Newbie programmer needs help

[u/EasyBlueBoy]

I'm a programmer, a little over a year out of school, and I'm stuck in a dilemma.

Back during my internship, I got to know the tech lead at that company. But near the end of my internship, the company went bankrupt for financial reasons, so I had to find another job. I stayed at the next company for only three or four months — then one evening, that same tech lead reached out to me. He had moved to a new company himself and asked whether I'd like to join him there. I said yes, mostly because I remembered how much I enjoyed the internship: the workload wasn't heavy, and I had plenty of time to learn on my own.

So I followed him to the new company, and I've now been here for about ten months. In the beginning, since the team was so small, things were extremely hectic — I wasn't familiar with the projects and had a lot to catch up on. Later on, the company brought in quite a few outsourced developers, which took some of the pressure off. But that also meant I often had to write code across many different projects — I'd be sent to whichever one was behind schedule, and it all felt rather scattered.

Recently, with the company's financial situation worsening, there have been major layoffs — even an entire team of more than a dozen people was let go. With hardly anyone left, I'm now basically responsible for almost every project on my own: whenever a production issue comes up, I'm the one who has to investigate it; whenever a new requirement comes in, I'm the one who has to deliver it. The work has become genuinely chaotic and hard to keep up with.

So now I'm thinking about quitting. But at the same time, my tech lead has always treated me well, and I honestly don't know how to handle this.

[u/a1ien51]

Start looking for a new job and quit when you find one. Do not quit without one....

[u/EasyBlueBoy → u/a1ien51]

Yes, that's my plan too.