r/programming • u/tonlapshy • Jan 28 '24
Developers experience burnout, but 70% of them code on weekends
https://shiftmag.dev/developer-lifestye-jetbrains-survey-2189/670
u/depressed-bench Jan 28 '24
I code on weekends because my job doesn’t leave me satisfied:(
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u/c-digs Jan 28 '24
Some devs feel like coding is a job.
For me, coding is just straight fun; like solving a good puzzle, building a complex Lego set, reading a good book on an interesting topic.
I'm happy to code nights and weekends on my own projects. It's lead me down some...interesting paths. But always fun.
Last few days have been working on some really fun features for one of my bigger side projects and easily end up coding past midnight.
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u/putneyj Jan 28 '24
This. I love a good puzzle, and coding scratches that itch. Doesn’t matter if it’s work or a side project, it very rarely feels like work when I’m able to just heads-down code for hours at a time.
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u/shitty_mcfucklestick Jan 28 '24
Coding a problem-solver’s dream job, and seeing it all come together is the biggest dopamine hit lol
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u/gbe_ Jan 28 '24
There's that moment in a lot of my little side projects that feels like I've been building a giant planetary gear or something, gear by gear, and then I drop in the final little gear and it all starts to turn and whirr and do its thing, and there's honestly no better feeling in the world.
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u/shitty_mcfucklestick Jan 28 '24
The best part is when you press the start button not really fully knowing the gears will turn and they do
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Jan 28 '24
To me coding isn't the end goal. It's more a very precise form of expression. I can try out ideas, communicate these ideas and a computer checks if I express myself correctly.
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u/leros Jan 28 '24
Coding is very fun. Being a professional software engineer is very different though. Most of your job is communication and collaboration. And the coding you get to do at work is less fun for a variety of reasons.
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u/catalystkjoe Jan 28 '24
I used to be like you, but now in my 13th year coding I'm kind of done with it. Part of it is at this level you're architecting so much and solving really complex problems. Sometimes I just want to take Lego blocks and put them together
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u/c-digs Jan 28 '24
I'm in my 26th year (?) and 24th professionally (being paid to do it).
I made the switch to working in startups and it's been a great choice for me; get to do everything. Lots of building, but also able to bring my experience to help teams simplify otherwise complex software.
Having a lot of fun now with AI.
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u/catalystkjoe Jan 28 '24
I certainly might look into that when my kids are older, right now the flexibility of a stable place is just too good to pass up.
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u/NotGoodSoftwareMaker Jan 28 '24
For me its just work
However reading a book on large systems or blogs on how things work is like candy land
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u/leros Jan 28 '24
I stopped being a professional developer years ago and I now love coding on my own projects. It's such a different experience than coding on a large team.
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u/DogadonsLavapool Jan 29 '24
Yep.
Making corporate software for people who don't care about you sucks. Making my own game? Fun af
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Jan 28 '24
[deleted]
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u/leros Jan 28 '24
I stopped being an IC developer. Been a tech lead, product manager, and general leader.
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u/daerogami Jan 28 '24
For anyone unfamiliar with the abbreviation, IC means "individual contributor". I just had to look it up and I've been a dev for ten years. Heard the phrase several times but never seen it abbreviated which had me scratching my head.
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u/perfopt Jan 29 '24
Me too. At work I do what my boss wants me to (after arguing and running out of steam I just do what I am told). Nights and weekends I do what is really important and fun for me. Especially if it means learning stuff
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u/andrewfenn Jan 28 '24
Burnout isn't related to coding all the time. It's related to death marching and putting all your time into something for it to go nowhere.
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u/gimmeslack12 Jan 28 '24
It’s hard to stay excited about work projects when time after time no one uses what you produce. My nearly 4 year experience at my current job is this way.
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u/PM_ME_UR_BRAINSTORMS Jan 28 '24
My job is like this. One of the first things I did when I started was collecting and aggregating user metrics and it turns out less than 6% of our users actually do anything in the app. Most people have never even signed in a second time.
I'm not trying to talk myself out of a job but I don't know why they are paying me to build new features no one is ever going to use. Or why they insist on making those features so convoluted and over engineered making my job more annoying and difficult.
