InfluxData: Dear developers, get your ‘pants’ on & take a shower 

Pandemic life

Developer-focused open source time series database company InfluxData used the first couple of weeks of April to find out how developers have been handling life and work during the pandemic. 

The company spoke to 324 software developers/engineers from around the world.

The questions were focused on working hours, concerns around job security, fears of isolation and loneliness.

Among the ‘findings’ in North America apparently developers are exercising way more often than their European counterparts but are also a lot more concerned about lack of toilet paper. 

Most developers InfluxData spoke to had some preparation for remote work, as 28% of developers worked full-time outside of the office before the pandemic, while another 23% spent part of their time working remotely. 

Now just 2% of respondents said they are still going into an office – an unprecedented shift in daily work arrangements that is being felt across the globe.

Get your pants [trousers] on & take a shower

The below bullets are actually pieces of advice shared, not by InfluxData, but by the developers themselves for other coders:

• Get your pants on and take a shower every day. 
• Invent some ritual to signal the end of the workday for yourself, like booting from Linux to Windows for gaming.
• Don’t work too late into the night! It throws off the routine and causes stress the next day in terms of all the Zoom meetings to attend.
• Get a lockable door and ensure that *everyone* understands that you cannot simply ‘switch off and on’ when you’re working.
• If it’s possible, always turn the camera on for calls. It makes the conversation more natural and helps a lot with communication.
• Stay connected to your friends, family and coworkers however you’re comfortable. Don’t isolate yourself further than necessary!

Only 26.7% of respondents said that the quarantine has meant that they’ve had to start working outside of the typical 9-5 schedule in order to juggle work and home life. Among the remainder, almost half said they normally work outside normal hours (34%), and the other half said they still manage to keep typical workday hours (39%).

The most common change in working habits that developers reported due to the pandemic was that they now work later into the evenings (39%), followed closely by working more hours overall (33%). To add insult to injury, a nearly equal amount reported feeling less productive (31%). Just 17% said the biggest change was working fewer hours.

As for the downsides, the biggest portion of respondents (39%) said that loneliness and feeling isolated are a top concern during the COVID-19 crisis. Other prominent worries among developers included too much snacking (35%), job security (32%) and poor network bandwidth (31%).

InfluxData detailed the survey from its own perspective on a company blog here.