how do you avoid burnout and getting taken advantage of?
mahmud: Are you sure you're being milked? Are you sure you're not merely "adequate"? Don't answer, it's a rhetorical question. You're 3 years out of college, and whatever you're doing now, whatever you're good at, it is just something that requires < 5 years of training and experience. That's barely the number of years one needs just to be an OK programmer, much less acquire specialized domain knowledge in business, arts and sciences to actually apply those programming skills for real-world use.Chill out: you're not the only recent grad who is not a multi-millionaire. Look at the people you work with as mentors; even if they're lousy, they can serve as an example of what NOT to be.Even if you think you're being exploited now, you will remember your time with them fondly in the future; one gets screwed harder as one's responsibilities increase.