Jessica Lattif came into tech without the background everyone around her seemed to have.
She had no engineering degree and no business degree. She started at a startup in her early 30s, surrounded by 25-year-olds, four months pregnant. She wanted to prove she belonged there, and she meant to do it through the quality of her work. She did not want to belong to the culture. Her coworkers stayed through dinner and played board games into the night. She went home to her family.
That choice followed her for ten years, through management roles at Meta and Salesforce. When she turned down a high-profile project because her son was three, she watched it cost her. The people who got chosen were the ones who gave up everything else. Good work was not enough. In 2023 she spent months sick, ran a department offsite with bronchitis, and came home to a performance conversation she did not see coming. She took medical leave, and then her life changed for the better.
In this episode, Jessica, tech career and burnout coach and founder of Not Working in Tech, talks about the "no" that sidelined her at Meta, the offsite she could not cancel, and why she now speaks openly against an industry that rewards people for giving up their lives.
This is validation dependency built around belonging. Jessica held a line most people in tech do not, and the need to prove herself still ran underneath it. If you believe you came in through the wrong door, you expect each promotion to settle whether you belong. It doesn't. Your performance stays strong, so the cost shows up in your health. We look at where the need to earn your place starts, why the boundaries you hold for your team rarely get held for you, and what changes when you stop trying to control how others see you.
If you have kept working through being sick because canceling felt like it would cost you, this one is about you.
GUEST INFO
Jessica Lattif — Not Working in Tech founder and burnout coach; former Salesforce and Meta leader. Website: notworkingintech.com; Instagram: @notworkingintech; Podcast: Not Working in Tech
CONNECT
Host: Andi Johnson — Instagram @andijohnsonleadership
Take the Validation Pattern Quiz — link in bio.
