{"id":22736025,"date":"2024-03-22T05:00:55","date_gmt":"2024-03-22T12:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thenewstack.io\/?p=22736025"},"modified":"2024-04-01T12:32:53","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T19:32:53","slug":"tech-works-how-to-identify-and-address-burnout-on-your-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenewstack.io\/tech-works-how-to-identify-and-address-burnout-on-your-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech Works: How to Identify and Address Burnout on Your Team"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We all know that software engineers are very susceptible to burnout<\/a>. Why aren’t we as an industry talking about this more?<\/p>\n

Sure, a lot of tech events feature a talk on developer burnout. But given the increased pressures on developers — who are either under threat of layoff<\/a> or bearing the burden of increased workloads because of headcount reductions — it’s shocking that their mental health is so under-addressed.<\/p>\n

Burnout is bad for everyone: organizations, teams and especially individuals, for whom the consequences can be dire. For instance, people experiencing burnout are also at five times higher risk of suicidal ideation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How can we detect the first signs of burnout in ourselves and in our engineering teams? We would not only increase developer productivity — because happy devs are more productive<\/a> ones — but we could literally be saving lives.  Read on to learn how to help.<\/p>\n

The Invisible Pain of Developer Burnout<\/h2>\n

While overall burnout rates are up<\/a>, especially for millennials<\/a>, developer burnout estimates run as high as 83%<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Engineers have great paying jobs, and they get to work from home, and they get to use all of this great technology,” Michelle Bakels<\/a>, program director at G2i, said on the podcast Developer Health Show<\/a>, in a conversation with Anthony Shew<\/a>, developer experience lead for Turbo at Vercel.<\/p>\n

“We think of it as this really comfortable job,” she said “And in comparison to some jobs, it really is, but it doesn’t mean that it’s not hard itself,” and very mentally taxing. “In my experience, sometimes, the coding is the easiest part of the job.”<\/p>\n

Non-code challenges, she said, include:<\/p>\n