A UX Designer’s Story of Burnout, Accountability, and Letting Go
Disclaimer:
This article isn’t meant to bash my former company or its leadership. Every organization has its challenges, and there are always multiple sides to every story. This is simply my experience — my perspective worth sharing — in the hope it might resonate with others navigating similar struggles.
At first, I thought it was just a rough patch — a season of transition. I had been at the company for almost four years, and for most of that time, things felt steady. I loved the work I was doing. I loved the industry we were in. Most of all, I loved the Product Owner team I was on — our Product Manager, our Engineering Manager, and myself. We were tight-knit, like family. We trusted each other deeply, and for a long stretch, we were running like a well-oiled machine.
We were always two sprints ahead, proactively solving problems before they hit production. We were proud of the process we built. I truly felt like we were building something impactful and doing it well.
Then roadmap planning was scrapped at the last minute. Priorities shifted weekly. What had once felt intentional and coordinated started to unravel — and so did the structure around us.
How We Got Here
Our product org was already stretched thin. Initially, we had two PMs managing four dev teams. That grew to three PMs across five teams. But then one left, another transitioned to Customer Success after some internal fallout, and suddenly the remaining PM — my teammate — was covering five teams on their own, working nights and weekends.
As things unraveled, I stepped in. I was a UX designer, but I started acting like a de facto product manager: writing tickets, planning grooming, cleaning up Jira, unblocking engineers. It was never formalized. No one asked me to do it. But it needed to be done, and I cared — so I did it.
The praise came at first. I was called a team player. “Thank you for keeping things moving.” From the dev side, there were no complaints — I was responsive, I kept them unblocked, and I delivered what they needed when they needed it. We had a strong working rhythm, and I genuinely felt like I was supporting the team. But from a leadership perspective, it was a different story. I wasn’t producing enough visible UX work, or making bold enough design decisions. The very things I deprioritized to keep the team moving were now being held up as signs that I wasn’t doing enough.
When the Lines Blur
My design work began to suffer. Not because I stopped caring, but because I was so mentally fragmented from constant context-switching. I rushed research. I felt disconnected from users. I struggled to produce polished, thoughtful design work. Still, I kept telling myself I was doing what the team needed.
Eventually, I was stripped of one of the products I had been working on since I started — something I had helped shape from the ground up. In its place, I was assigned just focus on one major initiative. I genuinely believed in the project and poured my focus into it, collaborating closely with devs and PMs to bring it all the way to beta. It became my full-time effort, and I was proud of how far we’ve come.
And then, right in the middle of it, I was let go.
The Performance Review
The feedback was blunt — and deeply disorienting:
- “You’re stagnant.”
- “You’re performing more like a junior than a mid-level,” they said — even though I had been promoted to mid-level just last year.
- “Being unable to make design suggestions shows that you’re not at the level you should be.”
- “There are many great companies out there — maybe this just isn’t the place for you anymore.”
These comments hurt. They stripped away years of context — the extra roles I had taken on, the burnout I was masking, the beta project I had just delivered. And worse, I couldn’t find the words to defend myself.
In every 1:1 with my manager, I struggled to explain what was happening. I felt like I had lost the ability to speak clearly under pressure. I couldn’t articulate how much I was juggling, how burned out I was, or what support I needed. The more I tried to explain, the more incoherent I sounded. I left those meetings frustrated, embarrassed, and unheard. At one point, they fixated on a single screen and said, “It looks like you don’t know what you’re doing, like you’ve never seen this page before in your life. I would think if you were redesigning this flow, you would know exactly what everything here does.” But I had — I had spent the entire week before in that page, combing through it to iron out every detail, preparing the design and acceptance criteria to anticipate the questions that would come up during grooming. It was an effort to ensure clarity and reduce churn for the team — and yet, in that moment, none of it was visible.
I didn’t pass the performance review. I was let go at 9:30 a.m. on a Friday — and within minutes, all my access was gone.
What I’ve Learned
This experience taught me more than any job ever has — about design, yes, but also about leadership, communication, and the importance of protecting your energy.
- Over-functioning hides the real issues. I thought stepping in would help — and it did, short-term. But long-term, it hid the fact that we were structurally under-resourced.
- Burnout silences you. I didn’t just lose my spark — I lost my ability to advocate for myself. I couldn’t explain what was wrong until it was too late.
- Praise doesn’t equal protection. Being told “you’re doing great” while you’re holding a system together doesn’t mean you’ll be shielded when it breaks.
- Letting someone go mid-initiative has a cost. I brought a major project to beta — and now someone else will finish it without the full context. That stings, not just personally, but for the integrity of the work.
For Anyone in a Similar Spot
If you’re a UX designer taking on product gaps, carrying invisible labor, and finding it harder and harder to speak clearly in high-stress conversations — I see you. I was you.
I wasn’t let go because I didn’t care. I was let go because I cared too much, too silently, for too long. Because I said yes to everything, and by the time I needed help, I couldn’t find the words to ask for it.
I still believe in UX. I still believe in cross-functional teams. And I still think the team I was on — before everything shifted — was one of the best parts of my career.
But next time, I’ll protect my role as fiercely as I protect the product. I’ll practice saying hard things sooner. And I’ll recognize that doing everything isn’t the same as doing my best work.
If you’ve ever found yourself burnt out, misread, or let go in the middle of something you poured your heart into — you’re not alone. I hope this helps you feel a little more seen.
Leave a Reply