one of my proposals for partially fixing burnout would be to allow devs to take unpaid sabbaticals.
if i could have taken 6-9mo away from my job to do my "meaningful work" and then come back, i would've much preferred that to just outright leaving. i imagine that that'd be a great employee retention tool for the tech co as well.
In smaller companies you can negotiate it as my friend did.
There is some stigma around "diy sabbaticals" (leaving job without new one), my fiance and family was quite surprised and frustrated for proposing to leave a "high paying job where I don't have a lot of work/stress" without new one in toughy developer market with lot of layoffs.
if i could have taken 6-9mo away from my job to do my "meaningful work" and then come back, i would've much preferred that to just outright leaving. i imagine that that'd be a great employee retention tool for the tech co as well.