ADHD and Software Development: A Bug or a Feature?

Having ADHD has made me a better developer by guiding me to amazing practices.

ADHD is often seen as a challenge—especially in a field like software development, where focus, organization, and deep thinking are essential. But what if I told you that the same traits that make ADHD difficult can also make us exceptional developers when we learn to work with our brains, not against them?

This series is a companion to my talk “ Focus, Flow, and Cold Coffee”, and in it, I’ll share how ADHD has shaped my journey as a developer, and how practices like Test-Driven Development (TDD)  , Collaborative Programming, and Discovery Trees  have helped me turn my ADHD-related struggles into strengths.

ADHD: More Than Just “Can’t Focus”  

When people hear ADHD, they usually think of lack of focus, but that’s only part of the story.

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)  is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects how a person regulates attention, impulses, and activity levels. It’s not about having no attention, it’s about having inconsistent control over where attention goes.

ADHD is better understood as inconsistent focus:

• Sometimes, I struggle to focus at all. (Where did the last 30 minutes go? Oh, right: YouTube rabbit hole.)
• Other times, I get so deeply focused that I forget to eat, sleep, or drink my coffee while it’s hot.

My brain constantly jumps between ideas, which makes context switching a nightmare, but also makes me great at connecting seemingly unrelated concepts.

I can easily forget important details, but somehow remember obscure code snippets from years ago.

How ADHD Shows Up in Software Development  

For years, I thought I was just bad at being a developer. My brain didn’t seem to work like everyone else’s.
I’d get overwhelmed by large tasks. User stories felt impossible to start, and as a result, I would “shut down” and not start at all.

I’d struggle with prioritization. What I thought would be the most important think to work on often turn out to be of lesser importance to others, or not even a priority to get the job done. Everything felt equally urgent, or not urgent at all.

Context switching drained me. Jumping between bug fixes, feature work, and Slack messages left me mentally exhausted.

I’d hyper-focus on the wrong thing. Spending hours tweaking a UI detail, or refactoring a class, while forgetting an actual deadline or important meeting?

Sound familiar? If so, you’re not alone. But here’s the good news: once I understood why my brain worked this way, I started finding software development practices that actually helped.

Turning ADHD Into an Advantage  

The breakthrough for me was realizing that some of the best coding practices are also great ADHD coping strategies.

Test-Driven Development (TDD)  gave me structure and prevented endless debugging spirals.

Collaborative Programming helped me stay engaged and accountable.

Discovery Trees  helped me break big tasks into tiny, manageable steps.

In the coming posts, I’ll dive into how each of these practices helped me stop fighting my brain and start working with it, and how they might help you, too.

Stay tuned for the next post: “The ADHD Developer’s Struggles (and How They Show Up at Work).”