Software engineer burnout is an all-too-common problem. We’ve got 10+ tactics to prevent developer burnout.
Nearly three-quarters of software developers experience burnout at some point in their career. For context, the average rate of burnout for full-time US workers across all sectors is estimated to be around 51%.
Whether you're a developer yourself, or whether you hire and manage developers, that's a stat that you should find alarming. Chronically burnt out developers are less motivated, less creative, less satisfied with the work they do, more prone to periods of illness, and more likely to quit their jobs.
And, of course, when we're talking about people and their wellbeing, it's not just about the bottom line. But it does also hit the bottom line.
Burning through people incurs unnecessary costs, reduces productivity, and undermines utilization rates. And since increasing utilization increases profits, preventing burnout is a financial imperative, as well as a moral one.
So, what is it about software development as a career that makes folks dangerously prone to burnout, and how can this be counteracted and avoided in practical ways? Let's get into it.
Software development is project-based, deadline-driven, and client-controlled. This means it can be challenging to balance workloads effectively and deliver profitable, timely projects.
When it comes to the crunch, it’s often employees who absorb the stress of scope creep, schedule slips, and too-high expectations.
Here are 7 common causes of chronic stress in software engineering – and why effective resource management in software engineering can be hard work.
While these are concerning, the good news is that they’re also manageable – meaning software businesses can prevent developer burnout by staying mindful of the factors that would increase stress and workload, and making organizational choices to minimize these factors.
The symptoms of employee burnout in software engineers are the same as the signs of burnout in other professions. The World Health Organization says burnout is characterized by three dimensions:
This means you might be able to spot someone who is burning out, if they’re:
However, by the time symptoms are noticeable, it’s already too late.
The best approach to developer burnout isn’t to fix it once it’s happened. It’s to prevent it altogether. More on this later.
Developer burnout is problematic in software firms because it breaks people, causing them stress, sickness, and – unchecked – causing them to leave careers they otherwise love. That’s the big issue.
But it also seriously undermines business objectives around productivity, product quality, client satisfaction, resource utilization, and staff retention.
JetBrains compared how burnout-experienced and non-burnout-experienced software engineers felt.
They discovered that burnout-experienced software developers are significantly more tired at work, and that ‘burnout-affected developers find that factors related to mental health significantly impact their coding productivity’.
This supports numerous medical studies that find burnout is related to:
Burnt-out software engineers are exhausted, forgetful, and can’t focus – none of which is great for creating high quality work. This puts your business at risk of costly rework, reputational damage, and loss of repeat custom.
Slower delivery speed and time-consuming rework undermine your resource utilization rates – a key measure of how effectively professional service businesses turn time into revenue. Put simply, burnout erodes billable hours.
Plus, when team members have to work harder to support a struggling colleague, that puts them at risk of burnout too. And chronic workplace stress may make software developers more prone to workarounds, which create troublesome technical debt. Once burnout starts, it can become a vicious cycle, eating away both time and talent.
Finally, there’s the cost and disruption when your software engineers are so burnt out that they get sick, lose job satisfaction, and quit.
The American Journal of Preventive Medicine estimates the annual costs of burnout – through lost productivity and disengagement – is $4,257 per salaried non-manager and $10,824 per manager.
Then there’s the cost of involuntary turnover, which includes advertising, recruitment, onboarding, training, and more. The Work Institute suggests an accurate calculation is to multiply the affected employee’s salary by 33.3%. So, for a US software engineer earning the median annual wage of $133,000, the cost of replacing them is around $45,000.
Remember, by the time you’ve spotted burnout symptoms, some of the damage has already been done. That’s why proactive measures to prevent burnout are best.
Burnout is an ‘occupational phenomenon, not a medical condition’. This means it is caused by work, rather than by individuals’ actions or predispositions. Employers can prevent burnout by improving their resourcing processes, creating a supportive work environment, and tackling more toxic cultural practices.
Time tracking can help you understand how long tasks typically take, so you can schedule enough time for people to complete them. You can also use time-tracking data to see whether tasks are taking longer to complete than normal, which could signal burnout. Time tracking can also help individuals understand their time management, which burnout-experienced software developers say can help their coding productivity.
Utilization rates show how much of your resources’ time is taken up with work. A reasonable utilization target is 80-85% overall, and within that 80-85% billable utilization. When you regularly go over these targets, you are overworking employees. A resource management platform can show this data visually, so it’s easy to spot and avoid overutilization.
Capacity planning is about matching resource supply to client demand. Get it right and you’ll have the correct mix of people and skills to deliver your pipeline of work. Get it wrong and you may have too many, too few, or the wrong type of people. This makes it harder to deliver work without overworking staff and subjecting them to long hours. Learn how to improve forecasting accuracy.
Much of the stress of software development comes from unrealistic expectations and unexpected changes to the project. By improving project demand management, you can eliminate the resourcing guesswork in IT projects. Ensure project scopes are clearly defined before work starts, and avoid scope creep by having a defined change request process.
Dealing with non-technical stakeholders can create stress for software developers, as they struggle to explain the impact of requests, and fear for their workloads. Create a process to help filter requests and prioritize new work. Make sure stakeholders understand the time, effort, and complexity behind requests, so engineers don’t have to work unreasonable hours to bring unfeasible requests to life.
Technical debt is the legacy of earlier quick fixes. It leaves software developers with poorly structured, messy code to sort out. Workarounds are a false economy. They may save time in the moment but they increase time and complexity further down the line.
Burnout makes it harder for people to focus, which means context switching can exacerbate the problem. Try to avoid overloading software engineers with multiple projects that they need to move between.
While stability is to be desired, stagnation isn’t. Ensure you provide developers with a range of work that meets their interests to keep them engaged and productive. ‘A job where I feel I can achieve something’ is the third most important factor to software engineers, after hours and pay (JetBrains).
51% of software engineers neglect their mental health. Promote openness around mental health issues at work to reduce the stigma associated with them. Consider offering access to mental wellbeing resources – such as an at-work counsellor – as well as apps, like those that support meditation, exercise, and healthy sleep patterns.
Create a supportive work environment without the toxic expectations: like ‘always available’ expectations, unpaid or unrecorded overtime, long hours, and weekend working. Make sure people take their holidays and create cover so work doesn’t pile up while they’re away. And never use the threat of layoffs as a way to incentivise harder work…
The best way to understand whether working practices contribute to chronic workplace stress is to ask your people. Ask engineers about bottlenecks, process inefficiencies, allocation issues, stakeholder stresses – to understand what unnecessarily adds to their workplace pressure.
Read more: How to prevent burnout in the workplace ➡️
Preventing software engineer burnout requires proactive capacity planning and utilization management. Discover how Runn can support better resource planning and prevent software engineer burnout in your IT organization.
