What Is Quiet Quitting, Really?

“Quiet quitting” became a buzzword in 2022, but its roots go far deeper. It describes employees who stop going above and beyond — they meet their job description, but no more:

✅ No staying late to finish a feature
✅ No weekend deployments
✅ No volunteering for new initiatives

They aren’t resigning. They’re just refusing to give “discretionary effort.”

In the tech industry, with its intense hustle culture, that feels radical — but is it really?

Why Tech Is Uniquely Vulnerable

In software, quiet quitting hits harder because the culture historically expects:

• Heroic all-nighters

• “Passion” for side projects

• Emotional investment in product vision

• Always-on Slack responsiveness

When an engineer stops quietly over-delivering, it’s painfully obvious. Features slow down. Firefighting takes longer. Pull requests pile up.

This is why in tech, quiet quitting is rarely quiet — the effects ripple across velocity, morale, and sometimes even customer SLAs.

The Drivers Behind It

1️⃣ Burnout
Years of high-pressure sprints, impossible deadlines, and constant context switching wear people out.

2️⃣ Lack of recognition
If above-and-beyond contributions go unrewarded, employees eventually pull back to minimum requirements.

3️⃣ Mismatched incentives
Tech workers often see founders cashing out big while engineers get little long-term upside, fueling resentment.

4️⃣ Post-pandemic boundaries
Remote work helped people see the value of personal time, family, and mental health — and they’re defending it.

The Myth of “Low Performers”

Quiet quitting is not the same as slacking off. Many “quiet quitters” still do their jobs well — they just stop doing unpaid emotional or creative labor beyond their actual responsibilities.

Yet some managers conflate that with underperformance. That creates a dangerous cycle of distrust:

👉 Employee pulls back
👉 Manager labels them uncommitted
👉 Employee disengages further

What Can Teams Do?

✅ Clarify expectations
If your culture needs above-and-beyond efforts, be honest about it and reward it explicitly.

✅ Reward sustainable work
Instead of praising all-nighters, celebrate clean, maintainable code delivered during reasonable hours.

✅ Listen for warning signs
If once-enthusiastic folks go silent in standups, stop proposing ideas, or disengage from code reviews, check in without judgment.

✅ Protect psychological safety
Create space where people can say “no” without career risk.

✅ Redesign workloads
If success depends on consistent heroics, the problem is with the system — not the employee.

Voices from the Field

On Hacker News:

“Quiet quitting is just people refusing to be exploited.”

On Reddit r/tech:

“After my third burnout, I just do my tickets and log off. I’m happier than ever.”
(reddit.com)

So Is It Really That Quiet?

In a way, no. Quiet quitting in tech sends loud signals:

✅ Missed OKRs
✅ Slow feature velocity
✅ Less innovation
✅ Rising turnover

It’s only “quiet” because people don’t announce it. But the impact shows up clearly in metrics and morale.

Final Takeaway

Quiet quitting is not a new phenomenon — it is a natural reaction to overwork and a lack of sustainable recognition. In tech, where passion has historically been exploited, it is a predictable correction.

If leaders see quiet quitting as a personal failure, they miss the real message:
The system is broken.

To fix it, build a culture that respects boundaries, rewards sustainable work, and gives employees room to be whole humans — not just code-producing machines.