Are Open-Source Developers Burning Out?

The reality of volunteer developers shows developer inequality exists big-time.

Open-source is usually depicted as one of the virtues of software communities and a boon for the internet. It could also be seen as one of the scams and a depiction of true inequality among developers.

Think about it, armies of unpaid workers feeling underappreciated and used. BigTech has become quite good at using these decentralized slaves it seems. Yet in the media open-source communities are depicted as utopias of software’s pure energy and spirit of innovation. You have got to laugh!

The reality for many volunteer developers is a lot more grim. An article in Bloomberg paints a dire picture of the plight of open-source software maintainers, whose unpaid labor is the underpinning of a high percentage of the world’s digital infrastructure. Business Insider, painted an even more grim picture (paywall).

With the ongoing pandemic, increased rate of cyberattacks, growing complexity of software, responsibility riding on their backs, and financial instability that comes with their work, open-source developers face a unique combination of burnout risks.

So what is going on here? In some ways the corporate pyramid managed to exploit a lot of well meaning coding souls. Think about it, Open-source was supposed to be a barn-raising. It turned into unpaid labor by stressed-out individuals, even to the point that they sabotage their own work. BigTech manges to creates these coding languages with an ideological sense of purpose for these unpaid workers, but many fall through the cracks.

Even as indie video game studios (an industry known for tight deadlines) move to 4-day work weeks, you have to see the ultra stressful world of developers is not always the best for work-life balance.

Open-source software is software that is free for anyone to use and improve upon, and published online in source control repositories such as GitHub. Anyone can file an issue ticket to request problems be solved, so you’d think it would be highly collaborative and everyone would be patient, but in reality that’s not necessarily the case.

Many developers end of working hard for little gains, feeling in the end disgruntled and used. These projects often run on donations, which doesn’t pay anywhere close to what a developer could make in the private sector. Developers donate their labor in this way out of altruism, but this patience is running out for many of them. There’s a lot of burnout stories that aren’t being told on the internet about the life of developers.

Toxic conversations may demotivate and burn out developers, creating challenges for sustaining open source. Other developers might demand fixes, pressuring these open-source developers into working even harder. You can imagine some of the scenarios.

The reasons that could impact software burnout are myriad but clearly a toxic work culture and a lack of pay fall pretty high on the list. So typically, developer fatigue occurs when software engineers become tired of programming. Coding is hard work and the brain can only handle it for so many hours at a time. If managers aren't careful to assign a variety of interesting work to their remote employees, they might create an environment that causes burnout. But what happens when your “managers” are other developers from around the world?

Software developers typically work in high-pressure environments, even if they are well compensated for it, we’re only human.

Burnout can take many different forms and impacts people in different ways.

Its main characteristics include:

• Feelings of exhaustion and fatigue

• Periods of low motivation and productivity

• Negative or cynical emotions about the work

Signs of Symptoms of Developer Burnout

Burnout can have a significant impact on an employees’ ability to get work done.

You might see some of the following signs from an employee suffering from burnout:

• An increased mental distance from the job

• Loss of focus

• Procrastination

• A decrease in typical work performance

• Trouble meeting deadlines

• Difficulty getting started in the morning or on new tasks

For open-source developers, this means that the volunteering model starts to no longer work for them. The low pay or the lack of pay can lead to further restment of the role. The software utopia begins to break down for that individual.

A toxic work culture for a developer can spread to toxic feelings and a lack of work-life culture that degrades the working conditions. You have to know what it’s time to get out:

Employee burnout can also cause:

• Anger, irritability, or outbursts

• Emotional exhaustion

• Trouble sleeping

• Physical symptoms like headaches or stomach aches

• Little motivation to participate in activities and hobbies outside of work

• Lessened personal accomplishments or pride

Clearly then Software developer burnout can be a major drain on mental health. We have to accept that Open-source developers might actually be at higher risk for burnout.

Burnout is not so uncommon as you might think. Back in 2015, Deloitte reported that 77% of employees had experienced burnout in their current job. 91% of respondents said that stress and frustration “highly impacted” the quality of their work. And a whopping 83% also saw a negative impact on their personal lives.

Fast forward 5 years later, with a pandemic, and now a war, droughts in California and forest-fires in Texas and inflation, and you see, burnout could be much more common. The WFH environment also impacts different people differently. Even developers who were used to a remote work lifestyle might find themselves in a different place psychologically speaking.

Developers in a high pressure environment might do more poorly. Now imagine you make less money or no money like an Open-source community developer. That might not end up too good as the mental health issues add up.

Skip ahead to May 2020: a Monster survey reports that more than 50% of employees working from home were experiencing burnout symptoms. Just two months later, that number jumped to 69%. Clearly the pandemic, semi-forced isolation and a WFH environment are leading to far more burnout in society, and hence things like the Great Resignation.

For developers, a lot of companies and even software communities are “out of touch” with the reality of workers. A Microsoft study finds 41% of workers may quit this (2021) year, while business leaders are “out of touch.” The Great Resignation saw more people leave their jobs, move, take a break from working or retire early than ever before. Of course this is bound to impact developers too and especially those who are more vulnerable like open-source developers.

Burnout is everywhere in software

Clearly burn-out in software developer circles needs more attention. The mental health of developers matters a lot, since software engineers play such a crucial role in organizations.

Another study completed during the pandemic, this one by FlexJobs, found that workers are 3x more likely to report mental health problems now compared to before the pandemic. This suggests that things like pandemics, wars, inflation and dystopia in the climate aren’t so great for us. No kidding right?

