We were Promised Utopia. So Why Does It Feel Like Betrayal?
A Tech Girl's Guide to Finding Your Light Again - Part 1.
Ten years ago, I started a blog called Carly Has Red Hair while teaching myself how to code.
I didn’t know if I’d get a job.
I didn’t know if I belonged.
I just knew that writing was how I navigated uncertainty.
Last week I relaunched it.
Three paid subscribers signed up.
I cried.
Thank you. Truly.
Burnout is one of those mundanely elusive topics.
We’ve all read the think pieces.
We’ve sat through the mandatory HR modules.
We’ve seen the pastel LinkedIn graphics about “rest.”
And yet — despite how common it is in tech — the experience is lonely.
There’s shame in admitting you’re burning out.
Because burnout still feels like a personal weakness.
Even when the conditions are systemic.
Long hours don’t cause burnout.
Helplessness does.
We built our identities in an industry that promised meritocracy.
But macro trends — interest rates, cost cutting, AI acceleration — have quietly strained the integrity of that promise.
If you weren’t laid off, you were asked to do more with less.
If you weren’t asked to do more with less, you were watching people disappear.
It’s not personal.
But it feels personal.
Careers involve luck.
That used to feel taboo to say out loud in tech utopia.
Now it’s undeniable.
Thousands of coders — often the best ones — are quietly mourning.
Not just layoffs.
Not just comp compression.
But the rapid devaluation of a skill they conflated with their self-worth.
We are entering an era of “abundance”.
Every time I hear that sentence, my head tingles with cognitive dissonance.
An abundance of what?
Layoffs?
AI agents?
Uncertainty?
Is it a wave coming toward us?
Or a mirage?
What I’ve noticed lately is that the loudest dismissals of AI often carry something quieter underneath them.
Not arrogance.
Grief.
The grief of watching a beloved craft shift in real time.
The grief of realizing mastery may no longer guarantee leverage.
The grief of feeling the ground move after you built your identity on it.
Grief is disorienting.
And disorientation, when it lasts long enough, starts to feel like betrayal.
Nobody set out to betray you.
But something did shift.
If the ground has felt unstable beneath you, you’re not the only one.
What you’re feeling isn’t personal failure.
It’s structural change.
And it deserves a more honest conversation.
Next Post: Covered In Muck.
What burnout actually feels like when it's not aesthetic.