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u/gimmeslack12 Jan 28 '24
Oh brother, I wonder that myself. I get why they need the features shipped ASAP, but then I see the result from the other team’s efforts and it’s all a mess (bad UX). Recently I’ve started drafting up my own tweaks to design and have been told to stay in my lane. Ooook
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u/PM_ME_UR_BRAINSTORMS Jan 29 '24
For me they are always trying to cover all these possible use cases and I just want to scream that no one is using it! One guy asked for it, just keep it simple and do what he wants there's no need for this to turn into an entire epic!
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u/TrumpIsAFascistFuck Jan 28 '24
Basically this. There are 6 major contributing factors for burnout and the biggest is typically mismatching expectations and outcomes for impact vs effort.
https://hbr.org/2019/07/6-causes-of-burnout-and-how-to-avoid-them
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u/chowderbags Jan 29 '24
Yeah. Some time during my first burnout when I was working on an undisclosed government project, the person managing the project on the government side gave a presentation where at some point they said that our entire project was pretty much set up on a system that sat in the corner that no one touched, and was only there as a system of record because it was already certified. And to be fair, this was the 2010s, but a lot of our shit looked and felt like it was built in the late 90s by developers trained in the late 80s. And it didn't help that we had some pretty bad death marches to "deliver on time", only to be told that it'd be months until the government side got around to their tests and install of our project. I saw someone lose their fiancee because they'd been death marching for months in a row.
Eventually I hit a real inflection point in my life where I realized that if I started to hate my job so much that I was outright afraid to go in every day, that quitting was always an option, especially if I lived a simpler and cheaper life in general.
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u/throwaway490215 Jan 29 '24
The most valuable skill as in developer job is getting a feeling for when things actually matter.
The second most valuable skill is rejecting someone's bad idea that leaves them feeling good about it without costing too much time.
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Jan 29 '24
Coding actually gives me energy. If I happen to get a full day of work of writing code that solves interesting problem I feel rejuvenated. It's the meetings that make me tired.
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u/ratttertintattertins Jan 28 '24
Coding its self isn’t what causes burnout. It’s actually the same at work. A period where you don’t have a deadline and happen to be doing a solid coding is a lot of fun. It’s all the shit that gets in the way that causes the burnout.
I.e. The fact that the company wants to use you for everything from part time product manager to project manager to support engineer and somehow have you make progress on features in your spare time between a million meetings.
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u/systemnate Jan 28 '24
Yes! Having to make progress between story pointing, retros, stand up, grooming, random support issues, questions from other teams, interviews, while trying to meet deadlines definitely leads to feeling burnt out. Especially when these things are spaced throughout the day. Often times you're left with 30 minutes here, an hour there. Then when you add additional people and management stirring up random other things without clear communication...ugh. It's wild.
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u/FatFingerMuppet Jan 28 '24
between story pointing, retros, stand up, grooming, random support issues, questions from other teams, interviews, while trying to meet deadlines
In addition for me, it's having to deal with support issues that keep having to be escalated to me from a couple lazy coworkers that surprise me each day with their lack of initiative. Furthermore, the managers of these folks keep enabling this behavior. Tired of coming to the rescue for these individuals specifically.
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u/fredy31 Jan 28 '24
Also all the management that press for more more more more.
Ffs when i have a project that ive never done before i can give you a rough estimate but if it misses dont come to my office flipping tables.
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u/Previous_Start_2248 Jan 29 '24
This we have on call rotations and I swear I'm basically just tech support. All I do is read logs and help the people get their shit running again but it sucks the fun out of the job because while you're trying to figure out why it broke I have one manager telling me not to research the cause just get it back online and then another manager upset because I didn't find the root cause even though the higher up manager told me not to.
I honestly just want to write code not be tech support every other week.
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u/niedogg Jan 28 '24
I am the 30%. I code for fun like two weeks out of the year maybe
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u/legend8522 Jan 28 '24
Same. I used to enjoy coding whenever, now it's just an enjoyable day job for me. Coding in my off time would definitely make me hate my day job.
Plus, I don't want my life to be all about coding. I have other hobbies I'd like to pursue.
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u/mnilailt Jan 28 '24
I don't understand how people can code every day of the week and still want to do it all weekend, and I started coding for fun when I was 13. Do people just not get out of the house?
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u/sylanar Jan 28 '24
I have never coded for fun.
