Software Developers Deserve a Break

If you’re working as a truck driver, you’ll have legally mandated rest time. That’s great, it means we have safe roads.

If you’re a doctor you will take rests, and it would be deemed unsafe to work too long hours. That’s great, so you don’t accidentally amputate the wrong limb.

Software developers can work long hours (hello 20-hour days) without legally mandated rests. Doctors and truck drivers depend on the code that’s written, but nobody cares.

“Just get it done. Make it happen”

There’s just something so wrong with grinding out code like a machine that doesn’t need a break, and it’s something that needs to change.

We aren’t machines

A machine doesn’t need rest. A machine doesn’t suffer from stress or exhaustion.

If you were not aware, I’ll tell you. Software engineers aren’t machines.

We know getting 7–8 hours of sleep helps improve performance (that means less bugs. Fatigue impairs judgment, creativity nosedives, and no one’s writing brilliant code when they’re barely functional from lack of rest. 

Even truck drivers have mandated rest breaks, but for some reason, software development managers and execs often see a lack of rest as just part of the “hustle” despite the negative impact of this attitude.

Burnout Glorification

There’s a lot to learn from professions like healthcare. Doctors work long hours, sure, but it’s recognized that at some point, the doctor needs to get some shut-eye, or they’ll end up misdiagnosing a patient with the serious repercussions that brings. 

In tech, we glorify burnout. We celebrate working through lunch, the night AND the weekend. Since when did pushing through exhaustion become the ultimate show of dedication rather than the output of our work. 

It’s more impressive to work solving problems our peers cannot. Working while well-rested means we can write better code. That should be the impressive metric we show during a performance review.

The Truth.

Why aren’t we, as developers, held to the same standards as truck drivers or doctors? The truth is that as a community we have encouraged a view of software engineering that is unpleasant and unhelpful.

When we celebrate developers who worked “hardcore” long hours to solve a problem we don’t call out the issues with that. When a developer quietly gets on with their work and pushes maintainable and functionally correct code “that’s their job”.

We’ve got this one backwards. It’s something we all need to change, and fast. Please.

Conclusion

The solution is simple: take a break. Fatigue is the enemy of quality. The tech industry needs to stop treating breaks like an indulgence and recognize them for what they are — essential to producing good work.