Then don't. Show up and put in a fair eight hours, then leave.

You just said one of your options would be waiting to be fired... let them.

Be sure to note to HR or your manager's manager (POLITELY) any issues you're feeling are toxic -- then you can ding them for retaliation if they do fire you, especially if that toxicity touches on a protected class.

I would listen to your friends, stick it out until you find another job. In the mean time, try to make some changes like not working 10 hour days, maybe take a short leave of absence, etc… but quitting your job and not having another one lined up is almost always a mistake unless you a very large sum of money saved up or some other source of income.

Hope this helps and best of luck!

That is the advice can result in unemployment benefits, severance, being a more appealing candidate, and not ending up with a resume gap / weird transition to explain for the rest of your career, as well as obvious benefits like additional/ongoing income.

I suggest doing your best to tackle and overcome issues with being burned out and mental energy while you are still employed. Some of these issues will be down to your job, but a lot of it is also down to you, how you deal with things, setting boundaries, etc, so its a good opportunity to learn skills that will be useful in future workplaces too. I can assure you, this is not the only "very toxic environment" you will encounter.

Take a 2 week vacation first. Make sure it’s 2 weeks (or more, if you can swing it). One is not enough. Actually travel—it doesn’t matter where. Just get out of your normal environment and habits for a little while.

You’re not aiming to solve burnout with the vacation, but only getting some time and space to think and gain a little more perspective.

"Ideally I would like time to prepare adequately for interviews and really think about what I want to do next"

The question is prepare for what? Hackerrank is fast going out the window. Every company that wants to raise money needs to be an AI company so they're not going to tell you not to use AI during the interview. You can screenshot questions, paste it into a deprecated AI model, and it'll spit out the exact answer.

Using the AI tools if you haven't might also get you your next job. I think interviews might just be falling back to the classic "build the hardest feature we plan to add", and AI means you get to do in a day what would take a month to do before this.

I was in your situation in 2023 and decided to quit without a job lined up. I rested for 2 months and then, out of nowhere, I had energy and motivation to start exercising again and start working on my mental health (with the help of a therapist/professional coach). I would recommend to have one single expectation if you decide to quit: rest.

All in all, quitting the toxic workplace and taking time off was the best thing I’ve ever done.

It took me 7 months to get an offer, 9 to actually start working.

Be prepared to be out of work for ~1 year.

Honestly, this in-between period was one of the most personally rewarding times I’ve ever had in my career, I was feeling great, I was waking up in the morning and coding for a hour before I even had coffee, I had good humor for such a long stretch of time that even people I don’t talk to daily started to notice.

But, despite that, actually looking for a new job was soul crushing. I had a spreadsheet to track applications, and the rows just kept piling up, interviews were not happening, when they were happening I got ghosted dozens of times, when I didn’t get ghosted, the code interviews were absolutely ridiculous is all sorts of ways, even I passed code testings companies paused hirings, when I finally got to the last step they’d say culture didn’t align. I got a job after 7 months and 137 applications. It was TERRIBLE, the feeling of hopelessness, the feeling that there is no future, the feeling that your entire 20+ year career is useless and the fear you’ll never find a job again. I don’t wish that on anyone.

In the end there are bills to be paid, and you can’t stay unemployed forever, so the reality means you have to thread this carefully. It sounds counterproductive and it is hard, but concentrate less on work, spend time doing things you want, and do not go out for interviews just yet. On top of having a shitty job, you’ll also have shitty evenings because you’ll get to this same soul crushing realization of mine.

Do the minimum acceptable at work, cut hours, take vacation, whatever that keeps you employed, and spend any energy you have left doing things you want. Workout, that pet project that hadn’t seen any love, binging Netflix, whatever you mind tells you to do. As long as it doesn’t get worse than it is, it is a win. You are going to leave the company anyway (either voluntarily or not), might as well stockpile some money if you can. The goal is to get better _despite_ the shitty job, to improve yourself while you are still getting paid.

Also important: go looking for social support, like lunch with friends and old coworkers, therapy, some meetups on subjects you have interest, whatever you can to talk to people. Mildly venting off helps, just make sure to not overdo and also listen.

I bailed on a job in 2022 when I was tired of it and the hiring market was still good. The hiring market turned and it took me a long time to get something new once I was ready. Fortunately, I had a significant cushion.

Prerequisite to taking up any of my suggestions that follow: How long do you think it would take you to get a new job? Triple that estimate. Can you go that long without pay?

If the answer is no, stop reading here.

Regarding prepping / searching while working - have you considered dialing back your hours to give yourself more energy for the search? If they don't like it... well, if you are still comfortable with your financial cushion given my first question, then at least you will have made some progress toward your next thing while still getting paid.

