Report: 83% of UK software engineers suffer burnout, COVID-19 made it worse
- Reference: 1626251411
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/07/14/uk_developer_burnout/
- Source link:
This [1]survey [PDF] was conducted in June 2021 by pollsters Survation, on behalf of DevOps company Haystack, and although the number of participants was small (just over 250) it was conducted by interviews, rather than online forms which are vulnerable to low-quality responses.
The respondents were 26 per cent pure software developers, 30 per cent operations (such as DevOps or reliability engineering), and 44 per cent software engineers who do elements of both. There is no detail on company size but we were told that it spanned from very small to enterprise.
[2]
The bad news is that 55 per cent described themselves as experiencing moderate or severe burnout, and only 17 per cent reported no burnout at all. Most (81 per cent) considered that COVID-19 was to blame at least in part, and when questioned about why pointed to increased workload as the top factor, closely followed by "general anxiety caused by COVID-19."
[3]
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In other words, software engineers are no different from anyone else when it comes to the general stress of living with a pandemic, and that combined with increased workload has imposed a significant burden.
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83% of UK software engineers report some degree of burnout
Why has workload increased? Junade Ali, the computer scientist who commissioned the survey, told us that increases in "digitization" is the main factor. "When we go into a coffee shop, we have to scan the QR code to check in, a lot of purchases have been online, a lot of the media we consume has moved online. Every type of... business has had to move online... the pandemic has accelerated the digitisation of the world."
[6]Burn baby burn, infosec inferno: Just 21% of security pros haven't considered quitting their current job
[7]Tech won't save you from lockdown disaster: How to manage family and free time while working from home
[8]Edtech will save our schools from cuts and spare our teachers from burnout, booms UK.gov
[9]What can you do when the pup of programming becomes the black dog of burnout? Dude, leave
Haystack is keen to link developer burnout with "cycle time," defined in the report as "how quickly an engineering team can deploy ideas into production to get feedback from real-world users." Short cycle times are associated with high-performing developers. Haystack references Google's DORA (DevOps Research and Assessment) team, which [10]divides teams from "Elite" (multiple deploys per day, cycle time of less than one day) down to "Low" (deploys less than once a month, cycle time of one to six months).
That said, the new report does not show any evidence that short cycle times decrease burnout. In addition, UK software engineers are, according to this report, better than average when it comes to short cycle times, with 50 per cent claiming to deliver features in no more than two to three days.
The best Ali could come up with is that "Google's State of DevOps report found that [those in] companies with Elite performance are 1.8 times more likely to recommend their team as a great place to work... what makes people burnt out when they're delivering a lot of work tends to be that friction where there are higher demands for work when the process and tooling isn't there. If you are able to remove friction by having the ability to deploy quicker, that makes things smoother."
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"We see managers are able to detect burnout but they aren't able to act on it, because these best practices haven't been incorporated into their organisations."
One might add that common-sense management practices – like good communications, not demanding excessive hours of work, and making sure team members take their holidays – could be at least as important in mitigating burnout.
Is it possible that emphasising the importance of short cycle times could have a negative effect, and end up with management yelling even more at developers to speed up their delivery? That would be a misunderstanding.
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"When the Google team looked at these causal links, they found that before you even get to cycle time, one of the significant factors was psychological safety in teams. Are people able to raise the alarm for things? Are they able to discuss things? That tends to lead to shorter cycle times, less burnout, and business benefit."
Stress rises when the expectations of management are not aligned with what software engineers know to be achievable, or how they are required to achieve it. These problems are well known and the [13]2001 Agile Manifesto which favours "individuals and interactions over processes and tools" and "customer collaboration over contract negotiation" remains relevant.
Arguably the high levels of burnout reported are in part because pandemics are stressful, and in part because of continuing failure to adopt Agile methodology. Ali concurred.
