ADHD and Self-Acceptance
Listen to my appearance on Attention Talk Radio on Spotify here.
Built the tech career you wanted.
Why doesn't it feel like enough?
Reflective 1:1 coaching for senior software engineers and engineering leaders on the questions that the next promotion won't answer.
The gap between achievement and meaning is one of the most overlooked problems in tech.
You climbed the ladder. You hit the milestones. You aimed at senior — and made it past.
And there's a brooding sense of just heaviness. Is this really it? What do I do next?
What I notice in conversations: people have been asking too much of their career. Too much of their title, status, salary, scope. And now that they've hit most of those things, the lack is still there.
The work isn't to ask your career for more. It's to stop asking it for everything.
"I'll feel better once I hit the next milestone." (You said that for the last three.)
"Sundays shouldn't feel like this after a good week." (And yet.)
"I want to want to be there." (Not the same as wanting to be there.)
"I optimized everything except whether the path still felt like mine."
Work with me
I'm an engineering coach. I work privately with a small number of senior software engineers and engineering leaders.
What it isn't: a five-step method. I don't have one. I never will.
What it is: a slower kind of conversation. The work is to slow things down enough to notice what's actually happening when execution gets hard, so you can respond deliberately instead of defaulting to pressure or self-attack.
Who I work with
Senior software engineers. Staff and principal ICs. Engineering managers and technical leaders.
Thoughtful, accomplished people sitting with questions that are quieter than the ones their calendar is full of. People who suspect the answer is somewhere in them, not in someone else's five-step program.
Most arrive having asked too much of their career — and they're ready to stop.
What a first conversation looks like
A first conversation is one hour, free, and unscripted. I don't believe in scripts.
The point is to get to know each other and begin a relationship.
That's it.
How I think about the work I do
The external problems get solved first
Compensation, handled. Promotion, earned. Technical credibility, real.
Then the questions arrive that none of those answer.
The disorientation is exactly because the obvious excuses are gone.
The metrics can lie
Reviews: strong. Titles: impressive. Scope: visible.
None of them answer the quieter question.
The next performance number isn't going to answer it either.
More optimization won't fix it
Another framework. Another morning routine. A better productivity system. "I just need to be more disciplined."
Under enough pressure, the goal gets replaced by "I need to fix myself." Now the project becomes a moral referendum on your self-worth — and the actual work doesn't get done.
It isn't always burnout
Burnout is exhaustion from too much.
What I see more often is different. Capacity intact. Skill intact. No clear sense of what to pour them into.
About Michael
Seven years as a software engineer. Nine years as an engineering manager. Now a coach and writer working privately with senior engineers and engineering leaders on the harder questions — the ones that don't show up in performance reviews. I also write The ADHD Engineer, a separate weekly newsletter for software engineers tired of being at war with themselves at work. Based in Toronto.
Vibe Check Roundtables
Not networking. Not productivity. Something human.
A monthly gathering I host as part of my practice. Once a month, a small group of senior engineers and engineering leaders meet online for thirty minutes of real conversation. 8–12 people. No agenda, no advice overload, no career posturing. A short opening prompt, guided conversation, one thing to carry with you. Cameras optional. Free to attend.
The Complete Engineer newsletter
The longer-form thinking behind this work.
Essays for senior engineers and engineering leaders on ambition, identity, self-doubt, overwhelm, and what it means to do work that feels like yours.
No schedule. No content calendar. Essays arrive when they're ready — which usually means there's something worth saying. The kind of writing you can sit with on a Sunday morning, not one more thing to skim before standup.
What you'll read about
- The gap between achievement and meaning
- When more discipline isn't the answer
- The "is it me?" loop and the inside-view trap
- Why "accountability" is often the wrong fix
- Pressure isn't the fuel — it's the filter
- The hidden work of being senior — the part nobody promotes you for
Read the archive → — a curated entry point to the essays, grouped by theme.
Recent essays
A small selection. See my newsletter →
Beyond Discipline
When Fixing Yourself Becomes the Blocker
"Your side project still isn't started, and the obvious diagnosis is 'I need to be more disciplined.' That's exactly the loop. The goal gets replaced by fixing yourself — and the actual work doesn't get done."
Read on Substack →It's Not You
You Know Too Much — and It's Hurting You
"You can see more than the people around you. That's not a sign you're surrounded by fools. It's a sign of something else — and it explains more of the friction than the obvious explanations do."
Read on Substack →The Hidden Work of Being Senior
You are not paid to feel overwhelmed
"Overwhelm is treated as a personal failing — something to manage privately, push through, or apologize for. None of that is what overwhelm is actually about, and none of it is in the job description."
Read on Substack →Featured appearances
Conversations on engineering leadership, ADHD, burnout, career identity, and the human side of tech.
Engineering Management, Burnout and Finding Purpose
Listen to my appearance on Dev Leader on Spotify here.
Coding Bootcamps, Burnout, and the Hard Truth about Breaking Into Tech
Listen to my interview on the Develop Yourself podcast here.
One last thing.
If anything here read as recognition rather than diagnosis, the next step isn't more reading. It's a conversation.