My Netflix Quit Story: Burnout, Failed Communication, and Lessons Learned

Poor communication and lack of support led to the author quitting Netflix, highlighting the importance of proactive team discussions.

### The Journey of Quitting Netflix: Lessons in Communication and Self-Reflection
* 🎥 Three years into my job at Netflix, I excelled by taking on **challenging projects**, particularly involving the **Groovy programming language**, which many avoided.
* 🚀 My success led to my involvement in a significant project to **enhance video metadata** and participation in an open-source initiative called **Falcor**, likened to **GraphQL**.
* 🌍 Although I enjoyed speaking at conferences and the open-source community, the reality of my work became increasingly **soul-crushing** due to the small team dynamic and the presence of **non-coding architects**.
* 😩 After a year of working 60-hour weeks, I experienced a breaking point during a conversation about a project pivot, realizing I could **no longer handle the stress**.
* 🤝 Reflecting on my interactions with a struggling coworker, I regretted **not being more supportive and proactive** in addressing team issues, which contributed to my decision to **seek a new job**.
* 📅 Ultimately, I accepted a position at Coursera, prompted by a friend's referral, but my journey at Netflix was marked by **missed opportunities for communication and understanding**.
* 🗣 I learned the importance of **speaking up and addressing workplace challenges**, recognizing that sometimes change can be enacted through **open dialogue with management**.
* 💼 Now, five years later, I still work at Netflix and continue to grow, appreciating the **lessons learned from my past experiences**.

So this is the story about how I quit Netflix. About three years into working at Netflix, I was kind of excelling. I took on some projects that a lot of people kind of said no to. It turns out that we had Groovy on the back end.

Groovy, baby, was on the back end. It's a terrible JVM language; it absolutely is dog water. But I just happened to take a little bit of time, look up a few things, you know, a few ways to do stuff in Groovy, and of

course, I just excelled beyond everybody else because everybody else is just like, "I just want to get the stuff done. I don't want to look at it; I don't want to be a part of it." So I got good enough that I could actually build a bunch of

different back ends. So I got selected to kind of do this kind of large improvement that would make it so that we could have extra metadata about every single video in the television catalog. And of course, from there, they put me onto an open-source project that was

related. It was called Falcor—no, not the Luck Dragon. Okay, though, named after the Luck Dragon, not *a* Luck Dragon. Effectively, what Falcor was is you can kind of think of it like GraphQL. You provide an array of kind of strings or numbers, and it would go off onto the

back end and grab all that data—like a super simplified SQL-like language. Yes, I just said SQL. Hey, I'd also be squealing if you hit that sub button! Thanks, baby! Anywho, so this was like my dream job. I got to go to conferences; I got to speak

Both in the UK, I got to speak, uh, multiple times in Amsterdam, got to do a bunch of different places throughout the United States. It was awesome, open-source circuit, the dream life, right? It was fantastic. Actually, it wasn't that fantastic now I think in

today's day and age, that that really is the dream life; that is what a lot of people kind of aspire to: working full-time, getting paid, while working on open source. But let me tell you, I, I would—I really had a hard time, and this is the reason why we are a

small team, about four of us devs, all working on a couple different products for the UI kind of team. We were called a UI platform at the time, and during this, one of the roles was kind of like a non-coding architect, really deciding how things should work, and of course,

this role kind of appears from various companies, and people really have strong feelings about these kinds of roles. Me personally, I greatly dislike non-coding architects. The reason why is I feel like they get so abstracted from reality that they start building things that, though

they look great on a whiteboard—we're talking lab coats, *mwah*, clipboards, those little goggles to protect your eyes—things are looking great, but when you actually implement it, it's nothing but a dumpster fire of logical inconsistencies and all those other things. I just, I just

can't stand it. So, of course, this was going on, and for about a year, I just—like I was programming like 60 hours a week. I was putting in so much effort, and it was just starting to feel more and more soul-crushing, and I can still

Remember, it must have been December 27th, 28th, or 29th, shortly after Christmas. I was walking into my backyard at about 7 pm, having a long conversation I didn't want to have, discussing some internal details about Falcore.  Oh, we want to make this...

