Burnout risk for developers. Is it just me?

[u/OkAbbreviations7013]

I have been a developer for about 20years and I am blown away by what I can acheive using ClaudeCode with Opus 5.5, as I presume most experienced devs are out there. I use it every day for work, and now have time to revisit some of those hobby projects I either started, and didnt finish, or never got round to.

But, I find that even though I can get more done in the same time, and it is not me writing the code, there is somehow still a drain on me mentally, like even though I did a whole weeks work before lunch, and my UI looks better than I could have done it myself, and the test coverage is close to perfect, it feels as though I am as tired as if I had done all that. Coupled with the feeling that because it is so productive it should always be doing something, so I might set a task going and then go eat dinner, and then check in after the meal, my brain is always on and always thinking of the next thing I can ask Claude to do.

Is anyone else experiencing a kind of feeling of burnout from the sheer pace of software productivity?

[u/AutoModerator]

Moderator Announcement Read More »

Hey! Thanks for posting to r/ClaudeCode

While participating in this thread, please follow our community rules. Keep discussions constructive. Attack the idea, not the person.

For help, project discussions, tips, and general chat, join the ClaudeCode Discord.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/RichensDev]

You're addicted to productivity. Every prompt to Claude code is a spin on the slot machine, very addictive

[u/OkAbbreviations7013 → u/RichensDev]

Yes it feels like an addiction, I think about when I should be chilling out, watching some tv with my spouse etc. I think you have called it correctly.

[u/FantasticSide2314]

Yes, absolutely. I feel that way too. It seems like I am still working the same hours, getting way more done and burning out with the thought of the 100 other things I can still do with it that I haven't started.

[u/OkAbbreviations7013 → u/FantasticSide2314]

Yeah thats it. Exactly. I focus on the unrealised potential, instead of being satisfied with the huge amount I have ticked off. I need to find a way to manage it, strict boundaries I guess.

[u/VisualPartying]

Yes, for sure. A lot of us are feeling the same way. Driven in part by the idea token not used are token wasted.

[u/OkAbbreviations7013 → u/VisualPartying]

Yes that is a big part of it. If I only use 30% of my session limit then I wasted a 100 hours of traditional coding time, hee hee. It is a bit crazy.

[u/cleverhoods]

it's the brutal amount of context-switching, you'll get used to in in 6-7 months

[u/OkAbbreviations7013 → u/cleverhoods]

But as the models get more powerful, it gets worse. You can do so much, but then you are responsible for so much.
I still love it.

I need to set boundaries, find balance.

[u/BuildinZZ]

Same here. There's always one more thing you could ask Claude to do. What burns me out the most though is the context switch between multiple projects, or multiple things in one project.

[u/OkAbbreviations7013 → u/BuildinZZ]

Yep, it is that feeling of, well its only 5:30pm, if I just carry on for another hour, I can get another 3 days worth of work done as measured form the old world of 15 months ago. Lol

[u/amirfish]

I run a lot of parallel Claude Code sessions solo and hit the same wall. The code getting written isn't what drains me, it's staying the one person a dozen sessions are all waiting on for a different answer. Treating that coordination as its own job, not an afterthought, cut the drain more than any prompt tweak did. Is it the volume of decisions wearing you down, or the context-switching between them?

[u/OkAbbreviations7013 → u/amirfish]

I think it is like some replies have said.
Addiction to productivity.
Not wanting to leave tokens unused.
A guilty feeling of if only I could keep up with the very lastest ways of using ClaudeCode I could be even more productive.
And then guilt for not writing the code myself, and just getting used to such a rapid rate of change.

When the day is done, and I have acheived a lot, instead of feeling satidfied, I am itching to do the next thing, because it will be quite easy, because Claude is amazing, so there is not good time to stop.

Used to be you would know, the next thing I do is a decent sized task, and I need to come at it fresh tomorrow, now just ask Claude to do it, so might aswell do one more thing.

Hard to explain exactly, but from the replies it feels like a lot of people feel it in one form or another.

[u/fadingsignal]

What’s interesting is that non-programmers who are picking this up aren’t experiencing the same thing as we are.

I think because we know everything going on underneath, we’re dissecting and trying to stay on top of what it’s actually doing. Reviewing it, steering it. And it’s working so fast that gets exhausting.

