How to Increase Developer Satisfaction

Developer satisfaction matters a lot for productivity. In fact, research has found a strong correlation between software developers feeling like they had a good day at work and their productivity. Consequently, companies and individuals should know which factors tend to increase or decrease work satisfaction. Below are my key findings from studying some research on this topic:

Positive factors:

• Having enough uninterrupted time to get focused work done.
• Finding a balance between sole development work and collaboration.
• Agency over one’s own workday structure and environment (e.g. flexible working hours, working from home, quiet environment).
• Working on something that is considered valuable.

Negative factors:

• Unplanned distractions (e.g. critical bugs, ad-hoc calls, infrastructure issues, background noise).
• Fragmented workdays (i.e. frequent context switching).
• Strong time pressure caused by overly tight deadlines, possibly leading to working overtime and increased stress.
• Working frequently on mundane and repetitive tasks.

Distilled in one sentence, here is what companies should know to keep their engineers happy:

Developers want to spend their time efficiently and build something of value.

I will share additional insights about developers workdays soon.

Here are the sources for my research-based insights on developer satisfaction:

• Today was a Good Day: The Daily Life of Software Developers by André N. Meyer, Earl T. Barr, Christian Bird, and Thomas Zimmermann
• The Good Day Project by GitHub

Note: You can also find this episode on YouTube and Spotify.

#SoftwareEngineering #DeveloperProductivity #WorkSatisfaction