An OpenAI engineer left his job after feeling burnt out and struggling with mental health due to intense work pressure.
He decided to return home and focus on recovery, balance, and spending time with family.
His exit has started conversations about stress and well-being in the fast-growing AI industry.
Working at the cutting edge of artificial intelligence can be thrilling, but for Hieu Pham, it became overwhelming. A former technical staff member at OpenAI and a former employee at xAI and Google Brain, Pham announced in February 2026 that he is leaving the field of AI research to pursue his health. While proud of his contributions, he admitted the intensity of the work left him burnt out. He described the toll on his mental health as ‘real, miserable, scary, and dangerous.’ This experience convinced him it was time to pause. Pham plans to return to his home country, Vietnam, with his family, explore new experiences, and focus on recovery. He hopes to regain balance in life, away from the relentless demands of frontier AI labs, and find space to heal after years of high-pressure work in some of the world’s most advanced AI teams.
SurveyHe stated that leaving OpenAI was a difficult decision and called his time at OpenAI and xAI a once-in-a-lifetime experience. He further expressed pride in the systems he helped develop, such as Grok-3, while praising his colleagues as among the best people he had ever met.
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At the same time, he acknowledged that the intensity of the work had changed him. He said he once dismissed concerns about mental health but now recognises how real and frightening the effects can be. ‘I am burnt out,’ he wrote, describing the deterioration as miserable and dangerous.
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Big companies like OpenAI, Google, xAI, and Anthropic are all trying to release new AI tools quickly, but this puts a lot of pressure on the people working on these advanced systems. Experts note that constant stress in these jobs can hurt a person’s health, and Pham’s exit has sparked a wider conversation about sustainability in the field.
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He isn’t the only person who decided to change course. Recently, Mrinank Sharma, the head of safeguards research at Anthropic, also resigned, citing that the ‘world is in peril’ and expressing a desire to move away from technical fixes to pursue poetry and ‘courageous speech’.
Even though other researchers, like Raj Dabre from Google, agree that Pham was honest about how extremely intense the work in these labs can be, this shows a growing problem. Even very smart and talented researchers now need to take better care of their mental health while working in these environments.
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Bhaskar Sharma
Bhaskar is a senior copy editor at Digit India, where he simplifies complex tech topics across iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, and emerging consumer tech. His work has appeared in iGeeksBlog, GuidingTech, and other publications, and he previously served as an assistant editor at TechBloat and TechReloaded. A B.Tech graduate and full-time tech writer, he is known for clear, practical guides and explainers. View Full Profile
