Struggling with Overwhelming Expectations and Project Pressure
I’m a tech lead with 15 years of experience in a complex legacy project running for over 15 years. Recently, a 1-line fix took me 2 days due to deeply coupled, undocumented code, and personal health recovery after surgery. My manager escalated the issue due to repeated delays, and now I’m possibly facing a PIP or termination. I struggle with confidence in technical communication and tend to take responsibility for shared mistakes, which affects how I’m perceived. Despite working late and weekends to make up for health-related breaks, my output is still below expectations. The project involves handling new features, bug fixes, production support, training, and people management — it’s becoming overwhelming. Has anyone faced similar challenges in managing such high expectations with a legacy system? How did you manage the pressure and improve your performance? Edit: I am recovering after nose bone surgery. I requested for minimum 2 to 3 weeks leave, but got only 1 week leave due to work load. I managed giving output by taking Many 30 minutes breaks and working till late night and weekends. In this project, my manager is from 15 years, and I am from 3 years. So, manager is strong technical person working from start of the project, she is in only 1 project throughout the career.
I’m a tech lead with 15 years of experience in a complex legacy project running for over 15 years. Recently, a 1-line fix took me 2 days due to deeply coupled, undocumented code, and personal health recovery after surgery. My manager escalated the issue due to repeated delays, and now I’m possibly facing a PIP or termination.
I struggle with confidence in technical communication and tend to take responsibility for shared mistakes, which affects how I’m perceived. Despite working late and weekends to make up for health-related breaks, my output is still below expectations.
The project involves handling new features, bug fixes, production support, training, and people management — it’s becoming overwhelming.
Has anyone faced similar challenges in managing such high expectations with a legacy system? How did you manage the pressure and improve your performance?
Edit: I am recovering after nose bone surgery. I requested for minimum 2 to 3 weeks leave, but got only 1 week leave due to work load. I managed giving output by taking Many 30 minutes breaks and working till late night and weekends. In this project, my manager is from 15 years, and I am from 3 years. So, manager is strong technical person working from start of the project, she is in only 1 project throughout the career.
