Developer Burnout Is Real, Here’s What To Do About It

Developers have always faced high levels of work-related stress due to the pressures of their job, and it’s more crucial than ever for businesses to adopt a modern approach to software development to mitigate the effects of burnout, says Gonçalo Gaiolas, VP of Product, OutSystems.

Job-related burnout is real and pervasive across industries and professions, particularly following a year of pandemic-related stress and remote work. And the problem is likely to persist and grow, with many employers delaying the return to office amid renewed concerns about the spread of Covid-19.

Despite the obvious benefits of foregoing commutes and business travel, more than a year of remote work has exposed the toll people face when their homes become their offices. According to a report from research firm Robert Half, nearly half (45%) of remote employees are working longer days, with seven in ten logging hours over the weekend. As a result, many people are quitting their jobs, creating a talent shortage just as businesses are focused on building back.

This is particularly problematic in IT departments, where the need for skilled developers is surging as businesses and consumers step up demand for the kinds of digital tools that grew in popularity during 2020. And even before the pandemic, developers faced high levels of work-related stress due to the pressures of their job. In fact, there’s a common myth that burnout causes developers to quit the profession by 40, while new data show a significant increase of stress among IT workers, with many citing Covid-19 and remote work as root causes. 

At a minimum, burnout will make developers less productive. And left unchecked, the problem will make it harder for companies to retain and attract the developers they need to innovate and compete in an increasingly digital business landscape. 

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3 Reasons for Developer Burnout

Given the importance of developer well-being to any company’s success, business leaders need to take a step back to identify what’s driving burnout. In most cases, there are three main culprits unique to the development community.

1. 1. Software development requires concentration and flow, and the shift to numerous video meetings in the past year created the kinds of interruptions that undermine productivity. New data shows the average workday increased by nearly an hour during the pandemic, with employees participating in more meetings. 
   2. Technical debt is a growing problem that forces developers to spend more and more of their day engaging in repetitive tasks to fix problems caused by legacy software, or so-called orphan software created by former employees. This cuts into the amount of time developers can dedicate to inventing innovative solutions for their business, the kind of creative work that attracted them to the profession in the first place.  
   3. And while most associate technical debt with old code compounded by layers of complexity, there is a bigger problem facing businesses with a new generation of tech debt caused by SaaS sprawl. Plagued by cycles of trying to customize SaaS tools amid rapid change and developer turnover, teams are left with apps that are so difficult to maintain they must start from scratch. This can be frustrating work that, again, prevents people from focusing on innovation.

Also Read: Why Technical Debt Is Hurting Enterprises and How To Fix It: Experts’ Edition

Digital Tools To Address Developer Burnout

Fortunately, digital tools exist that can address the problems and relieve pressure on IT departments. Businesses can create apps fast with a visual, model-driven development environment and reusable components, and also build apps right with an integrated development platform that ensures the security, resilience, and scalability of cloud-native, enterprise-grade applications. Modern application development platforms go beyond the traditional capabilities of no/low-code tools and make it easier for teams to focus on productivity and develop enterprise-class systems in-house, enabling IT departments to focus on transformation and modernization rather than monotonous, often repetitive boilerplate tasks like complex environment setups, numerous data manipulation UIs or application deployment scripting.

For example, logistics company Green Cargo leveraged a combination of a cloud computing service and an automated development platform to deliver digital innovation ten times faster than its previous legacy systems. The company was able to deliver several significant hybrid-cloud applications including a mobile app developed in three months for railroad workers to perform their routine tasks, a predictive maintenance app that has helped reduce in-service wheel bearing failure by 50%, and a customer portal that enables the customer service operation to scale. In tandem, Green Cargo was able to reorient its talent pipeline, enabling the company to hire more fresh graduates as project manager Jonna Nilsson realized that “with [a modern application development platform,] we didn’t need as many senior developers because of the guardrails, AI assistance, and architecture advisory features built into the IDE. Onboarding our development team has been fast and very cost-effective.”

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Insurance provider Humana leveraged a similar IT strategy to accelerate its digital transformation. Humana’s team developed a sales enablement portal used by 40,000 sales agents to introduce upcoming annual health plans, in eight weeks instead of the eight-month estimate for hand-coding, ensuring the company is equipped for each year’s enrollment season. When the pandemic hit, the company’s call center was overwhelmed by tasks and was utilizing just a spreadsheet to track information. Thanks to a modern approach to application development, Humana was able to eliminate the majority of its developer toil, enabling the team to focus on delivering features instead of having to spend time worrying about non-functional requirements like user permissions, security, and UI frameworks. Humana experienced a 4x delivery-speed boost, causing Bruce Buttles, digital channels director, to state that, “software engineering is fun again.”

Closing Thoughts

Green Cargo and Humana show that businesses can build mission-critical software that doesn’t cause development talent to burn out, regardless of industry. Instead of repeating the same mistakes of the past, businesses need to rethink coding and automated development platforms offer a better way of building software, one that accelerates business outcomes and improves the developer experience.

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