November Meetup - Developer Wellbeing and Open Source

Welcome to the EdinburghJS November Meetup! We’ll be meeting on Tuesday 17th November, 18:30 at the Perk office.

It is an uncertain time to be a programmer. The rise of agentic coding is changing the nature of dev work. Coding with agents can be exhilarating, but also addictive and exhausting. There is pressure to produce more, faster, with less regard for quality. With so much in flux, it can feel like our careers and the craft of coding as we know it are under threat.

Our talks this month will be about mental health and burnout in the age of AI coding.

The event will start with a talk by Miranda Heath about her research on how AI is affecting the mental health of software developers.

We will then have a guided chat about how our wellbeing and jobs are being affected by AI, and how we can support each other through these changes.

Expect pizza, good conversation and moral support!

AI Burnout and Brainfry

This summer, Syntax ran a survey on AI coding and mental health. I analysed the nearly 1000 comments developers left sharing their views and experiences. Using insights from my training as a psychologist, I highlight some of the biggest and most surprising ways AI is impacting developers psychologically, including:

• how the pressure to produce more, faster, is leading developers to burn out
• how reviewing verbose AI generated code and running multiple agents in parallel puts developers under excessive cognitive loads, leading to ‘AI brainfry’
• how relying on AI to generate code affects developers’ motivation, skill development, and feelings of self-worth and confidence developers’ feelings about the changing nature of their craft and profession
• how AI creates a feeling of possibility than can make it hard to stop prompting and disconnect from work

I’ll then consider what we can do to be healthy and happy coding in a world where AI is ubiquitous.

We will chat about the following topics. Are there any other topics you’d like to see included? Suggest them by sending an email to miranda@mirandaheath.website.

• Are you anxious about job security or finding meaningful work?
• Is pressure to be more productive at work causing you stress and anxiety?
• Do you feel pressure to keep up with developments in AI or be left behind by your peers? Does FOMO keep you up at night?
• Are you worried about how to learn and develop skills in an era where AI support is only a few clicks away?
• Do you find it hard to know when to stop when AI can make it feel like anything is possible?
• Do you struggle with context switching, or experience ‘AI brainfry’ when coding with agents?
• Does coding feel different than it used to? Do you find yourself painfully missing how things used to be?
• Do you feel like AI is devaluing your skills, and making you feel worth less?
• Does it feel harder to connect meaningfully with others when people are communicating more and more through their agents?
• How does AI interact with your autism or ADHD?

Miranda Heath is a founding director and researcher at the Software Stewardship Lab, and the author of the to-date most comprehensive report on burnout in Open Source.

Vlad-Stefan Harbuz works on protecting the Open Source infrastructure the world depends on. He is the founder and executive director of the Software Stewardship lab, a non-profit applied research lab working to ensure the stability of the Open Source ecosystems we depend on. He is also the director of the Open Source Pledge, which has raised $7,408,535 for Open Source maintainers.

Thank you to Perk for continuing to sponsor EdinburghJS, providing catering and the venue.

If you would like to speak or volunteer for future events then please get in touch via our speaking and volunteering form, or join our Discord.

If you want to contribute to running costs for the meetup group then you can support us on Patreon.