Back in 2002, Chris Hood had just started what he thought was an extremely cool new engineering job, calibrating software designs to improve car security. But he soon realized the culture at the company, based in southeast Australia, promoted profit above everything else — including quality control and the mental health of its workers. It lacked proper human resources and took shortcuts in process modeling. His concerns started to weigh on him, but one colleague took the stress even worse.

2002年其他回，克里斯·胡德刚开始他还以为是一个非常酷的新的工程工作，校准软件设计，以改善汽车防盗。 但是他很快意识到，位于澳大利亚东南部的公司文化促进了利润的增长，包括质量控制和员工的心理健康。 它缺乏适当的人力资源，并在过程建模中采用了捷径。 他的担忧开始困扰他，但一位同事的压力甚至更大。

“He’d been drinking late one time when we were supposed to start work at 4 a.m. He thought I told our boss he couldn’t drive because he was drunk (which wasn’t true), so he pushed me against a wall and threatened me,” Hood tells OneZero. “But the boss said ‘let’s ignore it, get through this, and deal with it when we get back.’”

“他一直喝升吃了一个时候，我们应该在4到开始工作是他认为我跟我们的老板，他不能开车，因为他醉了(这是不正确的)，所以他把我推在墙上威胁我，”胡德告诉OneZero 。 “但是老板说'让我们忽略它，解决它，等我们回来时再处理。'”

Chris was appalled. His unstable co-worker could have killed someone, if not through sloppy engineering then through his own drunk driving. He felt that his manager’s decision revealed a deeper problem with the company’s values, and shortly after he left for the relative stability of the airline industry.

克里斯感到震惊。 他那不稳定的同事本来可以杀死一个人的，如果不是通过草率的工程，然后是通过自己的酒后驾车杀死。 他认为，经理的决定揭示了公司价值的更深层问题，而且在他离开航空业后不久就离开了公司。

The mental health of tech security engineers has been a growing concern in the industry. Nearly a dozen engineers in software and hardware security roles have told me that their teams suffer from severe stress and anxiety, exacerbated by little downtime, endless cyber attacks, and personnel shortages. Few companies appear to have the management skills and resources to support them. Some studies have found that up to 60% of security engineers are unsatisfied with jobs that have “high rates of burnout,” while 91% say that “the balance of power is tipped toward cybercriminals instead of cyber defenders.” Software security engineer Omar Shafie explains that being in the industry is like being a soccer goalie trying to stop a score on thousands of goals at the same time, every day. Some say the job can be as stressful as literal brain surgery.

技术安全工程师的心理健康问题已成为业界日益关注的问题。 几乎有十二位担任软件和硬件安全角色的工程师告诉我，他们的团队遭受了严重的压力和焦虑，几乎没有停机时间，无休止的网络攻击和人员短缺，这使情况更加恶化。 几乎没有公司拥有管理技能和资源来支持他们。 一些研究发现，多达60％的安全工程师对“倦怠率很高”的工作不满意 ，而91 ％的安全工程师认为“力量平衡是向网络犯罪分子而不是网络防御者倾斜的”。 软件安全工程师Omar Shafie解释说，从事这个行业就像是一名足球守门员，试图每天同时在数千个进球中停止得分。 有人说这项工作可能像脑外科手术一样压力重重。

None of this surprises Nina Vasan, clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at Stanford University and chief psychiatrist at Silicon Valley Executive Psychiatry. She treats infosec leaders at Google, Apple, and Facebook, and says the anxiety they experience comes from the very real fear of making a mistake on a global scale that could destroy people’s lives. This can also lead to substance use, especially alcohol and marijuana.

斯坦福大学精神病学临床助理教授， 硅谷行政精神病学首席精神病医生Nina Vasan对此并不感到意外。 她对待Google，Apple和Facebook的信息安全负责人，并说他们所经历的焦虑来自于真正担心在全球范围内犯错误，这可能会破坏人们的生活。 这也可能导致使用毒品，尤其是酒精和大麻。

“With hackers in foreign countries targeting the security of these companies, there are more and more threats they have to worry about, and the repercussions of a security breach is increasingly dangerous,” says Vasan. She works flexibly with engineers to offer consultations at their home, office, or by video call, but notes that few companies have thought to offer this kind of mental health support as part of their standard benefits. Doing so could make a big difference to a sector with high rates of burnout and a critical number of infosecurity vacancies — as many as 300,000 in the U.S. alone, according to one report.

