--- title: Tales of the Autistic Developer - High-Functioning... description: A veteran software engineer who is autistic describes living with high-functioning depression behind a highly visible career. He has held Principal Engineer... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/tales-of-the-autistic-developer---high-functioning-depression-aeogd9nti twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Tales of the Autistic Developer - High-Functioning Depression | daily.dev og:description: A veteran software engineer who is autistic describes living with high-functioning depression behind a highly visible career. He has held Principal Engineer... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/tales-of-the-autistic-developer---high-functioning-depression-aeogd9nti og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/AEOGd9NTi.png og:image:alt: Tales of the Autistic Developer - High-Functioning Depression og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Tales of the Autistic Developer - High-Functioning Depression **[RUBYLAND](https://daily.dev/sources/rubyla)** · 16 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A veteran software engineer who is autistic describes living with high-functioning depression behind a highly visible career. He has held Principal Engineer roles at Gusto and GitHub, worked on platform and AI teams at PlayStation, Square and Amazon One Medical, and sits on the Ruby Central board, plus gave a RubyConf 2024 keynote. He traces an inner voice calling him a fraud back to teachers and peers who bullied and belittled him as a child. No achievement, award, or promotion ever quiets that voice, and his depression cycles between bursts of productivity and relapse into what he calls 'the gray'. He credits individual people, not accomplishments, with pulling him out, and says he is in therapy and considering medication. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Leaving Tech](https://daily.dev/posts/leaving-tech-9x0prwch6) · RUBYLAND · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Software developers are not okay](https://daily.dev/posts/software-developers-are-not-okay-pzkon36n4) · Lobsters · 72 upvotes · 9 comments - [Your Developers Are Shipping More Than Ever. And Feeling Less Than Ever.](https://daily.dev/posts/your-developers-are-shipping-more-than-ever-and-feeling-less-than-ever--znrdahm5f) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Quiet Weight of Working in Tech in the AI Era](https://daily.dev/posts/the-quiet-weight-of-working-in-tech-in-the-ai-era-dvzbshh7e) · DEV · 81 upvotes · 15 comments --- Tags: [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career), [#mental-health](https://daily.dev/tags/mental-health) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/tales-of-the-autistic-developer---high-functioning-depression-aeogd9nti) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Tales of the Autistic Developer - High-Functioning Depression","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/tales-of-the-autistic-developer---high-functioning-depression-aeogd9nti","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/tales-of-the-autistic-developer---high-functioning-depression-aeogd9nti"},"datePublished":"2026-10-26T01:31:09.492Z","dateModified":"2026-10-26T01:31:39.219Z","description":"A veteran software engineer who is autistic describes living with high-functioning depression behind a highly visible career. 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