Working days of the programmer: expectations and reality
We continue our series of articles based on polls: this time we decided to measure the discrepancy between how programmer students represent a programmer’s work day and how things actually happen. Students MSTU. Bauman, who study at the Technopark, again agreed to answer our questions.
To this end, we conducted a small study, in the course of which it was expected that it turned out that not all ideas about a “spherical working day in a vacuum” coincide with reality. Students are ready to program for 790 hours a year, provided that half of their working time is spent on social networks.
To understand how the programmer’s working time is really distributed, we conducted a small survey within the company.
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Question to programmers: Imagine your typical work day. What percentage of time on average does each of the listed activities take?
Further, for comparison, we collected answers from Technopark students.
Question for students: Imagine a typical programmer working day. What do you think, what percentage of time on average does each of the listed activities take from it?
790 hours of program code per year!
The first point is thinking about the problem and finding solutions . It turned out that students overestimate the amount of time spent on this stage. About 44% of the surveyed programmers spend less than 10% of their work time on thinking about the problem and finding solutions. It rarely takes 40% of the time, and never more than 60%.
Note: it is necessary to take into account that much depends on the project cycle. If a project only starts or a new round of development takes place, then it takes a lot of time to think through and search for information.
A similar situation with the search and study of information, reading mans . Students have high expectations on this. For example, about 42% of respondents think that programmers spend 20-40% of their work time on it, while for most developers it takes less than 20% (with a third less than 5%).
I was pleased that the most time-consuming task for the programmer - writing the code - remains the same in the students' presentation. It takes 20 to 60% of work time.
By the way, if you accept that writing code takes 40% of the time, then with a five-day working week and an eight-hour working day, the developer will spend about 790 hours per year writing code.
Opinions of programmers and students differed when answering the question of testing and finding bugs. The developers most often answered that it takes them no more than 5% of the time. Students suggested that four times more. However, this discrepancy is understandable: after all, in companies of the Mail.Ru Group scale this task falls on testers.
Access to people - 5%
Various organizational issues (participation in meetings, planning meetings, brainstorming), according to the developers, should take a minimum amount of time. Both parties - both programmers and students - agree that this should take no more than 5% of the working time.
Reading, writing messages, staging and reading tasks in the tracker is the same story. Three quarters of programmers and a little less than half of students agree to spend no more than 5% of their working time on it.
On social networks - 60% of working time
Programmers agree that reading Habra and other similar resources takes less than 5% of the working time. Students also expect to spend on it 11-20% of the time.
And now - the most interesting.
It is not surprising that some students are so eagerly awaiting graduation from the university and going to work in large companies. It seems to them (18%) that programmers spend on social networks, communication, food, etc. 41–60% of their working time. But dreams are rapidly breaking about reality: the majority of developers devote about 5% of their working time to this.
In general, students' ideas about their future in companies are quite understandable. People who have chosen to develop, rarely seek publicity, and this explains the reluctance to spend time on organizing documents.
The discrepancies in the search for bugs and errors are related to the peculiarity of the work of large companies and the emphasis in education. It's not a problem.
What can not be said about the expectations of students about free time. On the one hand, that lack of external corporate activity flows right here (to social networks), on the other - there is an excessively romantic idea of ​​the future profession. However, maybe you should not dispel it.
To this end, we conducted a small study, in the course of which it was expected that it turned out that not all ideas about a “spherical working day in a vacuum” coincide with reality. Students are ready to program for 790 hours a year, provided that half of their working time is spent on social networks.
To understand how the programmer’s working time is really distributed, we conducted a small survey within the company.
')
Question to programmers: Imagine your typical work day. What percentage of time on average does each of the listed activities take?
- I think about the problem, looking for solutions
- I study the information, I read mana
- I'm writing code
- I'm testing, looking for bugs
- I participate in meetings, planning meetings, brainstorms, I conduct interviews
- I read Habrahabr, Roy and other useful on the Internet
- I read / write letters, put / read task in tracker
- I sit on social networks
- I communicate with colleagues on non-work issues
- Eat, drink, sleep
Further, for comparison, we collected answers from Technopark students.
Question for students: Imagine a typical programmer working day. What do you think, what percentage of time on average does each of the listed activities take from it?
790 hours of program code per year!
The first point is thinking about the problem and finding solutions . It turned out that students overestimate the amount of time spent on this stage. About 44% of the surveyed programmers spend less than 10% of their work time on thinking about the problem and finding solutions. It rarely takes 40% of the time, and never more than 60%.
Note: it is necessary to take into account that much depends on the project cycle. If a project only starts or a new round of development takes place, then it takes a lot of time to think through and search for information.
A similar situation with the search and study of information, reading mans . Students have high expectations on this. For example, about 42% of respondents think that programmers spend 20-40% of their work time on it, while for most developers it takes less than 20% (with a third less than 5%).
I was pleased that the most time-consuming task for the programmer - writing the code - remains the same in the students' presentation. It takes 20 to 60% of work time.
By the way, if you accept that writing code takes 40% of the time, then with a five-day working week and an eight-hour working day, the developer will spend about 790 hours per year writing code.
Opinions of programmers and students differed when answering the question of testing and finding bugs. The developers most often answered that it takes them no more than 5% of the time. Students suggested that four times more. However, this discrepancy is understandable: after all, in companies of the Mail.Ru Group scale this task falls on testers.
Access to people - 5%
Various organizational issues (participation in meetings, planning meetings, brainstorming), according to the developers, should take a minimum amount of time. Both parties - both programmers and students - agree that this should take no more than 5% of the working time.
Reading, writing messages, staging and reading tasks in the tracker is the same story. Three quarters of programmers and a little less than half of students agree to spend no more than 5% of their working time on it.
On social networks - 60% of working time
Programmers agree that reading Habra and other similar resources takes less than 5% of the working time. Students also expect to spend on it 11-20% of the time.
And now - the most interesting.
It is not surprising that some students are so eagerly awaiting graduation from the university and going to work in large companies. It seems to them (18%) that programmers spend on social networks, communication, food, etc. 41–60% of their working time. But dreams are rapidly breaking about reality: the majority of developers devote about 5% of their working time to this.
In general, students' ideas about their future in companies are quite understandable. People who have chosen to develop, rarely seek publicity, and this explains the reluctance to spend time on organizing documents.
The discrepancies in the search for bugs and errors are related to the peculiarity of the work of large companies and the emphasis in education. It's not a problem.
What can not be said about the expectations of students about free time. On the one hand, that lack of external corporate activity flows right here (to social networks), on the other - there is an excessively romantic idea of ​​the future profession. However, maybe you should not dispel it.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/197830/
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