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Ask HN: How common is developer burnout? Have you ever been burnt out?

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Re: Ask HN: How common is developer burnout? Have you ever been burnt out?

#51

Post by cortesoft »

I don't get burn out from work in the way some people describe. I never get stressed out about deadlines or expectations or pressure from management.

I do my work during my work hours, and if I don't get it done I don't get it done. If work expects more from me, oh well. So far in 20 years I haven't been fired for it.

There have been a few times where I had trouble getting motivation because it felt like my work wasn't important or mattered, but that just made me slow, not burnt out.

Re: Ask HN: How common is developer burnout? Have you ever been burnt out?

#52

Post by mattst88 »

tippytippytango wrote: post #8

Burnout is your brain giving up because it doesn’t think the benefit is worth the effort anymore. If you don’t have a purpose for what you are doing all your brain will do is obsess over the negatives. Every job in the world has massive negatives. You have to find a positive purpose for what you are doing to balance the negative. Even a low key sane culture will feel like a soul sucking grey blob of a life it you don…

> Burnout is your brain giving up because it doesn’t think the benefit is worth the effort anymore. If you don’t have a purpose for what you are doing all your brain will do is obsess over the negatives. Every job in the world has massive negatives. You have to find a positive purpose for what you are doing to balance the negative.

This is spot on and was exactly my experience at my last job.

The one thing I'll add is that for me it wasn't about not having a purpose, it was about not feeling appreciated for all of the time/effort/energy I'd poured into that purpose.

Re: Ask HN: How common is developer burnout? Have you ever been burnt out?

#53

Post by rightbyte »

bruce511 wrote: post #31
alsetmusic wrote: post #5

I went from a FAANG to a twenty-ish person local business. I found out that what matters to me is not money or status. It’s a short commute, work that ends at the same time every day, liking my coworkers, and working directly with the people I help. Some mix of these might be right for you, assuming the bills are covered. My job has less (no) global impact. What I did previously affected far more people. I told peopl…

Im with you. Once the money problem is taken care of, there are far more important things to factor in. Unfortunately US culture is very money orientated, and so, especially to young developers (and quite a few older ones) it's the only factor. I remember a long time ago a local "big name" consultancy firm came to our Uni to recruit. He said all the right things, told us about international travel, great pay, good be…

Ye. A lot of these fancy jobs are not that well paid per hour. McKinsey or whatever.

The real payout at those places seem to be those that win the "up or out" stabbing contest and can coast at some semi sale semi boss position. Not as an IC.

Re: Ask HN: How common is developer burnout? Have you ever been burnt out?

#54

Post by RemoteIsHeaven »

syndicatedjelly wrote: post #17

I obstinately focus on engineering, technical, programming, and math problems in my work. It affects my performance reviews, because I am told that I am a high-performing individual contributor who “lacks” an eye for the bigger picture, because I show little interest in the business side of things. This has kept me sane at work thus far. We’ll see how long I can keep up this approach.

> a high-performing individual contributor who “lacks” an eye for the bigger picture, because I show little interest in the business side of things

If focusing on engineering, technical, programming, and math problems is really what excites you and you truly have no interest in the business side of things, you should start looking for companies that will only want you to focus on engineering, technical, programming, and math problems and there are a lot of them out there.

If your current place of work complains you “lack” an eye for the bigger picture, and that might be true, that means they dont have good management at all, because a good manager would immediately understand what you value and align you with that or ask you to leave explictly if that's not what they wanted.

Bad management takes no initiative and lack critical decision making skills, stay away.

Re: Ask HN: How common is developer burnout? Have you ever been burnt out?

#55

Post by RemoteIsHeaven »

jacurtis wrote: post #44

In my experience, burnout is EXTREMELY high for developers. My group of friends and colleagues that I started with in my early twenties have mostly left development and tech for the most part. By the time most of us were turning 30, about half my cohort of friends and colleagues had given up as developers. By the time I turned 35 almost everyone had. Out of about 30-40 people that I have been somewhat associating wit…

> I was fortunate enough to get promoted into a senior management position, where I am mostly focused on tech strategy and not true "developer work" anymore.