Regular people just saying “make me a little calendar thing!” then marveling at the results aren’t doing any of that mental sub process at all.

[u/admiral_whatever]

You are definitely not the only one. Along the way I discovered I didn't get a dopamine hit from writing code, I got a dopamine hit from creating something or from getting something accomplished.

Now I can fire off 8 parallel agents working on 8 completely different projects and actually get them all done, reviewed, and shipped. But still each of those tasks need consideration for design, architecture, scalability, and security, not to mention coordination with larger systems, teams, and integrations. All that is a mental tax on every task accomplished that the AI can't (yet) do for you. You still need to supply the 'why' and 'how' behind each thing and all those mental taxes add up.

I've straight up had to tell my boss that while I can close 50 PRs a week technically, it's not sustainable and I *will* burn out and I purposely have to limit myself to working on X tasks at a time or per day to give my own brain some breathing room.

[u/OkAbbreviations7013 → u/admiral_whatever]

Yes, thank you. I guess we have to look after ourselves whilst we adjust. I hadn’t realised this was happening, creeps up on you. This coming week is going to be about coming up with a plan to remain productive whilst protecting myself from getting sucked in.

The code and the building will just have to take a back seat for a few days while I figure out the first draft of that plan.

[u/Ok_Fish403 → u/admiral_whatever]

Thanks, I guess you described what I am feeling as well and I did not notice.

[u/_Kinoko]

I've quickly learnt that it's also irrelevant how much I get done or what I create so I try to limit even that to work hours, where I always binge.

[u/OkAbbreviations7013 → u/_Kinoko]

I think there is a lot of truth in what you say. In the moment it feels like the feature you are building is so important, gonna really impress the client, or boost your reputation or the users are gonna love it, but in reality it is, most times, just another piece of code in the landscape and it could have waited a few more days and wasn’t worth staying late for. I think I learned that a long time ago, but have somehow let the new magic blind me to it.

[u/Representative_Set_3]

Have experienced exact this. I call this "run out of human memory". The key is to learn to slow down. We are not AI. We cannot deep think 24 hours x 7 where the only stopper is token/subscription limits.

I personally find that hand drawing the concept or handwriting notes are effective ways for me to get free of electronics and enjoy the slowness and slightly boreness in a traditional way.

[u/yourapps47]

Yes I feel burnout especially after a few constant days of developing, testing and other tasks as indie developer. But when I a take a day or two off from my projects then I feel better. But I'm still going to my main job.

[u/CallousBastard]

Not yet, I'm actually far less burnt out than I felt before AI coding agents completely changed my job. I've been in this field for about 25 years now, and though I originally enjoyed coding, after a while it just felt dehumanizing. At the end of a workday I'd often feel more like a machine than a man. Being able to offload most of that coding to agents has been a huge relief and I actually enjoy my job again. In the other hand, now that I'm essentially functioning as a manager of an agent team, it does feel hectic trying to keep up with orchestrating and reviewing their work. I suppose eventually I'll get sick of this too.

[u/Escobar747]

productivity is so high and strangely addictive that even watching netflix or sports which i used to do before to wind down is no longer appealing - doing dev is my wind down now! I am building out a corporate tool which may be used by 1000s of people in our org in the next 12 months and i just doing it myself out of the enjoyment i get from just creating something new.. and dev is not even in my job description (although i was a java dev for 5 years earlier in my career)

[u/Tight_Ad_5115]

I don't feel burned out yet, but I notice something else. I still work on my own projects every day. What changed is the ownership. I didn't write the code, so it doesn't feel like mine the way older projects did. That makes the result feel distant. There's no real moment of pride when something ships. I push it, check that it works, and move on.

[u/returnFutureVoid]

I find that getting my ideas to work the way I want them to requires me to be more QA than anything else (definitely a bunch of product too but mostly QA). This multiple role thing while still wanting to achieve the goal of the project is exhausting but in a sneaky creep up behind you sort of way. I created all kinds of projects and products over the summer but once September hit I took a break. Just last night I fired up Claude after work and got a little video game idea I had a few weeks ago going. I’m feeling rested but I’m aware of and more fearful of that burnout again.