Teacher job satisfaction has been widely associated with instructional quality (Harrison et al., 2023) and teacher retention (Carver-Thomas & Darling-Hammond, 2017; Wartenberg et al., 2023). Despite the growing body of research on teacher job satisfaction and early career teachers (ECTs) in recent years, existing scholarship remains largely dominated by studies from Western contexts, highlighting the need for greater inclusion of diverse cultural perspectives to inform the global discourse on ECTs education (Hoang, 2023; Yii et al., 2025). This gap is particularly salient in the context of persistent global teacher shortages, which affect education systems worldwide and are partly driven by high attrition rates among ECTs (UNESCO & International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030, 2024; OECD, 2025). Conceptualising teacher job satisfaction as a multidimensional construct encompassing both satisfaction with the immediate work environment and satisfaction with the teaching profession more broadly (OECD, 2025), this paper presents emerging findings from a qualitative study exploring the job satisfaction of ECTs in Kazakhstan. Drawing on the Job Demands–Resources framework (Bakker & Demerouti, 2017; Demerouti et al., 2001), the study conceptualises teachers’ working conditions as a dynamic interplay between job demands and job resources that shape early professional experiences. Job demands refer to the physical, psychological, social, or organisational elements of work that require ongoing effort and are therefore associated with physiological and psychological costs. Although these demands are not necessarily negative, they can turn into stressors when opportunities for recovery are limited. In contrast, job resources encompass physical, psychological, social, or organisational factors that help mitigate job demands, facilitate the accomplishment of work-related goals, or promote professional growth, making them beneficial in their own right.

Examining how ECTs perceive their everyday work, the types of demands they encounter, the resources available to them, and how these factors are associated with their sense of professional satisfaction during the early years of teaching, the data for the study were collected through 75 semi-structured individual interviews and 4 focus group discussions. Using purposive maximal variation sampling, participants of the study included ECTs of chemistry, biology, physics, mathematics, and computer science working in grades 5–11 in public schools across urban, rural, district, and regional centre contexts.

Preliminary analysis suggests that some ECTs face significant job demands, including workload, classroom management, student engagement, and parent interactions. At the same time, among job resources, collegial support, mentoring relationships, and informal peer collaboration play a critical role in helping teachers manage these demands and sustain job satisfaction. The findings highlight how organisational conditions and support structures shape ECTs’ professional experiences. By providing empirical evidence from Kazakhstan, this study contributes to international discussions on ECTs’ working experiences and offers insights for strengthening school-level and system-level support for ECTs.

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