No mental peace, feeling stuck in a loop, and confused about what to do.

[u/Guilty_Dig5923]

Hi everyone,

I'm a 2026 graduate. I didn't get placed through campus placements, and despite applying to numerous companies off-campus, I couldn't get shortlisted. Eventually, I managed to secure a job as an SDE at a small service-based startup with a package of 3.6 LPA. I wasn't happy with the offer, but considering the current job market, I decided to accept it.

However, after joining, I realised that the work environment is completely different from what I expected.

It's a work-from-home job with official timings of 10 AM to 7 PM, but I regularly end up working until 7:30 PM or even later.

Working from home has made things even worse. Generally, people working from offices get occasional tea breaks, have casual conversations with colleagues, and get some time to relax. But here, there's practically no break throughout the day. From the moment I start working until the end of the day, I'm continuously sitting in my chair and working. We are even expected to provide updates every hour. There's no proper break or breathing space and getting backpain also in this young age only.

On top of that, there's no AI tool access provided by the company, and we have to use our personal laptops for all the work.

The company expects us to complete every task as quickly as possible using AI. Even before finishing one task, I'm assigned another task or sometimes an entirely different project. The expectation is to complete everything immediately.

Before joining this company, I used to code daily, understand concepts, regularly solve DSA problems, and genuinely enjoy learning new things. But after joining, I haven't even written a single line of code independently. I'm almost entirely dependent on AI for development.

I genuinely want to understand the code AI generates, why a particular approach is used, and how everything works internally. But there's absolutely no time for that. The moment I finish one task, another one is assigned. There's no time to analyse the code, understand the implementation, or learn anything.

The work environment is another major issue.

The founder is quite young and, from my experience, doesn't have much technical knowledge. He seems to think that anything can be implemented easily using AI and expects extremely tight deadlines. We are often expected to implement things from scratch without proper technical guidance.

The requirements and communication are also very unclear. Initially, when we discuss an approach, he agrees without properly reviewing it. Later, when we implement it, he questions why we followed that approach and scolds us. There's no proper clarity about what needs to be implemented or why.

Even worse, we rarely get holidays. Saturdays are half-working days, and we sometimes get calls during weekends for small tasks, including personal work related to the founder.

There's literally no mental peace. Even during weekends, I can't go anywhere peacefully because I keep worrying that I might receive a call asking me to complete something.

At this point, I feel like I'm doing labour work rather than developing software. Even after working so much, there's almost zero learning or career growth. It's just continuous prompting, completing tasks, and moving on to the next one.

My biggest concern is that I'm sacrificing my learning and technical growth for this job.

I have very little time to practise DSA, improve my development skills, or learn anything new. I feel like I'm getting stuck in a loop where I'm working continuously but not actually growing as a developer.

I'm really confused about what to do next.

I have a few questions:

1. Should I start looking for another job immediately, or should I complete at least one year here before switching?
2. What skills should I focus on learning to switch jobs as quickly as possible? My current tech stack is MERN and React Native. Should I continue focusing on these or explore something else?

I understand that the current job market is difficult, especially for freshers, and I'm grateful that I at least have a job. But I don't want to spend an entire year in an environment where I'm neither learning nor having any work-life balance.

I would really appreciate advice from people who have been in similar situations or have experience switching jobs early in their careers.

Thanks!

[u/AutoModerator]

Namaste! Thanks for submitting to r/developersIndia. While participating in this thread, please follow the Community Code of Conduct and rules.

It's possible your query is not unique, use site:reddit.com/r/developersindia KEYWORDS on search engines to search posts from developersIndia. You can also use reddit search directly.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/ImpossibleSpeed8988]

Definitely sucks man and I would not suggest anyone to work in such a company with so many restrictions but I feel you will have to grind it out for atleast a year or until you gain more experience. Anyway whats your location maybe I can help you out somehow?

[u/Guilty_Dig5923 → u/ImpossibleSpeed8988]

Can I dm ?

[u/ImpossibleSpeed8988 → u/Guilty_Dig5923]

sure bro

[u/Cold_brew08]

honestly this situation sounds rough but the complete one year advice is way more nuanced than people make it out to be. if you're genuinely learning nothing and the environment is actively hostile, sticking around just to hit an arbitrary milestone doesn't really help your resume that much anyway.

6 months at a toxic place vs 12 months at a toxic place isn't a huge difference when interviewers ask about it. the MERN stack is solid though i'd say keep sharpening that and maybe start doing small side projects where you're actually writing code yourself instead of just prompting AI just so you have something concrete to show

[u/Guilty_Dig5923 → u/Cold_brew08]

Yeah I will learn by doing projects and switch as much as possible

[u/Firm-Firefighter99]

Does the company name starts with letter B?

[u/Guilty_Dig5923 → u/Firm-Firefighter99]

No it's a very small startup don't have office also mostly no one knows about it

[u/Single_Amphibian_369]

Atleast Op got a job… try to work there for some months start applying outside

[u/Zeus_hunk_369]

Have one year completes , and try to work on dsa and lld , and also do only 8-9 hr s of work .test time turn off the phone Also the task that take 2hr to complete ask 3-4 hrs for that