Burnout in the Software Industry

Coding is one of the most interesting and fun things you ever get to do, I remember how astonished I was when I developed my first project and how much it was exciting and satisfying. I felt that we, programmers, are very lucky to get to do something that we absolutely love and appreciate the impact it has on our lives.

As a software engineer, you land your first job in a big software company and throw yourself into the pit of complex and blockbuster projects, enjoying it, trying to prove yourself and learning a lot in the process.

After years of working, maybe you worked on crunched projects, sometimes overtime for a long period, your energy and enjoyment start to fade away, you stopped achieving like you used to be. You are probably experiencing burnout.

Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused mainly by excessive and prolonged stress.

Burnout can have a serious effect on your mental and physical health if left untreated, burnout has several signs to be aware of like extreme exhaustion, irritability, loss of motivation, reduced performance and sometimes physical illness. But as the software industry is special in every single way and because we really love what we do, its burnout is severe and has its additional causes. Yet, there are new ways to prevent and cure it.

Unfortunately, burnout is pretty common in our industry, almost every software engineer will experience burnout at some point, Blind team asked over 11,000 tech workers at 30 of the biggest tech companies if they experienced burnout before and over 57% said yes and this is very alarming.

Most of these companies have a burnout rate of more than 50%, Credit Karma with 70.73%, Oracle with 63.25%, Apple with 57.46% and Netflix the lowest rate with 38.89%.

Looks like even the biggest tech companies cannot manage this problem or at least lower these numbers.

So, we should avoid big tech companies, right? maybe work on an open-source project, startup or may be working on a fun software like a video game.

Glad you asked.

In open-source, Mike Perham from Sidekiq echoes said that the common open-source journey is:

1. Start a project with much enthusiasm.
2. Build something valuable, give it away for free.
3. Get overwhelmed with support requests and issues.
4. Burnout and walk away.

Another incident, someone called out a user on a GitHub issue, saying “You are the reason people burn out on open source.”

In the case of startups, most software startup owners need to do a lot of work outside their field like marketing, finance and management that over time generates frustration and burnout and of course add to these long hours of unmanaged and chaotic work structure.

Burnout in the gaming industry is so popular, people started to talk about it, as big game studios crunch their developers before launch, it is so frustrating a spouse of a developer wrote a letter to EA:

“Crunching neither accelerated this nor slowed it down; its effect on the actual product was not measurable. The extended hours were deliberate and planned; the management knew what they were doing as they did it. The love of my life comes home late at night complaining of a headache that will not go away and a chronically upset stomach, and my happy supportive smile is running out.”

And she is right, crunching did not help, most of these games end up buggy, incomplete and sometimes unplayable, which begs a question.

Why is there so much burnout in the software industry?

Software engineers are very talented and creative individuals, working on unrealistic deadlines for a long period is pretty exhausting, especially after we started working remotely, actually, the buffer did a survey on remote workers about their biggest struggles, 22% said they are having difficulties unplugging after working hours.

Also, rapidly shifting requirements and features, especially working on startups and highly political projects, sometimes changing responsibilities from development to a more managerial role can be an unwelcome change to some engineers.

Also take care of the general causes of burnout that exist in every industry, like lack of role clarity, lack of team and management support, skipping vacations or work during vacations, perfectionism tendencies from the engineering side and lack of sleep.

So, what should we do?

It seems like there is no escape in this industry.

Do not worry, we can escape.

Always be aware of the causes and signs of burnout first, avoiding burnout before it happens is much easier, whenever you feel any of the signs just stop and look at your work life, you might find a reason for burnout to sneak into your life.

If you feel burnout is already in your life here is the prescription:

Exercise 3-4 times a week, eat well and get more sleep, these steps seem trivial, but they are essential to your well-being, exercising is not particularly weightlifting or anything intense, most of our workday is sitting, so 15 mins of walking will do the trick.

Be social, programming is isolating, especially after we began working from our homes, so try always to communicate with your family and friends.

Have a hobby outside software, this will help you to unplug from the stressful workday and lighten your mood.

Take vacations to relax and release some of the work stress, and please when you take a vacation, unplug completely from work, no phone, no emails, just enjoy your vacation.

Try to find value in your work, each one of us needs to see the impact and value of his/her work, also, learn to say “No” to tasks out of your responsibility, it’s hard especially in the beginning but trust me it will help a lot.

More importantly, have fun, get back to the basics and start your own project and play.

And if you still cannot figure it out, do not be afraid to ask for help, talk to your colleagues, your manager or even a therapist if you need a specialist.

And finally, be kind to yourself and enjoy, we all love programming, we just forgot how much.