Understanding Developers Well-Being and Productivity: A Longitudinal Analysis of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Covid-19 has also led to far-reaching and long-lasting changes in people's life, such as increased flexibility in work arrangements. In the present longitudinal study, we investigate over 24 months and six measurement points how the well-being, productivity, social contacts, and needs of software engineers changed over time. We found changes for a range of variables. Variables such as levels of well-being increased while anxiety and loneliness decreased during the pandemic. Symmetrically, indicators of well-being (e.g., quality of social contacts) increased when lockdown measures were slowly lifted. On the other hand, other variables, including boredom and productivity, remained constant. Additionally, we run a preliminary investigation into the future of work at the end of the pandemic. A thematic analysis revealed that some form of hybrid work is here to stay. Also, we found that having previously changed jobs and low job satisfaction was reliably associated with the intention to change jobs again, in case the work condition is not deemed adequate to developers' needs. This suggests specific challenges for software organizations that need to tailor various work arrangements if they want to be attractive employers. We conclude this paper with several actionable recommendations.