Offices for Developer Teams: What IT Teams Need from Their Workspace
Alessandro Nicotra
Working Worlds
In short
— Interruptions cost developers a lot of time. It often takes minutes to get back into the code.
— Teams need both: quiet places for focused work and a shared space for pairing, planning, and quick coordination.
— Video calls are part of everyday life today. This requires dedicated rooms instead of headphones in an open-plan office.
Software is created in long, undisturbed phases and in close collaboration within the team. Both need space, and both interfere with each other if they have to happen in the same place. A good office for developer teams does not separate people from one another, but rather their ways of working.
Good spaces don't separate people, they separate ways of working.
Why do developer teams need a different office?
Because programming requires deep concentration, and because it is easily broken. A study by UC Irvine observed knowledge workers, including developers: More than half of their work phases were interrupted, and it took an average of over 25 minutes to return to the original task. Researchers at Georgia Tech analyzed around 10,000 programming sessions: Only in one out of ten did editing resume within a minute after returning.
Everyday life doesn't make it any easier. According to the Microsoft Work Trend Index 2025, employees are interrupted on average every two minutes by a message, an email, or a meeting. A space that protects concentration is all the more important.
Is an open-plan office suitable for developers?
An open space alone is not, but a well-structured area is. A study on office noise shows: With higher noise levels, participants remembered less and were more tired. A survey of over 42,000 office workers found high dissatisfaction with acoustic privacy in open-plan offices, which was not outweighed by better interaction (BPS Research Digest).
At the same time, teams work best close to each other. In a study by the University of Michigan, developer teams in a shared project room were twice as productive as the comparison group, with small breakout booths right next door. And those who sit close to their own team receive more feedback on their code, according to the NBER.
HIAG Bahnhofplatz, Zurich
What spaces does a developer team need?
Focus spaces. Quiet workstations away from main traffic routes, with good acoustics, dual monitors, and natural daylight. This is where work that requires full concentration happens.
A team room. A shared space for pairing, planning, and quick questions, equipped with whiteboards and large screens. According to Cockburn and Williams, pair programming takes slightly more time, but results in fewer errors, better design, and improved team communication.
Rooms for calls. Distributed teams frequently meet digitally. Focus pods and small meeting rooms with good acoustics and facial lighting make calls more relaxed. Researchers at Microsoft showed that taking short breaks between video calls noticeably reduces stress.
A place to disconnect. After phases of intense concentration, there is a need for movement and social interaction. The kitchen or a lounge provides the ideal counterbalance.
How do you find the right balance?
By measuring how the team actually works. In the Workplace Intelligence survey, employees record their typical week: focused work, on calls, in meetings, or in collaborative work. For developer teams, the proportion of focused work is often high. This reveals how many focus spaces, team rooms, and call booths are needed, and which team is compatible with which neighbor. Find out more in the article Proximity you can plan.
What does this bring to the company?
More development time per day, without additional headcount. In the Microsoft Work Trend Index 2023, 68 percent of respondents stated that they had too little uninterrupted time for their actual work. Every interruption that a room prevents gives developers back minutes that would otherwise be lost to refocusing. For a team of dozens of people, this adds up over a year to an output that would otherwise have to be bought in.
In addition, there is quality: teams that sit close together and have shared spaces for pairing provide more feedback to each other and catch bugs earlier, when they are still inexpensive to fix.
Northeastern Switzerland Office
Frequently Asked Questions
Do developers need private offices?
Not necessarily. Quiet zones away from walkways, retreat spaces for calls, and a clear separation between loud and quiet areas are more important.
Does desk sharing work in developer teams?
Yes, if each team has a designated area and the workstations are well equipped. Developers rely on their monitors, so every desk should be equally good.
How many call rooms does an office need?
That depends on how distributed the team is. A survey reveals how much time is spent on calls and on which days.
What is a team room?
A shared space for a team or a project, with room for pairing, planning, and visualization. It doesn't replace focus workspaces, but complements them.
How important is lighting for screen work?
Very. Glare-free light, daylight from the side, and light on the walls make long days at the screen more comfortable. Read more in the article Lighting design in the office.
Sources
No Task Left Behind?, Mark, Gonzalez, and Harris, UC Irvine, CHI 2005
Resumption Strategies for Interrupted Programming Tasks, Parnin and Rugaber, Georgia Tech, 2011
Work Trend Index 2025, Microsoft Switzerland, 2025
Open-plan office noise: Cognitive performance and restoration, Jahncke et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2011
Supposed benefits of open-plan offices do not outweigh the costs, BPS Research Digest on Kim and de Dear, 2013
Working together in war rooms doubles teams' productivity, University of Michigan, 2000
The Power of Proximity to Coworkers, Emanuel, Harrington, and Pallais, NBER, 2023
The Costs and Benefits of Pair Programming, Cockburn and Williams, 2000
Research Proves Your Brain Needs Breaks, Microsoft Human Factors Lab, 2021
Work Trend Index 2023, Microsoft via World Economic Forum, 2023
You can tell a good office for development teams by the fact that no one needs headphones to be able to work.
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