u/ActuaryFragrant5667

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Another day, another fat paycheck for doing the absolute bare minimum. Roll in late, hit the stand-up with a solid “no updates from me,” then spend the rest of the day nudging milestone JIRAs along without actually testing anything serious. Long lunch, couple of coffee breaks, maybe poke around an SUV once or twice. Log a defect if I’m feeling generous. The system is held together by luck and my complete lack of effort, but who cares when the RSUs keep vesting and the base salary is already stupid. Honestly this is the dream. Get paid like a principal engineer to do the work of a houseplant. Long live Workday. Workday forever forward.

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Title says it all. I’ve got 4 years of experience as a Software Engineer, but 100% of that has been in Workday XO (Extend, integrations, reports, the whole ecosystem).

I’m starting to feel like I made a huge mistake. I regret learning this instead of a real stack (Java, Python, Go, etc.). Outside the Workday echo chamber, my skills feel completely useless. No Leetcode, no system design, no git workflows that matter, no cloud.

Be real with me:

1. Am I absolutely cooked if I try to leave for a normal SWE role at a FAANG or mid-tier tech company?

2. What can I actually do now to pivot out without taking a junior salary?

3. Or should I just double down, accept the golden handcuffs, and become a high-paid Workday contractor for life?