1. Did your find doing the "developer work" itself fulfilling in the first place?

2. If given a choice between your management position and the "developer work", which one would you pick?

3. If you could go back in time and redo everything, would you have started off in management to begin with?

4. What would you have done differently?

I ask these questions because I have a hypothesis that you currently work for bad management and that made the developer work really unfulfilling in part because it gave you no to little agency over your impact. By moving into part of the management layer you got some agency over your impact and managed to disassociate yourself from the unfulfilling developer work, but I would like to learn more from you directly

Re: Ask HN: How common is developer burnout? Have you ever been burnt out?

#56

Post by al_borland »

When I have burnt out, it has been due to the people/politics/environment around me, not the work itself. Lucky for me, I had a lot of good will built up, and could go on coast mode at work for quite a while until I got some air under my wings again, or the conditions changed.

>This makes me wonder if finding a low-key, sane culture is the key to sustainability in the industry, and avoiding burn out.

In my experience, this is everything.

Re: Ask HN: How common is developer burnout? Have you ever been burnt out?

#57

Post by araes »

I recommended "Loyal workers are selectively and ironically targeted for exploitation". [1] From the general discussion:

> Across four studies, we found consistent support for our hypotheses. First, we found that loyal employees are selectively targeted by managers for exploitation in hypothetical scenarios (Studies 1–2), and that the targeting of these loyal workers is mediated by the expectation that loyal people are readily willing to make personal sacrifices for the objects of their loyalty (Study 1). These effects were specific to targets with reputations for loyalty (Study 2)."

"Organizations Weaken the Norm of Reciprocity" [2] from the follow on citation work is also interesting. Basically, a lot of math and surveys to show that diffuse organizations and the "workplace interaction" mentality, tend to result in people helping you less when you help them, work deserving reciprocity getting lost in the organization (it's just business), and business interactions always being viewed as a "what are they gonna do for me?".

Not directly answering your question, yet evidence that Fortune 500's and FAANGs, as large organizations, generally shift towards exploitive, or at the least, behaviors lacking the reciprocity expected. Which tends to burn people out.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00221...

[2] https://aom.org/uploadedFiles/Publications/AMD/How%20Organiz...

Re: Ask HN: How common is developer burnout? Have you ever been burnt out?

#58

Post by clarity20 »

diego_moita wrote: post #11

It depends. Compared to miners, firefighters, lumberjacks and even health professionals we have it easy. Compared to accountants and lawyers we do need to handle tough pressure that can lead to burnout. It also depends a lot on the culture of both the company, the bosses and even the country. In places such as Latin America, Asia or most of 3rd World you're expected to give everything to the company, even your family…

Nowadays there are places in the U.S. where the tech staff are largely from (what used to be?) the 3rd World, and it definitely has its effects on the workplace culture. There are teams who rationalize being spoken to like they're garbage, and who cannot be persuaded to push back. If you don't choose wisely, you could find yourself stepping into a self-contained Calcutta every time you enter the office building.

Re: Ask HN: How common is developer burnout? Have you ever been burnt out?

#59

Post by RemoteIsHeaven »

araes wrote: post #57

I recommended "Loyal workers are selectively and ironically targeted for exploitation". [1] From the general discussion: > Across four studies, we found consistent support for our hypotheses. First, we found that loyal employees are selectively targeted by managers for exploitation in hypothetical scenarios (Studies 1–2), and that the targeting of these loyal workers is mediated by the expectation that loyal people a…

> Fortune 500's and FAANGs, as large organizations, generally shift towards exploitive, or at the least, behaviors lacking the reciprocity expected

1. What could be causing that?

2. What are the chances of this same behavior happening at a Fortune 500000?

3. How would an employee detect that behavior, potentially as early as when interviewing for the job?

Re: Ask HN: How common is developer burnout? Have you ever been burnt out?

#60

Post by RemoteIsHeaven »

Aurornis wrote: post #14

Burnout can be as much about what you do outside of work as what happens during working hours. In some cases it’s easy to identify a workplace as the cause of burnout: Companies that require 50-80 hour weeks, bosses who yell and scream regularly, psychologically manipulative situations, and environments where people are prevented from having control over their own outcomes are going to take a toll on anyone. Getting…

> Companies that require 50-80 hour weeks, bosses who yell and scream regularly, psychologically manipulative situations, and environments where people are prevented from having control over their own outcomes are going to take a toll on anyone

If you got paid $250k/yr to work fulltime at Bain and all that work was to shred a single piece of paper, any paper, a day and that is it, no crunch time, no yelling bosses, nothing - would you eventually burn out?

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