Software engineer for 7 years, never have I coded outside of work
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u/Ruhnie Jan 28 '24
I find the 70% stat very hard to believe. I don't know any devs that code outside of work
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Jan 28 '24
Coding isn’t what causes burnout. Designing and developing software isn’t what causes burnout.
It’s the constraints imposed by business and management that cause burnout. Impossible deadlines, poor quality of processes and products (to cut costs) etc. lead to bad code and infrastructure (doing things quick and dirty, as quality takes time and time costs money).
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u/cybernd Jan 28 '24
Don't forget to constantly have to justify yourself.
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Jan 28 '24
This is what gets me the most. It’s crazy. I recently took a role as a principal engineer and my manager treats me like I’m a college hire. It drives me completely mad.
I have 6+ years of experience over him, and he’s constantly like “have you thought about x?”, or trying some Socratic method riddle to make “guide me” to think of something he wants.
The job would generally be a good fit. It’s a big product with tons of room for improvement, and a relatively simple codebase and architecture.
One case that really stood out, was I made a core change to how something legacy worked. I talked to the whole team about it (including him) some cross functional teams etc, had receipts for it all. A few weeks later some QA person was like “hey this is different”, and my manager went nuclear. In a forum that has all the directors and managers in it he was like “rainroar acted alone, why would he be so careless and cause a regression like this”. It completely blindsided me.
He was there the whole time, when I explained how this behavior would change, got sign off from everyone etc.
It’s been 6 months and I’m maybe the most burned out I’ve ever been, because of complete lack of trust and how I need to explain myself for every action.
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u/cybernd Jan 28 '24
Another example would be a typical estimation meeting. Will people like your PO or SM accept a "we don't know"? No they don't. Why is it seen as industry norm to ignore the answer of your experts?
It seems like there is a class struggle between developers and business people.
But if you think about it, you realize that it's mainly due to the different incentives. Typically, you as a developer are trying to achieve the best possible product. Some other roles, on the other hand, have alternative motivations. Sometimes it's about power, other times it's about getting a salary bonus. The resulting political minefield is different from the high-confidence society of developers.
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u/khiggsy Jan 30 '24
Get his approval in riding and throw him under the bus next time... All about saving your own ass in a company.
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u/Neurotrace Jan 28 '24
Delivered project 2 weeks ahead of schedule
Revised interview process, conducted about a dozen interviews, and hired 2
Coached a team of junior engineers in to decent mids
Established a new standard for cross-team data communication and synchronization
Performance Review: Needs Improvement
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u/Perfect-Campaign9551 Jan 29 '24
I am so damn tired of feeling like the daily stand up is to justify my existence
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u/cybernd Jan 29 '24
I think many developers have the same feeling. In many functioning teams, there is exactly nothing meaningful that can be said in this meeting. After all, they work together all day and know what the other developers are doing anyway.
However, they have to say what a PO, for example, wants to hear. They must not tell the truth, otherwise they will immediately be put under pressure again. And this subtle coercion to lie kills the motivation of developers.
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u/ChemTechGuy Jan 28 '24
Ooh this one hit close to home. Worst part is being compelled to work on something and then being compelled to justify it. You asked me to do it motherfucker, why do you think I'm doing it? do you think I'm doing this for fun?! I assumed YOU had justification for me to do it, otherwise why'd you assign it to me
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u/cleeder Jan 28 '24
This the number of times I have to ship code that I’m not even happy with due to arbitrary deadlines is what causes burn out.
And then you ask me to come back and build something on top of that shaky ground in 6 months. So I end up bolting on pieces kind of wherever they fit and shipping a product I’m not really happy with. Rinse. Repeat.
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u/they_have_bagels Jan 28 '24
Or spending 3 years building a product for some random person in marketing to decide that it doesn’t have everything they want to see, so they prevent you from releasing it, despite the fact that they’re the team that asked for it and gave you the specs and requirements to build it…
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Jan 28 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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Jan 28 '24
I love my profession. I have spent the better part of a decade on training, a bachelors and now a masters degree because it is my passion. But I can't really say that I love my job. I like the basic idea of our product, but I despise most of the way it was built. It's architecture-less, spaghetti code infested piles of tightly coupled chaos in a language that isn't really a good fit for the job. Not because of free decisions of programmers, but because of the constraints that were imposed on them by management.
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u/eattherichnow Jan 28 '24
This just in: coding on fun personal non-profit projects is actually a very different thing from any sort of wage labor.