Vasan说：“由于国外的黑客将这些公司的安全作为目标，因此他们不得不担心越来越多的威胁，而对安全漏洞的影响也越来越危险。” 她与工程师灵活地合作，在他们的家中，办公室或通过视频通话提供咨询，但是注意到很少有公司考虑将这种心理健康支持作为其标准福利的一部分。 一份报告显示，这样做可能会给倦怠率高且信息安全性空缺数量非常高的行业带来巨大影响- 仅在美国就多达30万个。

Being in the industry is like being a soccer goalie trying to stop a score on thousands of goals at the same time, every day. Some say the job can be as stressful as literal brain surgery.

从事这个行业就像是一名足球守门员，每天试图同时阻止成千上万的进球。 有人说这项工作可能像脑外科手术一样压力重重。

The engineers I spoke to raised four main concerns: technical and nontechnical issues at work, and social and personal problems outside work. Work-related issues included worrying about types of assets secured (financial records usually being more valuable than user data), managing outdated tech stacks, and dealing with uneven organizational maturity. Outside work, a lack of support from family and friends was common, as was a lack of experience in dealing with stress.

我与之交谈的工程师提出了四个主要问题：工作中的技术和非技术问题，以及工作以外的社会和个人问题。 与工作相关的问题包括担心所保护资产的类型(财务记录通常比用户数据更有价值)，管理过时的技术堆栈以及应对组织成熟度不均匀的问题。 在户外工作中，普遍缺乏家人和朋友的支持，缺乏应对压力的经验。

Jeremy Wagner-Kaiser, a security architect at the business loan platform Funding Circle, says there are definitely jobs and job expectations less stressful than others. He’s happy at Funding Circle, but a previous security role at a startup required him to be on-call through the night. “The on-call rotation system controlled my life and was exceptionally dreadful,” he tells me, adding that the stress started making him angry, impatient, and resentful with his colleagues. He remembers dismissing a teammate’s efforts brusquely—“that’s a stupid question”—and even rejected a manager’s brief mental health outreach as disingenuous. That reaction isn’t out of place. In fact, the idea that security engineers must suffer for their work is so culturally ingrained it often shuts down potentially helpful discussions around mental health.

商业贷款平台Funding Circle的安全架构师Jeremy Wagner-Kaiser表示，肯定有工作和对工作的期望比其他人压力小。 他在Funding Circle感到很高兴，但是以前在一家初创公司担任安全职务需要他整夜待命。 他告诉我：“随叫随到的轮换系统控制了我的生活，而且异常可怕。”他补充说，压力开始使他生气，不耐烦和对同事充满怨恨。 他记得自己曾粗暴地拒绝了队友的努力-“这是一个愚蠢的问题”-甚至拒绝了经理短暂的心理健康外展是不明智的。 这种React并非不适当。 实际上，安全工程师必须为自己的工作承受痛苦的想法在文化上根深蒂固，因此通常会关闭有关心理健康的可能有用的讨论。

Amanda Berlin wanted to break through this cultural firewall by starting a peer-support advocacy called Mental Health Hackers. Now Senior Security Architect at Blumira, Berlin worked in health care and suffered depression long before becoming a coder, so she knew that when people talk to each other as equals in a relaxed setting without worrying about their jobs, they’re more receptive to help. Everyone I talked to mentioned fear of reprisal as a reason they never spoke up about depression at work. Several said they’d been advised mental health disclosures prevented them from jobs with military clearances, which is a myth.

阿曼达·柏林(Amanda Berlin)希望通过发起名为“心理健康黑客”的同伴支持倡导来突破这一文化防火墙。 现在，柏林布卢米拉(Blumira)的高级安全架构师从事医疗保健工作，在成为编码员之前很久就患有抑郁症，因此她知道，当人们在宽松的环境中彼此平等地交谈而不必担心工作时，他们更乐于帮助。 我与之交谈的每个人都提到担心遭到报复，因为他们从未谈论过工作中的抑郁症。 一些人说，他们被告知精神健康信息的披露会阻止他们获得军事许可，这是一个神话。

Berlin says infosec culture misleads engineers into thinking they’re not suffering because mental health symptoms can also be associated with effectiveness. “People who work in security are drawn to want to spend a lot of time behind the keyboard,” she says. “I never pushed back, always thought I was put on Earth to fix things, to implement software. I just drove myself into depression and tried to deal with it myself the entire time.”

