Engineering Culture by InfoQ

Productivity Through Play: Why Messing Around Makes Better Software Engineers

16 snips
Jun 20, 2025
Guest
Holly Cummins
Holly Cummins, an engineer on the Quarkus team at Red Hat, shares her insights on enhancing productivity through unconventional methods. She discusses how "messing around" and integrating playful downtime can significantly boost problem-solving abilities in software engineering. Holly emphasizes the importance of managing cognitive load as engineers shift from coding to more complex roles involving AI tools. By fostering curiosity and creativity, she advocates for a balanced approach that nurtures long-term performance and combats burnout in the tech industry.
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ADVICE

Justify Downtime to Business

  • Communicate productivity benefits of downtime using business language, like financial impact.
  • Use psychological and mathematical evidence to support the value of mental breaks to management.
INSIGHT

Overwork Harms Productivity

  • Overworking reduces productivity similarly to working drunk.
  • Exhausted employees produce lower quality work and more errors, a counterproductive strategy.
INSIGHT

Efficiency Means Doing Less

  • True efficiency means doing less while achieving the same results, not just doing more.
  • Mechanical systems purposely detune engines below max efficiency to extend lifespan, a useful analogy for human work.
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