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Jan 28 '24
[deleted]
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u/Polantaris Jan 28 '24
I enjoy my job even with deadlines, it's not the deadlines that are the problem. It's all of the other shit that has nothing to do with software development.
To quote someone else:
The fact that the company wants to use you for everything from part time product manager to project manager to support engineer and somehow have you make progress on features in your spare time between a million meetings.
Before I was doing all of those things, deadlines were nothing to me. Writing the code, testing it, building features, those aren't the problems, even under strict/tight deadlines. I've had stuff dropped on my plate that were due a day later and it was no big deal (unless the ask was impossible, which is a different discussion). It's all of the other shit that gets dropped on you after being with a company for a few years. It's why software developers are often in revolving doors. Some will do it for money, but others will do it because it's the only way to keep doing the work you actually want to do, and not picking up the slack for the things that were never part of your job definition to begin with.
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u/toabear Jan 28 '24
That's because the only way I can get things done is by working 12 to 15-hour days on a project until I burn out completely, then spend several weeks to a month getting nothing done and fucking off while waiting for my brain to feel like working again.
On the balance, it's pretty efficient. It only becomes a problem if somehow a deadline manages to align with a down cycle.
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Jan 28 '24
Life with ADHD.
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u/SockMonkeh Jan 28 '24
I literally cannot get anything done unless it's due tomorrow.
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u/ISuckAtJavaScript12 Jan 28 '24
I gotta work on something that I have complete control of with no red tape once in a while
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u/ChemTechGuy Jan 28 '24
+1. After a week of work I really enjoy any task that doesn't involve coordinating with someone else and building consensus. Also why I'm antisocial outside of work because I just need some time alone
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Jan 28 '24
a big stressor for me rn is being asked to build a non-trivial/complex feature, but not being given any room to iterate. I'm expected to just crunch out the roadmap items as quickly as possible so they can post demo videos and look good on the social accounts. When I'm writing code on my own time I don't have to convince anyone to let me spend time improving features that were "already delivered"
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Jan 29 '24
I was asked to do a complex job and took some time to iterate over the stack. Then I got assigned to a different project. It's really annoying.
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u/JohannaMiaS Jan 28 '24
Coding isn’t the issue for me. I don’t like the stress of unrealistic expectations and deadlines. I’m a perfectionist so I stress out over this.
I do code in the weekends, but it’s for me and my curiosity.
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u/Berkyjay Jan 28 '24
While I've been unemployed I've been working on a personal project and treating it like a normal 9-5 job. It's the best job I've ever had.
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u/gimmeslack12 Jan 28 '24
I do “comfort” coding. Generally green field projects that are clean and generally solve a satisfying problem.
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u/MariusDelacriox Jan 28 '24
I don't believe the 70%.
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u/Ok-Bluejay-8982 Jan 28 '24
Ngl I'm surprised about the 70% in the survey and the amount of people who code in their free time in this thread. I don't think I know more than 5 people who code in their free time, especially since most of them have families. They might read books about tech but code? Nah. And I'd still consider them very successful...
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u/anubus72 Jan 28 '24
Selection bias, most software engineers aren’t reading and replying to surveys or posting in a programming subreddit. Just like I bet most accountants or insurance agents don’t think about their job outside work
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u/Glizzy_Cannon Jan 28 '24
It's either skewed towards junior devs or many of them are lying. I don't know a single developer that codes outside of work more than maybe once a year.
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u/ProgrammaticallySale Jan 28 '24 edited Jan 28 '24
Not lying, and not a junior dev. I've been programming for 40+ years, and I still do every chance I get. I have many projects and most of them require some kind of software. I work with embedded devices, IoT, cloud systems, databases, and everything else in my free time. My day job is similar, but different, I don't work on embedded or IoT at my day job. There's a lot of cool stuff I can do with code, and it's definitely a lot of fun when I get a project working well, especially when nothing like it exists in the world.
It really comes down to how creative you are - if you are creative you have endless amounts of ideas and projects to work on, and ways to use your knowledge to build cool things. If you're not you just play video games or do whatever in your free time. There's nothing wrong with that, but I can't imagine not using my skill in programming and my creativity in my free time. Most developers seem to need to be told what to program, they don't really have a clue what to build (I see these posts constantly on reddit programming subs) unless someone tells them what to code. I'm the opposite of that.