pivot. Oh, this is actually going to be the greatest, most ergonomic, most developer-experience-changing thing in the universe! And I remember that was kind of the moment I snapped. Like, I couldn't handle this project anymore; I became pretty darn infuriated with it. But at

the same time, something else happened. I had another coworker working beside me who was also feeling a lot of the same weight, and he really reached out and started pouring out his heart, you know, in the best way he could. And of course, I was

much younger and much dumber at that point, and I didn't catch it at all. I was just like, 'Yeah, I'm kind of upset too,' but that's about it. I didn't hear him, and I really look back at that

as one of my bigger failures at that moment, and really, of my lifetime professionally.  You know, having someone come to you and tell you these things and not really try to be there for them, try to help lift them up, or even approach your boss—with

their permission, of course—and really try to create a better team conversation... I really wish I would have taken control of the situation.  I would do things much more proactively and openly today. Long before I got to the

Point but ultimately, what ended up happening was that I became so sick and so kind of toxified from my job that I started looking elsewhere, and ultimately I did find a different job at Coursera. Yeah, Coursera, online education. I had a good friend there, Tom Willow,

where we were... who was the... I forget, Chief Product Officer, something like that; Vice President of Products. I can't remember what his role was, but he got me the interview. I got accepted. I was actually going to make the jump, and I sat down with my boss and said, "Hey, I'm

not going to work at Netflix anymore." And ultimately, it was all because of those previous interactions, and I think there's a lot of things that I did that I failed there. I really do wish I would have taken more time and understood how I felt and kind

of really, you know, judged myself in a more sober tone. And ultimately, I really wish I would have been there more for my coworker. I really wish I could have turned around the team and helped, because in the end, a couple of people, you know, within this area—actually a few

people within the area—got fired, which is sad. I was about to change jobs until, of course, Papa J Wagner came over and called me back in, made a nice offer—no monetary, by the way, no monetary change—just made an offer for me to come work

with him on his team, and ultimately I did, and it was fantastic. I took down production a few times, and it was a lot of fun. But in the end, I quit Netflix, and it's because I didn't have the communication and the talks that I should have had. I wasn't understanding

myself as well, as I should have. And so if you find yourself in those situations, you've got to speak up. You've got to approach your boss, and if your boss and your coworkers aren't good enough to listen—like I wasn't good enough to

listen—right? You know, I, I, I failed my coworker, but ultimately my boss should have also been there, listening and making the situation better, which didn't happen, and it led to a lot of, uh, you know, probably a lot of heartache. If you work at a company that

doesn't support you in that kind of sense, that doesn't understand that things are kind of going wrong, that it's only causing more and more tension, you probably need to start thinking about: a) how can you improve the situation? Or b) is it time to leave the situation? And I

just chose B without considering A—big mistake. Make sure you consider A, because often, you know, bosses are motivated to make you, you know, happy; they're there to make a team successful. And so there's a lot of change that you can enact by simply speaking up and being

confident and pushing forward what you think is best. So that's the time that I quit Netflix, but hey, I still work at Netflix! I still really enjoy it. That was about five years ago, and look at me now: I work on dumb things and write C++

from time to time. Thank you for watching! Hey, subscribe to the channel already! Give this video a like, maybe make a little comment: Have you ever had a situation in which you affected change you wish you would have, looking back? Or have you ever been on the other side of it—the firing side?

The side in which you wish some other coworker would have stepped up, like I should have done for mine. My name's [Name], thank you.

Why I Quit Netflix

ThePrimeagen

Early Success and Falcor Project at Netflix

Initial success at Netflix, taking on challenging projects others avoided.

Working with the Groovy programming language and excelling due to others' reluctance.

Selected for a large project improving video metadata.

Subsequent work on the open-source project Falcor, similar to GraphQL.

Enjoyment of the dream job, including travel to conferences.

Challenges with Team Dynamics and Workload

Working on a small team with a non-coding architect, leading to dissatisfaction.

Dislike of non-coding architects due to their disconnect from reality.

Working excessive hours (60+ per week) and feeling soul-crushing pressure.

A pivotal moment of frustration with the Falcor project.

Coworker's Struggle and Missed Opportunity

A coworker expressing similar feelings of burden, which the speaker failed to adequately address.

Regret over not supporting the coworker and proactively addressing the situation.

Reflection on the failure to create a better team conversation and take control.

Seeking a new job at Coursera due to job dissatisfaction.

Resignation from Netflix and reflection on past failures in communication and support.

Consequences of the situation, including team members being fired.

A counteroffer from a different team at Netflix, but ultimately quitting.

Importance of speaking up and addressing issues proactively.

Advice to consider improving the situation before leaving.

Bosses are often motivated to create a successful team, encouraging open communication.

Current employment at Netflix, reflecting on the past five years.