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Study finds 83% of software developers feel burnout
131–140 of 308 posts
Re: Study finds 83% of software developers feel burnout
#132This is why I have a tough time putting much weight into the soft-sciences. I don't see any operational definition of "Burnout" so this is like asking people if they feel "fast". How about something like "How many times a week do you feel like not coming into work?" But these subjective terms are useless.
You should be able to measure burnout by watching employee churn. Something software development is notorious for. I don’t think people jump companies every year and a half in most industries.
they would if they could get a 20% raise without much fuss.
was reading a reddit post on an airline host who was 'on the road' to 6 figure income - just needed to stay with the same airline for another 5-6 years. "If you switch to another airline, you'll start at the bottom again". It's so strange to think that goes on, but apparently it does. Apparently pilots, to some degree as well. Even if you had 15 years of flawless piloting for airline X, moving to airline Y, you'd start off near the bottom again. What other professions are like this?
Re: Study finds 83% of software developers feel burnout
#133This is such a great example of bullshit studies. Yeah I'm gonna go on a limb and say this is a marketing campaign. It's an insult to science to call this a "study". From the pdf: > The fieldwork of this study was carried out at remarkable speed, from the 23rd to 24th of June 2021 Data was collected in 1 day. Is this a joke? No it's not! > The population sampled included Software Engineers aged 18+ living in the Unit…
Your criticism of the sample size is unfounded. You absolutely can have meaningful results with only 258 people provided you have good sampling. If you want to criticize their sampling, then by all means do it, but that's not what you've done here.
Re: Study finds 83% of software developers feel burnout
#134If you read https://haystack-books.s3.amazonaws.com/Study+to+understand+... , you’ll see Q1. To what extent, if any, do the following statements apply to you? I feel burnt out from work. On a four-point scale, that scores 21%, 35%, 28%, 17%. So, they took everyone except those who said they didn’t feel burnt out at all, and got 83%. I think asking for feelings of burnout exaggerates the issue of being burnt out by a…
"For me, burnout means not only being tired of your job, but also inability to ‘burn' outside work." "burn outside work"? What does that mean? Burnout is feeling great distress at doing your job, due to factors such as overwork, disillusionment, and depression. Sometimes that adverse feeling is so intense the employee is psychologically unable to continue. As much some people would like to fancy themselves as coldly…
If a fire has burnt out, it can’t deliver any warmth anywhere, not just at some things.
Similarly, for me, the term “burnt out” means not only that you can’t accomplish anything useful at work, but also “take that home”, and stay feeling powerless there. If you feel tired at work, but the first day of a holiday feel full of energy again, I wouldn’t call that burnout.
Wikipedia doesn’t seem to fully agree, though. It redirects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnout to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_burnout, and quotes The Who as “Burn-out refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life.” (https://www.who.int/news/item/28-05-2019-burn-out-an-occupat...)
Re: Study finds 83% of software developers feel burnout
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They all have to extrapolate from a subset of the entire population. This only really works if you have a representative subset of he population you're extrapolating to. Is the distribution of experience roughly equivalent to the general population of "developers"? Age distribution? Company size? # of children? Home life? These kinds of demographics can have a big impact, and I see no discussion of how they were ac…
"This only really works if you have a representative subset of he population" Of course. Never said otherwise.
In the context of your comment it is implied that you believe the "study" in question does have a representative subset.
while you may not intend that, most people reading your comment would believe you think the study is fine
Re: Study finds 83% of software developers feel burnout
#136A long time ago I was reading a text on burnout, and one factor that stood out was lack of closure.
Think of an architect - they design a building, deliver blueprints and the building gets built. They're done. They can drive by the building and say "Look, I've designed that building". There's closure.
A developer's job is rarely done. You do a fantastic job and fix 2 almost intractable bugs in a sprint. What happens the next sprint? You get more bugs to fix. There's rarely closure.
Re: Study finds 83% of software developers feel burnout
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, teachers benefit from a social cachet that is outsize related to their true efficacy. They are not nearly as effective or as important as people make them out to be.
They are very important, but not always for the reasons that people make them out to be important.
Mind explaining? As institutional day care? I believe it.
Re: Study finds 83% of software developers feel burnout
#138I wonder if software presents a unique situation as we generally make a pretty decent salary and to transition to a new career involves a pretty significant pay cut. So some developers become trapped in jobs they hate with golden handcuffs. I really don't enjoy software development at all, but at this stage, to even think about doing something else would result in a massive pay cut. I did it once when I was younger,…
> since then I just exist in a constant state of burnout
The worst part is that even that doesn’t seem to matter. Whether I do my best work because I’m 100% into the job, or my worst because I just cannot be bothered any more, people perceive me the same way, and my salary remains the same.
If the effect is nil why should I even bother.
Re: Study finds 83% of software developers feel burnout
#139Shocking, when we're perpetually working in "sprints" that we're burnt out and overworked.
Sample size of 1 obviously, but I recall feeling less work stress in the days before agile took over the world.
Re: Study finds 83% of software developers feel burnout
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Data was collected in 1 day. Is this a joke? No it's not!" What makes you think data collected over 1 day worse than the same data collected in multiple days? "I really don't understand how they can do a half-assed data survey on 258 people only, and then have the gall to claim "83% of DEVELOPERS"" It's called extrapolation. No study ever interviews everyone. They all have to extrapolate from a subset of the entire…
> They all have to extrapolate from a subset of the entire population. This only really works if you have a representative subset of he population you're extrapolating to. Is the distribution of experience roughly equivalent to the general population of "developers"? Age distribution? Company size? # of children? Home life? These kinds of demographics can have a big impact, and I see no discussion of how they were ac…
Getting a perfectly representative subset of the population, means surveying the whole population of the world. Also, accounting for every imaginable variable is always impossible, because we cannot ethically grow people in an isolated environment.
Sure, a meta-analysis of several studies reveals more than one single study, but that doesn't make a single study bad or worthless - or as said in the parent - "a bullshit study".