Why More Developers Won’t Save Your Project

Adding more developers to a struggling project doesn’t always help—it often makes things worse. Here’s why software development follows conservation laws just like physics.

Hey System Thinker,

Ever noticed how throwing more developers at a struggling project often makes it collapse faster?

There’s a hidden law at play—just like conservation of energy in physics, development effort can’t be created or destroyed, only transformed into different states.

Here’s what we’ll explore:

1. The conservation of technical energy

2. Energy traps in development

3. Strategic energy transfers

Let’s dive in.

Conservation in Action

Technical energy exists in different forms throughout your development cycle.

• Every hour of developer effort

• Every planning meeting

• Every code review, deployment, and refactor

All of it represents energy moving through the system.

But here’s the catch: when you try to inject more energy—whether through hiring or overtime—the system doesn’t just absorb it productively. Instead, it increases friction and waste.

The energy doesn’t disappear, but it also doesn’t increase total productive output—it just transforms, often into overhead, misalignment, or burnout.

Like a law of thermodynamics, your total productive capacity remains eerily constant unless the system itself is optimized.

Energy Traps: Where Effort Gets Wasted

Development systems create local energy minima—places where effort gets trapped in unproductive cycles.

When teams fall into these traps, they burn massive amounts of energy on tasks that feel productive but don’t actually move the system forward:

• Endless refactoring that never stabilizes the codebase

• Repeated bug fixes that patch symptoms instead of fixing root causes

• Continuous re-planning instead of making decisions and moving forward

The harder teams work inside these traps, the deeper they dig themselves in. The system enters a self-reinforcing spiral—more energy is spent, but little progress is made.

Breaking Free: Redirecting Energy Instead of Adding More

To escape the death spiral, you need to redirect energy flows, not just pump in more effort.

Here’s how:

• Create clean interfaces – Reduce friction between teams and components to minimize wasted effort.

• Implement automation – Turn repetitive manual work into one-time investments that permanently reduce effort drain.

• Design feedback loops – Ensure that energy is channeled back into productive paths instead of being lost in rework.

The key isn’t working harder—it’s ensuring that energy flows efficiently through the system rather than getting trapped in wasteful loops.

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Conclusion

Product development follows conservation laws that limit how much productive energy can exist at once.

Understanding these laws helps us break free from death spirals by focusing on energy flow instead of energy input.

So ask yourself: What energy traps exist in your development process?

And more importantly—how could you redirect that energy instead of trying to add more?

Cheers,

Thiago V Ricieri

• System Thinker @ Systematic Success

• Engineering Manager,  Apps @ Pluto TV / Paramount Global

• Founder @ Ghost Ship & Co.

• Digital Nomad @ Threads, X.com, Instagram, LinkedIn, GitHub, Website

PS… If you found this interesting, check out my deep dive into leadership oscillations—why great engineering leaders shift between optimism and realism to create a sustainable rhythm. Read it here.