Developer Burnout Diagnosis

Detect and diagnose engineering burnout through data analysis of workload patterns, after-hours activity, and incident load.

Purpose

• Identify burnout warning signs early

• Analyze workload distribution

• Detect unsustainable patterns

• Recommend interventions

• Prevent attrition

Burnout Indicators

Git Activity Analysis

Metrics to analyze:

Commits by hour (detect after-hours work)

git log --author="Name" --date=format:'%H' --pretty=format:'%ad' | sort | uniq -c

Commits by day of week (weekend work)

git log --author="Name" --date=format:'%u' --pretty=format:'%ad' | sort | uniq -c

Commit velocity trend

git log --author="Name" --since="6 months ago" --pretty=format:'%ad' --date=short | uniq -c

Warning Signs:

20% commits outside 9am-6pm

• Regular weekend commits (>10% of total)

• Declining commit volume over time

• Late-night activity spikes (after 10pm)

On-Call Analysis

Metrics:

• Incidents per on-call shift

• After-hours pages

• Time to resolve

• Rotation frequency

Warning Signs:

3 incidents per week on-call

5 after-hours pages per shift

• Uneven rotation (same person always on-call)

• Long incident resolution times (>4 hours)

Workload Distribution

Metrics:

• PR review load per engineer

• Number of concurrent projects

• Meeting hours per week

• Context switches (number of different projects/repos)

Warning Signs:

10 PRs to review per week

• Working on >3 projects simultaneously

20 hours meetings per week

• Frequent context switches (>5 different areas)

Burnout Risk Assessment

{ "employee": "Name", "assessment_date": "2026-01-22", "risk_level": "high", "indicators": [ { "category": "After-hours work", "severity": "high", "evidence": "35% of commits between 8pm-1am", "trend": "increasing" }, { "category": "On-call load", "severity": "medium", "evidence": "4.2 incidents per on-call week (team avg: 2.1)", "trend": "stable" } ], "recommendations": [ { "action": "Reduce on-call frequency", "details": "Currently 1 week per month, reduce to 1 week per 6 weeks", "timeline": "immediate" }, { "action": "Audit workload", "details": "Working on 4 projects - consolidate to 2 max", "timeline": "next sprint" }, { "action": "Investigate after-hours work drivers", "details": "1:1 to understand: deadline pressure? personal preference? timezone issues?", "timeline": "this week" } ] }

Intervention Strategies

Immediate (High Risk):

• Reduce workload (remove from projects)

• Pause on-call rotation

• Encourage PTO

• 1:1 check-in

Medium-term:

• Redistribute work more evenly

• Address systemic issues (too many incidents)

• Improve tooling/processes

• Add headcount if needed

Long-term:

• Build sustainable practices

• Improve incident prevention

• Cross-train team (reduce dependencies)

• Establish work-life boundaries

Using Supporting Resources

Templates

• templates/burnout-indicators.json

• Metrics checklist

• templates/recommendations.md

• Intervention playbook

Scripts

• scripts/analyze-workload.py

• Git activity analysis

• scripts/on-call-metrics.py

• On-call load calculator