CODING THE BALANCE: IMPACT OF REMOTE WORKING ON BACKEND ENGINEERS' WORK-LIFE BALANCE IN ASTANA

Abstract

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the entire world has embraced the new trend of remote working, which has quickly become one of the defining characteristics of post-pandemic life. The first to be impacted by this trend has been the IT community. Understanding this, it is imperative to examine whether this shift impacts the root of the IT world, the backend engineers, more specifically, their work-life balance. Backend developers’ work involves solving server-side issues and fixing bugs that can occur at any time, which sometimes forces them to work outside of working hours. This work-from-home schedule can have a significant impact on a person’s ability to maintain a work-life balance, making them a good fit for this study. By focusing on how backend engineers manage their work-life balance while working remotely when geographical boundaries no longer exist and work requires immediate solutions at unexpected times, this culminating project attempts to understand what consequences they face. The research covers the positive and negative experience when working online, by conducting semi structured interviews with 4 female and 4 male backend engineers from Astana who are working remotely. This study employs two theories Work-Life Balance Theory and Doing Gender Theory to determine how remote work changes the work-life balance of the backend engineers and what factors influence their experience. The purpose of the study is to offer helpful suggestions for the debate on the application of remote work in the IT community of Kazakhstan.