Another way to assess how you feel about staying: Take at least a week and a half off. Several of my job changes have occurred after some time off. It made the suckitude of the current job so obvious that I quit waffling about it and started looking.

Have you considered not doing 10 hour days? I know it sounds silly but nobody is forcing you to do that. I mean what’s the worst that could happen?

I guess a response question to you, OP, how bad is the job if you just start doing less? It's not like you care about promotion chances or long term outcomes, so just do exactly what's assigned and nothing more.

Questions you need to answer before quitting:

1) is there anything they can do to keep you - you need to be prepared to answer this, not emotionally but with logic and your sanity in mind

2) is your resume ready? If not when will it be ready.

3) how do you answer the question: Why did you leave? The simple answer of 'They were toxic' sounds too much like BS. It could be interpreted as you are toxic and not willing to see your own problems.

4) are you able to spend 6 months to a year unemployed? Can you cover all expenses. Including medical.

5) if you are out of work long term, how do you explain what you have been doing? Best answers are: learning new stuff (with details, possibly a degree), volunteering. Worst answers: finding yourself, just relaxing, doom scrolling youtube.

6) if you have unemployed friends, set up a group. See question here where someone was asking how to handle long term unemployment.

7) What are your criteria for the next job. Clearly not toxic but how are you going to ensure that does not happen. Prioritize your list. Having wants is fine. Having absolutes is fine. Knowing the difference is critical. For me, not moving was an absolute until I had been out for 6 months... then I found a job :-)

I wish you the best of luck.

My current job is pretty toxic and I've taken the wait it out approach, but this is mostly because I really hate the process of job hunting.

These kinds of places are often terrible at documenting things and contesting unemployment claims so the odds are in your favor.

Why do you need something lined up? Take a long vacation.

Go enjoy life. Take a year off, two. You’ll be happy you did.

Life is a lot more flexible than people think.

I have reached out to my old manager for a job, but I don't get any response from anyone lately. The market is really, really bad, but if you have slightly better conditions than mine (regarding parents and insurance), I'd say you get to decide yourself if it's worth the risk.

I'm worried about applying to companies that ask for DSA rounds because I can't do standard tests like those and I lose my energy from them.

It's very tempting because (I'm guessing) you just want to get out of your current situation ASAP, and of course the final decision is still yours, but this is the advice I would give my past self:

- You might not be in the best state of mind right now to make a good decision. I agree with others saying you should take time off, the more the better. Definitely more than one week.

- Try going for 1-2 months of time off if possible, even if unpaid. If your country has something like "leave of absence" that allows you to take a long period off, like 6 months or more (usually unpaid), but still be able to come back to your company after that period (or at least get priority during hires for the similar position), then try to look into that first, and consider it a "trial period" of how well your job search will go.

- You might feel good about leaving your job for the first few months, but after that you're running on a time limit. This will be on the back of your mind, and you'll have to learn to live with this worry, and not let it affect your performance on interviews.

- You'll get rejected. You'll get ghosted. You might think it's you, and part of it will be because of you, but you don't know which rejections are legit and which ones were just farming your info. This will also take a toll on you, and you will have to learn to not let this affect your performance on interviews.

- The more time you've been unemployed, the larger the gap on your resume, the better you'll have to be at explaining that gap in a convincing way. And this is without letting the previous point affect your performance on interviews.

- Remember that when you apply for roles, when you reach the last stage (the vibe check), you'll be competing against people with no gap, who might be able to perform better than you if only because they have less worries (no ever-increasing gap, no ever-decreasing money, a rejection for them doesn't affect them too much because they still have a job).

- Even if you think you have a good network that could help you get a job quickly, consider their location. Assume you'll only be able to get some help from contacts in your current location (within commute time). Even if you're looking for remote jobs, assume your network will only be able to help, at most, with on-site jobs.

- Even if you do freelance work, consider those as part of your employment gap. You might get interviews for companies that don't mind it, but assume that most companies default to treating it as an employment gap.

- If you feel bad right now at work, assume that's similar to how bad you'll feel after being unable to get a job for 1 year, but with less money on top of that. And you'll have to learn to not let this affect your performance on interviews.

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That's what I would have liked someone told me before I left my last full-time job. I'm aware I'm just some stranger on the internet exposing how much I suck at life because I wasn't able to just get a job quickly like others, and I underestimated a lot of shit.

So I think what I want to say is, "think carefully".

My savings won't take me to social security age but I'm damn tempted to live only another ten years on my own terms rather than work for 20 more and live for 15 more after that in failing health.