Microsoft acquired GitHub but that doesn’t mean demonds on it became less toxic. Software developers are builders, they can’t stand feeling used or under-appreciated especially in a toxic environment.

While the software engineer burnout rate isn’t known, the Software Developer Burnout Survey, conducted in 2020, reveals common software engineer burnout symptoms.

• 80% of respondents identified “a lack of necessary energy to get your work or other coding projects done” as a symptom they’ve experienced.

• 43% reported feeling critical towards the whole idea of writing code. The same percentage indicated they feel a compulsion to overwork due to a feeling that they’re falling behind.

The culture of over-work isn’t helpful to the mental health of these workers. It's not about cash, or even about code. It's about treating maintainers like human beings. It takes money–a whole lot of money–to make open source work, but it takes recognition and appreciation to make an open source developer happy. You should not feel like you are exploited in your role in open-source.

As it turns out, maintaining good open source code is difficult. If you don’t compensate your maintainers properly, it could lead to some pretty bad outcomes. Now if you treat them badly they will burn out and leave, and you might have difficulty finding people who know what they knew.

So much of the Great Resignation is actually about burnout stories and as a society we are in denial. We are in denial because this impacts software engineers perhaps the most. They are the grinders, the ones already working pretty long work weeks with a career limited in years in quickly changing profession. They already know they are on borrowed time.

Regarding burnout and the Great Resignation, many of our youth actually suffer the most. Gen Z workers, those 18 to 25 years old, are faring among the worst -- the researchers theorize that their feelings of isolation are higher because they are more likely to be early in their careers and single.  While the leaders who are doing well are mostly male, the survey found women, frontline workers and new employees also reported challenges. Some coders tend to be in this age group, where you are keen to learn the job but also may be more vulnerable to mental health and financial challenges.

If only the software engineering burnout rate was actually known? For such a large professional group, someone really doesn’t want us to know the real data to this question. Other programmer burnout symptoms reported in the survey included a disinterest in computers, lack of interest in new projects and learning, and not following developer best practices (for example, taking shortcuts like not properly testing code).                    

Meetings on Zoom or in Teams is also not great for the mental health of developers. Too much meetings in virtual contributes to more burn-out.

How Can Coders Deal With Burnout?

Shut it down. At the end of your work day, turn off all of your work equipment, your notifications, and your emails. Don’t give in to the temptation to quickly check on something or send a message: this will help you step away from work and reduce your stress.

Focus. Limit your personal tasks during work hours as much as possible so you end each work day feeling accomplished.

Prioritize self-care. When you’re off the clock, make time for healthy eating, physical activity, and rest. Push yourself to stay involved in hobbies and build socialization into your calendar if you have to.

Take breaks. Don’t get wrapped up in a task and sit staring at your screen for hours on end. Make sure to get up and move regularly, and use the vacation or personal time given to you to give your mind a proper rest.

Ask for help. Struggling to meet a deadline or feeling overwhelmed at home? Do something about it. Reach out to a coworker or manager, whether it’s for help shifting your priorities, tackling a difficult question, or just for a simple word of encouragement.

Be realistic. You know that you won’t be able to code as well if you don’t take care of yourself. Remember that productivity and creativity require rest, and be kind to yourself about the work you’re getting done.

Change your coding environment. If you feel as though you’ve been doing the same job for too long, change something up! Switch to a different OS, use a new text editor, or make some other change to force you to learn something new and reignite some passion.

Open-Code Project Abandonment Skyrockets with Burnout

You know what else burnout leads to in open-source projects? Abandoning their projects. Studies suggest that perhaps 9.5 percent of all open-source projects are abandoned, and a quarter is probably close to being so. So burn-out is impacting the very future and security of open-source projects.

Like corporate culture that ignores the problem until it becomes a bigger problem, the same seems to be occurring in open-source communities. It’s like the decline of empires in history that sometimes occurred suddenly, just now its software in the sky empires. Intentional sabotage and open-source abandonment are symptoms of these times.

Too Much Decentralization Is Not Always a Good Thing

This is causing serious problems in the world of software, because code is highly interdependent. These days, nearly every application you use was built using many, many different open-source libraries. If one of those libraries isn’t being updated, it risks causing problems and bugs downstream. A surprising amount of mission-critical code was created — and is being maintained — by people like who are just frigging volunteers!

Interestingly, 58% of respondents said that web developer burnout is not inevitable in the software industry, meaning it can be prevented. We can do better, organizations and software communities can do better. Clearly open-source software communities need best practices to prevent burnout and prevent project abandonment.

A world built on the backs of open-source, is not always the most secure world. Developers can only juggle so much, and the internet needs them to be happy. Piss developers off too much, and parts of your system begin to break down. This is why the burnout of open-source developers is a big deal. This is why as software engineers, we need to talk about it.

Open-source development isn’t always about barn-raising, sometimes it’s about burn-out. Developers need to understand what they are getting into and how to avoid and navigate the risks of toxic community. We don’t live in a perfect world and volunteering for any prolonged period of time, that too can be a mental health risk in some cases.

Most software communities aren’t like Linux or Python or Rust. Software isn’t a utopia, it’s just a means to an end and that end is typically corporate profits. If you create a rough working first version of a piece of code, other developers who use it will show up and offer improvements. That’s beautiful but it might also be temporary. Sometimes your mental health matters more.

I cannot write without tips, patronage and community contributions. I hope this article gave you some food for thought. I’m not an expert on this topic nor am I a programmer.