Code, burnout and depression: an engineering perspective of mental health in IT

In comparison to other professions, software engineering doesn't really have that many immediate risks to health. The first idea that comes into mind when talking about developer health are ergonomic chairs and appropriate editor font sizes (as well as monospaced fonts flavours), yet by far the highest health-related risks of the software engineering profession are burnout, anxiety and depression. Many of us know of or directly know at least one developer who had to battle with these mental health issues.

This talk is a real-world account of going through burnout and major depression and walking the way back from it. It is intended for anyone who cares to know more about these mental health issues and about the latest research in the field, interleaved with some advice that might have helped me had I known about it earlier. If you have the inkling that you're headed towards burnout, this talk will likely not help you avoid it, but you might just learn one or two things about which pitfalls to avoid during the ride.

Disclaimer: even though the contents of this talk are highly subjective, they are sprinkled with a healthy dose of references to mental health research.