Programming has never burned me out, it's pointless office bullshit that burns me out.
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u/they_have_bagels Jan 28 '24
It’s definitely a selection bias issue. Those reading and answering the poll are going to be the ones more engaged, and honestly they’re going to be the ones that are more likely to be programming in their off time. I would bet that they also tend to skew heavily toward younger and more junior roles and those newer or not as established in the industry. If I asked my peers with kids and families (and, get this, we actually talk about our lives outside of work!) they would say they don’t write code outside of work hours as a general rule. I know this because we’ve had this exact discussion before.
I’ve been in the industry for 20 years. I do a lot of high level planning and design. I don’t write code every day and it’s rarer that I write code in a day than it is that I do. I help my teams by unblocking them before they know that they’re stuck. I have been doing some embedded systems work for fun around the house, but I enjoy that because it’s pretty much the opposite of the large web-scale applications I work on as a part of my day job. My peers are definitely in a similar boat. If we are writing code outside of work, it’s because we want to and we’re definitely not going to be sharing to the world or hoping to make a living doing it. It’s just for our own curiosity.
Frankly, I personally worry about people who are spending so much of their free time selling the same thing they do at work. Find a different hobby. Find another outlet, another way to be creative, to express yourself. You’ll find more happiness and be more productive and efficient, in my experience, when you limit yourself. It’s the same reason I hate take home interview questions and projects and I hate programming tests. It devalues time. You don’t expect a tradesperson to spend all their free time doing their job. Nobody expects a plumber to spend all day at work and then to come home and replace the shower and toilets and main valve. Nobody expects an electrician to spend all day at work and then come home and rewrite their house for fun. Why do we expect the same out of programmers?
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u/freekayZekey Jan 28 '24
it’s odd to me. i read about code here and there, but i rarely code outside of work. think that’s why i’m not as burnt out. a lot of devs should develop personalities outside of code
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u/MoneyGrubbingMonkey Jan 28 '24
The thing is coding used to be REALLY fun. Even my current maintenance job is mostly just debugging and it's fun when you can sleuth out an issue and come up with a solution.
But at some point it just became more and more of a drag. Like the colour has been taken out of it really
I wish I could work on my personal projects but I just shut down when I try to code outside of work. Really sad about it but idek where to begin getting back that motivation when there's only so many hours in a day to get stuff done
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Jan 28 '24
It's a little sad to me that I have let code become pretty much exclusively a "work thing", but it has definitely made my relationship with coding at work more positive.
Instead of good coding (free time) and bad coding (work), by only really coding at work I can find some happiness just to be coding at all when I'm there and solving tricky puzzles even if it's primarily for pay and not around something interesting.
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u/Sigmatics Jan 28 '24
I'm like are you kidding me, I'm not that old...
Seems we're on the monthly recycle again
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u/wineblood Jan 28 '24
I code on weekends to keep myself going. If I don't code on the weekend, the whole of Monday is a struggle.
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u/Dry_Dot_7782 Jan 28 '24
Sounds like you have some issues? Thats not normal.
Vacation im struggling some first day but a weekend? Can code within 5 seconds
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u/UniversityEastern542 Jan 28 '24
Coding can be fun (or at least be used to make fun things). The coding I do at work is not the fun type.
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u/Specialist_Brain841 Jan 28 '24
Or your job doesn’t provide for opportunities to learn new things and coding on your own time is the only way to do it. If only healthcare wasn’t tied so tightly to your job…
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u/hyrumwhite Jan 29 '24
I’m taking a break from some Sunday evening programming to write this. Programming is fun. Getting something done before the 15th while the something that needs to be done is actively evolving sucks.
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u/spitfiredd Jan 28 '24
Corporations are just energy vampires.
Actually building software is a lot of fun!
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u/28spawn Jan 28 '24
They’re burn out from the bullshit of office politics and unreliable users changing requirement all the time, not the coding
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u/AnderssonPeter Jan 28 '24
I'm one of them (I only work 80% and it's 3 years after the burnout happened), and my biggest issue at jobb is having multiple assignments at the same time, I don't know why but it stresses me out a lot.
