IT Burnout Crisis: Systemic Overwork and Poor Hiring Drive Experienced Pros Away

A veteran IT professional with 12 years of experience as a systems administrator and engineer has left the industry, citing systemic failures rather than personal dissatisfaction. He describes being assigned a large-scale Citrix project alone post-merger while absorbing nearly 100 extra hours of work in two weeks, leading to severe cognitive and physical exhaustion. A culture of fear and knowledge silos forces competent employees to compensate for undertrained colleagues, accelerating burnout among top performers. Flawed technical hiring practices that prioritize memorization over practical skills further compound the problem by assembling teams ill-equipped for real-world demands. The author argues the IT industry must reform workloads, hiring processes, and workplace culture to halt the ongoing exodus of experienced professionals.