I recently switched to salary, and my workload exploded. Suddenly, everything is "urgent," so I'm working 2–3 hours of unpaid overtime at home every night. The company is billing the client for my extra hours, but I'm not seeing any of it. How do I bring this up with management? I'd rather not keep working for free.

My manager takes my work (which takes hours), feeds it to AI, and tells me to match the AI's output. Except the AI version makes zero sense for the actual project. I'm so annoyed and checked out that I'm skipping crucial steps in my workflow, making things worse. I used to love this work, but now I’m losing all passion. Has anyone dealt with a boss like this, or is it time for me to quit?

What was the biggest mistake you made early in your career that ended up teaching you a valuable lesson? One of mine was assuming everyone interpreted requirements the same way I did. Learning to ask clarifying questions saved me from a lot of rework. What’s yours?

How do you handle disagreements with your manager about technical decisions? I’ve learned to pick my battles and always come with data instead of opinions when I do push back. It doesn’t always work, but it at least keeps the conversation productive. How do you approach it?

A senior engineer on my team is leaving, and our manager sent a link for a farewell gift card. She mentored me when I was a junior, so I want to chip in, but I can't see what others are giving and have never done this before. She makes great money if that matters. The default options are $20, $30, and $50. What's standard here? Is $30 enough, or should I go higher since she helped me so much?