Your favorite apps run on code maintained by exhausted volunteers. The databases powering your company? Built by developers working double shifts. Those JavaScript frameworks everyone depends on? Often shepherded by a single person, unpaid, drowning in demands.
The numbers are brutal. A 2023 survey found 73% out of 26,348 developers experienced burnout at some point. Another survey showed 60% of OSS maintainers considered leaving entirely. Burnout is a predictor of quitting. When developers burn out, they walk away.
Burnout potential is very real in tech right now. When the primary incentive for a lot of OSS maintainers is pride in their work, making into a negative feedback loop runs a real risk of people stepping away.