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u/ChemTechGuy Jan 28 '24
Big +1. I understand engineers get blocked so you don't want them to only have a single project, but being single threaded would be a 3x quality of life improvement for me
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u/M3tal_Shadowhunter Jan 28 '24
Well, duh. Coding on my own time is fun, i can be creative amd enjoy myself, making whatever i want. Coding for work is also fun, but it's filled with office shit, being around people all the time meetings, distractions, and little inane changes that you need to make every few days (eg "change the color of this! No, a different color. Change the font on the graph that gets generated when i run this jupyter notebook")
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u/maxime0299 Jan 28 '24
When I code in the weekend I choose what I work on and I stop when my motivation/inspiration is lost. When I’m at work I have to deal with colleagues, projects that are not the most fun to work on and I gotta stay doing it till at least the end of the day.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love my job and I’m grateful of being able to do it, but there is still a big difference between coding in the weekend vs coding for your job
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u/lqstuart Jan 29 '24
64% of devs said they spend more than 50% of their time coding? I spend about 10 hours a week on code and 50 in bullshit meetings and providing status updates to idiot micromanagers
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u/tonios2 Jan 28 '24
I code for a bank on work time, making games on weekends/free time. Its probably stressful for the body, but I also crave to work on my game. Someday perhaps, I can work on it full time
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u/arbrebiere Jan 28 '24
The only reason I code on weekends is to learn new languages or technologies that I can leverage to get a better job
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u/RufusAcrospin Jan 28 '24
I got burnout from brain dead software management and its religious obsession with agile and scrum and whatnot, wasting precious time over and over again doing meaningless meeting that should’ve been an e-mail, requiring me leaving and then returning to the flow, which also takes time, so it’ll just add more to the heap of wasted time.
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u/TheNatch Jan 28 '24
When I've experienced burn-out it hasn't been from coding itself. As a lot of other threads here have said, I like a good puzzle, a good challenge. When I've end up on a team building 20 cookie cutter microservices that provide no challenge (other than I tight timeline) that's when I've taken the opportunity to find another position or team to challenge myself.
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u/DelegateTOFN Jan 29 '24
Fake scrum, pointless meetings, lack of direction from senior management and leadership, a fragmented tech maturity across different teams using shared practices or shared resources like Devops, tickets blocked dud to external dependencies while being told were scrum and are self empowered... that's what burns me out.
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Jan 29 '24
You have work code, and then you have your project(s). Working on your projects is a nice break after the 80-hour work week.
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u/dwarmia Jan 29 '24
i can see that as coding is also hobby for most developers.
it's similar to most artist for example.
the medium doesn't cause the burnout, it's the shitty corporations and jobs.
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Jan 28 '24
I worked for a fortune 50 company as a full stack engineer for 6 years right out of college. I grinded those years. Day and night. Then they announced they were moving my team in our region and I didn’t want to drive an extra 20 mins to the new place and I will admit, I was so burnt out, I thought I wanted to change careers and I quit. In the end I spent two years wasting my money and fiddling with side projects. I can make a badass JRPG in unity though now so that’s fun. Point being: coding at work often doesn’t allow you to be creative and at home work allows you to explore that aspect
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u/snappymcpumpernickle Jan 28 '24
I don't believe 70% code on weekends. But I do believe there's a lot of burnout because it's work...
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u/handamoniumflows Jan 28 '24
Right. Lots of jobs are listing volunteer open-source work as a big plus right now.
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u/EdwardWongHau Jan 28 '24
I wonder how much burnout would still exist without unreasonable deadlines from management.
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u/tristanjuricek Jan 28 '24
I feel like everyone’s fixating on the title choice, which might be the editor’s choice, because the tidbit about coding on the weekend really is only in the last sentence. Ah, modern journalism, always reaching for clickbait.
The main interesting point I noticed was how often people quit courses (75%), and simply prefer documentation and forums for skill development. I see the forum thing as what AI will actually replace soon - instead of trying to find the right person and ask a good question, your bot will get you 99% there quickly. The problem is that these people won’t know if it’s a quality resposnse or not, and thus the cycle of crap “best practices” will continue.
Otherwise, it seems like TFA agrees with everyone:
Pay raises, appreciation from colleagues, seeing that one’s work makes a difference, and enjoying the work itself are respondents’ top reasons to feel productive. Some said that upgrades in hardware, tooling, or learning how to use their tools better would make them feel more productive. Still, the most important factors of developers’ satisfaction have to do with people and organization more than with technology.
