The Week I Couldn’t Log Off

I still remember the week I couldn’t take off—supposed to be PTO, but I spent most evenings on Slack, jumping from late meetings to emergency threads. Every time I tried to close my laptop, something else landed on my plate. Even out-of-office, I was the bottleneck. The team kept waiting for my answer, for my sign-off. Skipped real time off became a habit, not an exception. I didn’t need a retro to see it. I was the linchpin, a warning sign that boundary setting for engineering managers was overdue.

I called it protecting the team. Making sure they weren’t overloaded, keeping blockers off their radar. It seemed noble. But that’s not leadership. That’s the opposite of efforts to prevent engineering manager burnout.

The downside is brutal. Acting as the shield makes everything run through you, and soon the team learns you’ll always pick up the slack, literally. Those 9PM pings weren’t signs of a high-performing group, they were proof of brittleness. Ask yourself: if you go dark for a week, does the system hold, or does it stall out?

So here’s the reframe. My job isn’t to protect them. It’s to protect us.

Going forward, I stopped seeing my presence as the team’s reliability. Instead, I shifted toward boundary setting for engineering managers and designed an operating system that works even when I’m logged off. It’s not just about personal recharge. It’s about building a predictable rhythm of communication, ownership, and log-off support for everyone. You might worry it’ll slow things down or make you seem less available. Here’s the truth. When you build systems to handle load, protect your own energy, and set expectations early, you invest in resilience. That’s how delivery, trust, and creative problem-solving survive the crunch, long after you’ve finally taken that PTO.

Why Your Energy Is the Constant

Every reorg, roadmap shuffle, or sudden staffing hiccup—no matter the chaos, one thing stays the same: you. I’ve watched this play out over and over. Through all the technical pivots and managerial curveballs, the team looks to the leader’s energy to set the tone. Here’s what actually happens. In sustainable engineering leadership, burnout in leaders often cascades down, directly impacting team well-being and performance—protecting your own capacity stabilizes the entire system. When your bandwidth tanks, everybody else feels it. Your stability isn’t just a personal issue; it’s the pillar the team stands on.

For years, I thought absorbing pressure for the team was how you proved care. “If I’m exhausted, that means I’m doing my job,” I told myself more times than I can count. But that’s just martyrdom dressed up as dedication. So I stopped trying to be the shield and started designing around engineering manager boundaries. That shift wasn’t overnight, but it was the hinge. Caring for my own boundaries directly lifted the team.

Let’s be real. Drawing hard lines feels risky. You’ll wonder if saying no makes you look out of touch, worry about being less available, or fret velocity might dip. Six months ago, if you’d told me saying no was part of the job, I would’ve laughed. I used to think every request deserved a quick yes, but that’s just a fast lane to constant firefighting and a brittle team. Setting boundaries isn’t about being distant. It’s how you anchor predictability through resilient engineering team design. When teammates know there’s a rhythm, that issues won’t get hidden or dumped, output stabilizes. It’s not just a productivity play. It’s trust in action.

How to Build a System That Doesn’t Break When You Log Off: Boundary Setting for Engineering Managers

First, audit your calendar like you’re debugging a gnarly production outage. Take an honest look at the coming week. The recurring meetings are your first audit target.