The senior engineer death spiral

A senior engineer describes the "death spiral"—a common failure mode where engineers taking on new roles or ambitious projects isolate themselves while overworking, giving vague updates without delivering, and spiraling into burnout, depression, and eventual termination or resignation. The author emphasizes that in modern remote work environments with increased autonomy, maintaining transparent communication about progress is critical to avoiding this trap, as isolation and lack of visibility into work compounds the problem.