Understanding Work Rhythms in Software Development and Their Effects on Technical Performance

Abstract

The temporal patterns of code submissions, denoted as work rhythms, provide valuable insight into the work habits and productivity in software development. In this paper, we investigate the work rhythms in software development and their effects on technical performance by analyzing the profiles of developers and projects from 110 international organizations and their commit activities on GitHub. Using clustering, we identify four work rhythms among individual developers and three work rhythms among software projects. Strong correlations are found between work rhythms and work regions, seniority, and collaboration roles. We then define practical measures for technical performance and examine the effects of different work rhythms on them. Our findings suggest that moderate overtime is related to good technical performance, whereas fixed office hours are associated with receiving less attention. Furthermore, we survey 92 developers to understand their experience with working overtime and the reasons behind it. The survey reveals that developers often work longer than required. A positive attitude towards extended working hours is associated with situations that require addressing unexpected issues or when clear incentives are provided. In addition to the insights from our quantitative and qualitative studies, this work sheds light on tangible measures for both software companies and individual developers to improve the recruitment process, project planning, and productivity assessment.