together, they drained the team. And no one felt safe enough to say it aloud.
Next retrospective, I asked one thing: “Let’s talk about what makes our days harder than they should be.” No Jira. No action items. Just stories.
(Pro tip: this would never work if I hadn’t done my homework first. People were reluctant to start — but because I already had a good sense of what hurts, I could guide the conversation and help the team start talking.)
And the room opened up.
We didn’t fix everything. We couldn’t. But we acknowledged the load. We bought breathing room by renegotiating timelines. We tightened the DOD where quality was non-negotiable. And for the rest — we documented it. So it wouldn’t stay as silent, unspoken burden.
After the meeting, I followed up with a few team members — just to remind them they can ask for advice anytime they need. That helped build trust and made further conversations easier.
And yes, - we managed to retain that team lead. This project became his first success in the role.
That retro didn’t change the world. But it changed the team — from decomposing, to recovering. And sometimes, that’s enough.
Written by Ilya Komakhin