The Great Software Hoard
Why We’re Burying Ourselves (and Our Passion) in Cargo
Imagine your home, slowly but surely filling up with… stuff. Not valuable possessions, not cherished memories, but a relentless tide of things. Your kitchen, once a haven of culinary creation, becomes impassable, the oven lost beneath a mountain of miscellaneous junk. The living room, a space for relaxation and connection, transforms into an obstacle course of clutter. Finally, even your bedroom, the place for rest, becomes so crammed that you’re forced to find refuge elsewhere. Your home, once a source of comfort and pride, has become a storage facility for the unwanted and unnecessary. This is the tragic reality of hoarding, a mental disorder where individuals ascribe value to worthless objects, becoming emotionally attached to them to the point of paralysis.
Now, shift your gaze from this domestic tragedy to the seemingly unrelated world of software development in 2024. At first glance, the connection might seem tenuous, even absurd. Yet, beneath the surface of sleek code and agile methodologies, a disturbing parallel emerges: we are hoarding. We are burying ourselves, our projects, and our passion beneath an ever-growing mountain of digital detritus.
Let’s paint a picture. You embark on a new software project, full of enthusiasm and brimming with ideas. But before you’ve even written a single line of code, the hoarding begins. You install JetBrains IDE with a plethora of plugins, configure four different development environments, painstakingly craft CI/CD pipelines, meticulously establish Git workflows, onboard a project manager, a scrum master, and schedule a dizzying array of stand-up meetings, grooming sessions, sprint evaluations, and countless other rituals. Before the first brick of functionality has been laid, you’ve constructed an elaborate scaffolding of processes, tools, and meetings, a towering monument to complexity.
What happens when you finally start coding? You write a single line, a seemingly insignificant contribution to the grand edifice of your project. But this single line triggers a cascade of actions. You create a pull request, execute unit tests, push to your branch, wait (and wait…) for the tests to execute again on the development environment, watch SonarCloud churn out a static code analysis report, and then, after what feels like an eternity, your precious line of code is finally deemed acceptable upstream. A five-second task has ballooned into a two-hour ordeal. And even then, the journey isn’t over. You must now tag two additional developers for code review, patiently awaiting their feedback, which, more often than not, necessitates further revisions and another cycle through this arduous process. What began as a spark of creativity has been extinguished beneath a mountain of bureaucratic overhead.
Living with a hoarder inevitably leads to a breaking point. Eventually, you pack your bags and leave. The same is true in software development. Burned out and disillusioned, developers abandon their projects, their companies, and sometimes, even the profession itself. The tragedy is that even if you escape one hoarding situation, you’re likely to encounter another. The software development world is awash in hoarders. Every new job, every new project, presents the same suffocating accumulation of tools, processes, and meetings.
This relentless cycle of accumulation and burnout has a devastating consequence: the premature exodus of talented developers. The average software developer today lasts a mere five to seven years before seeking refuge in management, DevOps, or other roles — anything to escape the oppressive weight of the hoard. Why? Because after years of navigating this labyrinth of complexity, they’ve simply had enough. The joy of creation has been replaced by the drudgery of maintenance, the thrill of innovation smothered by the weight of process.
This isn’t just a theoretical observation. In my 4 years of experience working indirectly in software development and with software developers, I’ve witnessed this pattern firsthand. I’ve seen countless talented developers succumb to the crushing weight of the cargo cult, trading their keyboards for whiteboards, their passions for processes.
The current state of software development is reminiscent of materialists—individuals burdened by an overwhelming collection of belongings, unable to let go of anything. It’s a sad analogy, but it highlights the debilitating effect of clinging to unnecessary baggage. We’ve become digital materialists, weighed down by our ever-growing collection of tools, processes, and dependencies.
The root of this problem lies in our misguided belief that more is better. We’ve conflated complexity with sophistication, process with progress. We’ve built elaborate systems and intricate workflows, not because they genuinely improve our work, but because we’ve become addicted to the illusion of control. We’ve created a cargo cult of software development, blindly adhering to rituals and practices without understanding their true purpose or value.
So, what can we do? How do we break free from this cycle of hoarding and burnout? The answer is simple, yet profound: we must declutter. We must ruthlessly examine our processes, our tools, and our meetings, asking ourselves one crucial question: does this add value, or does it simply add weight? We must learn to say no to the latest shiny tool, the newest trendy methodology, the next unnecessary meeting. We must embrace KISS (Keep It Stupid, Simple), and focus on the core principles of software development: writing clean, efficient, and maintainable code.
This isn’t about abandoning best practices or rejecting valuable tools. It’s about being intentional, about choosing quality over quantity, about prioritising effectiveness over complexity. It’s about creating a work environment where developers can thrive, where they can rediscover the joy of creation, and where they can build a sustainable and fulfilling career.
The call to action is clear
Audit your processes: Identify and eliminate unnecessary steps, meetings, and approvals. Streamline your workflows and focus on delivering value efficiently.
Curate your tools: Choose tools that genuinely enhance your productivity, not just the latest trendy technologies. Avoid tool proliferation and focus on mastering a core set of essential tools.
Embrace minimalism: Prioritise simplicity in your code, your architecture, and your processes. Avoid unnecessary complexity and focus on building elegant and maintainable solutions.
Focus on the core: Remember why you became a software developer in the first place: to build amazing things. Don’t let the cargo cult distract you from this core purpose.
Challenge the status quo: Don’t blindly accept existing processes and practices. Question their value and advocate for simpler, more effective approaches.
Given the constraints of the context of modern software development, do what can you do. But, the future of software development depends on our ability to break free from the grip of the hoard. We must choose a path of conscious minimalism, a path that prioritises clarity, efficiency, and joy. We must reclaim our passion, rediscover the thrill of creation, and build a future where software development is a sustainable and fulfilling profession. The time to declutter is now.