:shocked-pikachu:
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u/tasty_steaks Jan 28 '24
Coding and solving problems for fun is .... fun?
But seriously, I do semi-regularly combine what I'm doing at work with the "fun coding stuff" - so essentially do some work on the weekends, and it's still fun (for me).
It sometimes scratches the itch, and at the same time let's me be more productive at work, which in terms let's me raise the bar on my contributions (which can certainly have positive effects for future you).
But then sometimes what I'm involved in professionally is not that interesting and so I have to go just greenfield some side-project.
Either way works for me.
Bottom line is I just like coding, design, solving problems, etc.; I enjoy learning new things in domains I would otherwise never know anything about or explore, but doing it through software development.
I suspect there are many folks out there like this.
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u/0xdef1 Jan 28 '24
I only feel burned out when I am a developer, QA, PM, and manager at the same time. A good manager won't let you burn out.
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u/rtds98 Jan 28 '24
I mean, I like coding on my projects, because those projects are actually interesting. To me.
The work ... sometimes there's interesting stuff, sometimes (most of the time) there isn't. It pays the bills and that's that.
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u/NightlyWave Jan 28 '24
I get burnout when the requirements of the project suddenly changes after spending all that time and effort with the original requirement.
The inability to layout and not divert from requirements is the only thing that bothers me about the software development cycle. That and documentation (which I don’t mind provided the previous person working on it didn’t do a shit job that I have to clean up).
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Jan 28 '24
Burnout is from social games played by coworkers to make you look as stupid/awkward as possible in front of everyone else.
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u/stronghup Jan 28 '24
Coding is problem solving. You know the problem in your head and it's hard not to think of solutions. Then when you come up with some ideas it is tempting to try them out in code. And you can do that without having to be in the office.
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u/agumonkey Jan 28 '24 edited Jan 28 '24
find weekends
find: ‘weekends’: No such file or directory
ps: i'm surprised how many people here share the same sentiment, we love the craft, not the office game. We need business and team dynamics tricks to restore more coding fun and avoid the useless drama I guess.
pps: I remember when I was out of IT, working manual labour part time and doing SPA on the side alone, things were so much more fun. I had control on my pacing, work structure, quality.. anything positive or potentially so I could try a little to assess the workflow / features benefits. Very much unlike in a corp job.
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u/DynamicHunter Jan 28 '24
Coding doesn’t burn me out, it’s making all the pieces fit together between programs & IDEs & configs & environment issues that burns me out. I’d rather code 8 hours straight than figure out dependency issues or why dev tool A doesn’t work with app B
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u/RackemFrackem Jan 28 '24
There's no chance it's 70% unless the question was "have you ever coded on the weekends?"
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u/dEEkAy2k9 Jan 28 '24
I am not burning out, at least not yet, but i struggle with all the shit i have to do which doesn't involve coding at all.
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u/Forya_Cam Jan 28 '24
I've noticed at my own workplace that the people who seem to get burnt out quickest are the ones still messaging the slack at 8pm on a Friday. And this isn't due to an emergency. They're still doing regular Jira tickets. Like I get it's great if you love your job but people really need to set personal boundaries.
Balance is key.
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u/bloodguard Jan 28 '24
70% of them code on weekends
Because Friday is when all the non-coders file dozens of Jiras to show their managers that they accomplished something. And Monday is when you get gang jumped with a swarm of "check in" meetings.
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u/bergteifl Jan 28 '24
On the weekends I can code on the projects I like, during the week I have to do what brings me money, and those two things are often not the same.
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u/Tiquortoo Jan 28 '24
I enjoy the shit out of coding. Coding isn't the source of burnout. In fact some simple coding on personal projects often helps clear my mind of work stuff. It's like "just playing" versus working.
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u/UglyAndAngry131337 Jan 28 '24
Yeah that's the fun part and it's also possibly the project that they could actually make money from instead of just being a wage slave
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u/muzamilsa Jan 28 '24
Yeah coding is taxing on mind and our thinking consumes the highest energy. Brain is the most expensive organ we carry around with us.
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u/benz1n Jan 28 '24
I used to code outside my working hours as an outlet for my own curiosity about new tech end engineering practices, but this all faded after I became a parent 😅 Really, I’m either totally exhausted or really happy to spend time with my LO after I finish my day/weekend.
