In one of the recent Stackoverflow podcasts, I believe it was episode 31 to be precise, the discussion turned to programmers burning out. The conversation stemmed from this post. It got me thinking whether I’ve actually ever been burnt out because of programming. The thought process took a while as I can think of tons of instances when I’ve been in a funk about work, about the content I was working on or the deadline that had me slamming away at a project for 80+ hours a week. The problem is that I’m not sure any of these instances of despair were related to programming specifically. I can actually think of several times when I was in a state of char-broiled zombie mode and would still be interested in looking into a some other language or development platform, something programming related that has nothing to do with the work I was doing. So, in my own personal situation, I don’t see myself ever burning out on programming and/or software development, only on a project or working environment.
The way I see it is that programming is like professional sports in a lot of ways. We always have a project that has an end goal, like a season and its championship. But, at the end of each season there’s always one grizzled old vet that swears that this is the year they are going to hang it up. However, after a few months away from the constant grind of a long season, that same player is itching to throw the spikes, the pads, the shorts back on and get ready for another long, suffering season. Obviously Brett Favre comes to mind. For those that really love it, walking away is just not that easy. And, even after the body gives out on them, making it impossible to play at a competitive level, a lot of them turn to coaching, or broadcasting, or something else related to the sport they dedicated their entire life to. The young guys aren’t immune to this burnout either though. The fact is everyone starts to eat shit at the end of a season, or a demanding project, because when you are truly dedicated to success and you truly love what you do, you give everything you can to reach the end goal.
But, it’s hard for me to believe that if someone loves programming, or sports for that matter, they would point their lack of desire at the activity. In sports, it is the strain on the body, the mental drain of constantly being tired from rigorous practices and game days, long hours studying the opponent, long stretches away from their families. The same type of stuff happens in programming to cause us to lose our drive coming down the stretch. Here are some that I’ve pinpointed from my own career so far.
The biggest culprit of burnout. We’ve all been through it, the 80+ hour weeks for several months in a row to make a superficial deadline. How about a crazy crunch just to watch the game/app sit on the shelf for several months after completion…been there, down that, TWICE! I can definitely see why lukewarm developers wouldn’t want to stick around after a soul crushing crunch. But, the ones that truly love it always come back for more…just maybe not at the same company.
We all need to take part in the maintenance, or maybe you spend several months getting shuffled around to projects that need all hands on deck to kill bugs and get the app out the door. Most of the creative stuff, the stuff we crave, happens at the beginning of the project. Long periods of this, even ones with sane hours, can become mundane and drain your desire to work. Before the recent career change I spent 6 months or so in this mode. Being a small company I spent that time jumping on to help get the games finished, ported and out the door. Three different projects in that time, all grunt work. We need to tackle things that are interesting to keep it fresh.
At the end of last week I got added to a new project team. For the first time in my professional life the project will not be a game. I’m siked! I love game development, but I’m in need of another challenge, something completely unique, with a completely different set of challenges.
I’ve been working in JavaME exclusively for about 3 years now (well, not exclusively as I have spent some time developing tools, Windows apps with C#). The same environment, the same language, the same platform, it can certainly help in burning us out. In my case, this type of burnout surfaces as the desire to work on another platform, in another language. Lately I’ve had an itch to do some web development, that might explain the blog. The funny thing is that I was completely spent on web dev when I graduated from college. Never ever wanted to do it again. We’re fickle, interests change.
This one is a bit more subtle, until it drives you so nuts that you just have to leave the company. We all have ideas of how things should be developed, but often we are not allowed to express these ideas as someone else, someone not as close to a project as you might be, thinks they know better. It’s a frustrating way to work when you are constantly being undermined. I’ve suffered through it first hand at the first company I ever worked for…less than three years later and I know of no one at the office where I used to work. Smart people want to have an intellectual and creative say in what they are working on, burnout will ensue if they aren’t allowed to.
Those are the major ones that I was able to pinpoint in the 15 minutes I sat down to think about it. The last thing that I have a theory on has to do with recovery time. The ones that really love it will always come back to it. However, maybe as you age it takes longer to recover from a strenuous period of activity. We know this happens with the body, why wouldn’t the brain suffer from the same thing? Maybe the young junior programmers only needs a week before they are ready to jump back into crunch. I know in college I would pull an all-nighter to finish a project, drive to work and develop web pages all day. If I tried that today I would probably fall asleep on the way and end up parked inside a Best Buy.
Finally, I’ve only been at this professionally for 5 years now…check back with me in another 5 to find out how I feel then.