"I've been an engineering manager for around eight years, " he said. "There's a lot of companies adopting 'Agile TM' but they don't really have business agility. They try to adopt a waterfall process and brand it as Scrum or SAFe [Scaled Agile Framework], but they aren't truly Agile. They haven't adapted, they're just the same old type of business calling themselves Agile." ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://haystack-books.s3.amazonaws.com/Study+to+understand+the+impact+of+COVID-19+on+Software+Engineers+-+Full+Report.pdf
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YO61w81KeRosTp4jgXCpBgAAAEM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YO61w81KeRosTp4jgXCpBgAAAEM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YO61w81KeRosTp4jgXCpBgAAAEM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/07/13/burnout.jpg
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/14/infosec_job_change/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2020/03/21/home_working_register_guide/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2019/04/03/ukgov_reckons_edtech_will_save_schools_from_budget_cuts_teacher_burnout/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2018/06/18/burn_out_and_leave_patching_the_patcher/
[10] https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/devops-sre/take-2021-state-devops-survey-shape-future-devops
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YO61w81KeRosTp4jgXCpBgAAAEM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YO61w81KeRosTp4jgXCpBgAAAEM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://agilemanifesto.org/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Empty coffer
Marxist.
Re: Empty coffer
In the neo-marxist world we live in, the real workers are the shareholders and you are just the mean of production that they own.
Re: Empty coffer
Who do you think is going to pay for you to doss about on the dole?
Bloody UBI.
Re: Empty coffer
Big corporations that got rich out of our sweat. They have not been paying right amount of tax for decades and persuaded governments that they can tax them by proxy by taxing the workers.
Re: Empty coffer
> Big corporations that got rich out of our sweat.
No they didn't. And if you didn't like what was being offered then you could go elsewhere.
> They have not been paying right amount of tax for decades
The "right amount of tax" is what they owe. If you have evidence of tax evasion, feel free to share it with the police. If not, wind your neck in.
> and persuaded governments that they can tax them by proxy by taxing the workers.
Are you even old enough to pay tax?
Jesus Christ.
Re: Empty coffer
If their wealth didn't come from labour, then I'm sure it'll be fine if everyone goes on strike. Right? They'll be raking it in without all those pointless salaries to pay out! Great thinking.
"the same old type of business calling themselves Agile"
That is the unavoidable problem when you have a methodology that does not require certification to be adopted. I can call myself Agile, I can put it on my CV. I can (and have) made multiple commits to production environments on the same day. I have stand-up meetings, mainly because I come with a question and I need the answer right away.
But I am no Scrum master, I code what needs to be coded in the order required to solve the problem at hand. I am not Agile, I just provide solutions.
For companies, there should be a certification to call oneself Agile. Sorting the wheat from the chaff.
Won't happen though.
Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.
To quote the venerable (and stinking rich) Warren Buffet.
Survey paid for by Agile tools company finds you will be less stressed using Agile tools -- surprise.
In reality agile puts more stress on software developers. The lack of attention to process, the obsession with rapid deployment.
"Customer Collaboration" over "Contract Negotiation" is a recipe for scope creep.
Rapid deployments puts extra burdens on testers -- more releases with more bugs.
Agile may work in a funky Web2 startup, but, in large organisations there are very few success stories.
Re: Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.
Absolutely @James.
Agile in a large organisation is a recipe for sprint sweatshops. The treadmill is expected to go faster and faster, the few people who know what they are doing are stretched ever thinner providing direction to code monkey teams who only code, have no domain knowledge and never get the time to gain any.
What about the admins
If the devs think COVID has changed their lives, what about us in the admin corner.....
COVID presented a whole shebang of challenges that required huge amounts of effort in order to "keep" things running.... And now that we are moving towards Back to the Office we are now in the position of dealing with WFH and In the Office simultaneously....
Grrrrrr, when I were a lad........
Agile methodology
It's a logical contradiction. A methodology can never be agile because a methodology is a set of rules that you must follow. And in practice, it's just a load of managers clueless about what actual programming work entails congratulating themselves for being so fashionable by believing they have somehow adopted the compulsory buzzword trend. And they do love sets of rules.
The only way to truly be an agile software developer is to work for yourself : no incompetent project managers, no time wasting waffle meetings, no project charts to fill in, an 80% reduction in unnecessary email, far fewer phone calls, nobody interrupting you asking you to do their work for them..... the list of negatives and time wasters could go on here for a long time. In 20 years of working in companies I never saw an efficient programming team of more than 3 people, with every good team having one developer who really knew their stuff. And I saw a lot of companies when I worked as an external consultant. Same dreary management-inflicted inefficiency in every single one of them.
Empty coffer
I'd say the problem is low salaries and high tax. UK engineers make much less than their colleagues in the US and other countries.
You work harder and harder and then you look at Zoopla and you find you still cannot afford anything decent to live.
Years of learning, sacrifice, working your bottom off for what?
I personally can't wait for Universal Basic Income so I can quit this circus.