柏林说，信息安全文化使工程师误以为他们没有受到痛苦，因为心理健康症状也可能与有效性有关。 她说：“从事安全工作的人们很想在键盘后面花费很多时间。” “我从不退缩，一直以为我被固定在地球上以解决问题，实现软件。 我只是让自己陷入沮丧之中，并一直试图自己应对。”

Some engineers have disclosed deeply personal problems at Mental Health Hackers meetups, Berlin explains, in the hope of beginning more healthy lives. One man went from being committed to a mental hospital to working full-time at a tech company, while another who attempted suicide multiple times is now recovering. Berlin says a shift among millennials to becoming more open in talking about mental health challenges has also had a positive effect.

柏林解释说，一些工程师在“心理健康黑客”聚会上深刻地揭示了个人问题，希望开始更健康的生活。 一名男子从被送往精神病院转为在一家科技公司全职工作，而另一名多次自杀的人现在正在康复。 柏林说，千禧一代在谈论精神健康挑战时变得更加开放也产生了积极影响。

Perhaps the biggest mental health lesson is that while these problems have emerged in the technology industry, it’s not the actual technology that’s the problem. Instead, the damage has been caused by working culture and management systems that have not changed to meet the intensifying demands of the industry and the stresses that places on workers.

也许最大的心理健康课是，尽管这些问题已经出现在技术行业中，但真正的问题不是真正的技术。 代替， 损害是由于工作文化和管理体系没有改变而无法满足行业不断增长的需求以及对工人的压力。

Where there is a professional framework for handling mental health, as there is for KPIs and ROIs, then workers tend to feel more secure and content, no matter how arduous and foreboding the situation. This, says Chris Hood, is how he feels about his position working for the military branch of one of the biggest airlines on the planet. Years after that bizarre roadside confrontation, Hood now appreciates the care his company provides. If he needed to, Hood tells me, he could call a support line to check-in with a therapist. At times, he asked for and received months of time on a less-brain-intensive role to care for his family.

如果存在用于处理心理健康的专业框架(如针对KPI和ROI的框架)，那么无论情况如何艰巨和令人生畏，工作人员都倾向于感到更加安全和满意。 克里斯·胡德(Chris Hood)表示，这就是他为地球上最大的航空公司之一的军事部门工作时的感受。 在那次怪异的路边对抗之后多年，胡德现在对他的公司所提供的照顾表示赞赏。 胡德告诉我，如果需要的话，他可以给支持热线打电话咨询治疗师。 有时，他要求并接受数月的时间以减轻大脑负担来照顾家人。

And as an engineering manager, he says systems are in place to ensure he reaches out to employees about their internal lives. Not doing so, he says, goes against the financial interests of the company. “The business recognizes jobs are stressful but… we monitor overworking. Any sustained extra work is bad. You can have peaks where you work a lot. But if there is a continued surge, we figure out why. Are they using the right tools? Is the process too arduous? Do we have enough people? That’s what I look for, anyway.”

他说，作为一名工程经理，已经建立了系统，以确保他可以向员工介绍他们的内部生活。 他说，不这样做会违背公司的财务利益。 “企业意识到工作压力很大，但是……我们会监控工作过度。 任何持续的额外工作都是不好的。 您可能会在很多工作中遇到高峰。 但是，如果持续增长，我们会找出原因。 他们使用正确的工具吗？ 这个过程太艰巨吗？ 我们有足够的人吗？ 无论如何，这就是我想要的。”

Update: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Amanda Berlin‘s employer. She works at Blumira.

更新： 这个故事的早期版本错误地说明了Amanda Berlin的雇主。 她在Blumira工作。

If you have been affected by any of the issues in this story, please know that there are people who understand and who can support you. Visit Mental Health Hackers to find support in your area. If you need help urgently, call 211 to speak to your local mental health agency.

如果您受到此故事中任何问题的影响，请知道有些人了解并可以为您提供支持。 访问 心理健康黑客， 以查找您所在地区的支持。 如果您紧急需要帮助，请致电211与您当地的精神卫生机构交谈。