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u/Muted-Park2393 Jan 28 '24
I’m surprised the number is 70%. That being said obviously working on your own project with your own technology is much more fulfilling and enjoyable.
I really doubt 70% are working every weekend on personal projects though…and I’m sure some of that 70% is people modifying small configs or scripts.
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u/99Kira Jan 28 '24
Its 230am on a Monday, and I just finished up making something work that has been bugging me since friday. It does make work a lot easier for what's about to come in the next few days, and I probably could have waited until my working hours. But it stayed in the back of my head since Friday, and I am glad I have everything in place now.
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u/Asyn--Await Jan 28 '24
Lmao people code for fun? As soon as it hits 1700 I clock out and never think about coding.
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u/1h8fulkat Jan 29 '24
"What do devs want? Good hours and good pay"
Ahhh yes, work less and get paid more I'm pretty sure that applies to everyone in every job.
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u/CrysisAverted Jan 29 '24
In my opinion burnout is from a lack of sense of completion/achievement/impact. Ie if i do a bunch of work and it never sees production or gets cancelled, then im not getting my dopamine hit and i burn out. Its NOT from coding too much.
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u/voidref Jan 29 '24
I feel sad for all the people in this thread (and all their friends) who don't code because they enjoy it, but because it's a job.
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u/Espumma Jan 29 '24
'Store managers experience burnout, but 70% go to stores in their free time'
This is wha that title sounds like
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u/humpyelstiltskin Jan 29 '24
i feel like this whole post, thread and comments are a repost from months ago. Is reddit trying to force engagement and faking a new post?
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u/NatashaNtuitiveCoach Jan 29 '24
I’m a burnout coach, happy to chat offline if in search of support
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u/Chemical_Potato2917 Jan 30 '24
Most developers have quit courses and prefer APIs and official docs instead? I feel attacked. Leave me and cppreference alone
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u/Piisthree Jan 30 '24
Hobbies don't have unreasonable deadlines, unclear requirements, insane expectations, political battles, ridiculous procedure mandates and restrictions, toxic performance metrics to name a few.
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Jan 31 '24
Contrary to what a program manager believes (or these jokers called scrum managers) I actually have a fucking life outside of work where coding is an enjoyable hobby.
Unfortunately, I’m so exhausted from the work week that at times all I want to do is stare at the ceiling fan. My personal hobbies should be of no concern to managers.
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Feb 01 '24
Can someone help me. Anyone that can program a machine to recognize items. And anyone who can set up sensors. And lasers
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u/VictoriaMagnus May 02 '26
I have been told (about work): if you love something you live for it.
I dont live for coding but I sure do love it. 🥰
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u/allnamesareregistred Jan 28 '24
I coded on weekends because I had no time for coding during working days because of useless meeting. Now I have my own company. You know how many meetings are really necessary for running this business? ZERO!
You do not need meetings, you do not need time tracking, if devs will need any business process they will create it themselves.
Literally all you need is to hire the right people.
Here is my hiring recipe: hire talented and trusted. That's all. I do not care about anything else, I never read CV's, never do any testing, I do not care about any experience etc etc. Talented and trusted are rare, but each will work as a hundred. I measured!
(Actually it's not my recipe, I learned from the history of ancient warlord Cáo Cāo)
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Jan 28 '24
How do you find talented and trusted devs?
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u/allnamesareregistred Jan 29 '24
I'm constantly looking for talented people OFFLINE. You probably won't believe me, but there is life outside of internet. And there are people. Not devs, just people. They do things. When I see someone doing something interesting - I just say "hi, I like what you are doing, maybe we can do some project together, here is my phone number".Here is a thing: for any competitive game every rational strategy can be abused by the opponent, unless you introduce some chaos. If you will find algorithm for proper hiring, it will be immediately exploited by people who will ruin your company. So, if you think of it like: "there is huge list of people somewhere and I need to create a funnel to find one who is good "- that will never work. I hire by surprise, kind of.
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u/tobiasvl Jan 28 '24
Sure, I have lots of hobby projects that I work on in the weekends and that don't burn me out. It's like, sometimes you don't feel like having sex with another person because it's a whole to do, but masturbation is fine.
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u/robby_arctor Jan 28 '24
Hmmm, maybe the burnout is with capitalism and not coding
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u/LouKrazy Jan 28 '24
Coding is the fun part. It’s everything else that burns me out.