Software developers are reclaiming over 10 hours per week thanks to AI, yet they remain overburdened due to organizational inefficiencies, leading to a time loss equal to their savings. According to Atlassian, this creates an unforeseen conundrum.
In a recent report, Atlassian, a leading software company, has highlighted the benefits of AI in supporting developers but also underscored the need for addressing persistent challenges in cross-departmental processes. The report, titled '2025 State of DevEx', delves into the key hurdles that software developers face in improving productivity beyond AI tool adoption.
According to the report, a majority of a developer's working week (84%) is spent on less enjoyable tasks, not just coding. This finding comes as developers are seeking the ability to "build and maintain self-serve resources" that they can draw upon with ease, which could reduce manual toil and help streamline processes.
The report reveals that while AI tools have led to significant time savings for developers, with many saving an average of at least 10 hours per week, these gains are often offset by organizational, collaboration, communication, and workflow-related inefficiencies.
One of the main challenges identified is the difficulty in finding timely and relevant information such as documentation, services, and APIs. This issue leads to significant time lost during development. Poor collaboration and communication, both within developer teams and with other teams, has also become a bigger bottleneck than technical debt, increasing friction and delays.
Lack of clear direction and understanding from leadership and managers is another hurdle. The report shows that 63% of developers report that managers don’t understand their challenges, creating an empathy gap and unrealistic expectations despite AI-driven time savings. Organizational inefficiencies, including fragmented workflows, tool switching, adapting to new technology, and poor alignment, cause developers to lose as much time to these as they save by using AI.
Stand-up meeting dysfunction, where meetings degrade into unproductive status updates rather than collaborative problem-solving, particularly exacerbated by remote/hybrid work challenges like time zone issues and video fatigue, is another issue highlighted in the report.
The report also points out a disconnect between AI tools and actual developer needs, as most AI caters mostly to coding (about 16% of developers’ time), while the majority (84%) of their work involves non-coding, tedious tasks unaddressed by AI.
Improving documentation and information sourcing is identified as a leading pain point and a good starting point to address hurdles in the developer experience. Atlassian emphasises the need for teams to communicate challenges to each other to improve the developer experience.
For a company with 500 developers, the wasted time due to inefficient knowledge retrieval equates to a loss of $7.9 million (£5.8m) annually. The disconnect between management and developers has grown, with 63% of developers feeling that leaders at their organization don't understand key pain points faced by teams in their daily activities, a 19% increase compared to last year's survey.
The report calls for a closer look at how AI is reshaping the developer experience and what that means for the future of software development across the industry. Despite the increased use of AI, overall productivity isn't keeping pace, with 50% of developers still losing over 10 hours a week. The report concludes that improving developer productivity requires more than just AI adoption; it demands better leadership empathy and support, improved cross-team collaboration, streamlined workflows, and solutions targeting non-coding tasks and organizational friction points.
- To enhance productivity beyond AI tool adoption, developers are pushing for the ability to build and maintain self-serve resources, as these could reduce manual labor and streamline processes.
- Despite significant time savings with AI tools, organizational inefficiencies, poor collaboration, and communication, and workflow-related issues often offset the gains made by developers.
- One of the main challenges identified in the report is the difficulty in finding timely and relevant information, leading to significant time lost during development, and poor collaboration and communication with other teams has become a bigger bottleneck than technical debt.
- Lack of clear direction and understanding from leadership and managers, leading to an empathy gap and unrealistic expectations, is another hurdle that developers face.
- The report concludes that improving developer productivity requires more than just AI adoption; it demands better leadership empathy and support, improved cross-team collaboration, streamlined workflows, and solutions targeting non-coding tasks and organizational friction points. Additionally, education and self-development in areas like cybersecurity, workplace-wellness, health-and-wellness, technology, and artificial intelligence could contribute to personal growth and productivity.
