The IT job market is going global, no doubt about it. Working remote for foreign companies or using an occupation overseas as a springboard for relocating is becoming common career trajectories among tech people, and that’s pretty great. However, while we’re rejoicing about the new opportunities, let’s not forget about the growing pains that go hand in hand. One of the most glaring issues international teams run into is that wildly different backgrounds give people wildly different expectations about what employment process, teamwork and professional relationships should look like.

These issues often come up right from the start of job seeking process. When employer and candidate have a cultural divide between them, the communication becomes hindered. And given that initial communication happens in the rigid, standardized form of e-mailed CVs, this can seriously impact the outcome.

In this post I’d like to talk about our background music choices for writing code. The developer soundtrack, if you will. To narrow it down, I’m going to discuss one specific genre, ambient music.

Homo laborans and music

Today the effect music has on all living creatures, humans included, is a fairly well-researched topic. It’s been common knowledge for a while that classic music helps people to calm down and relieves stress, while high-energy tunes of various genres can make your workout results way more impressive.

Plenty of scientific papers have been published that explore this phenomenon, especially by medical researchers and psychologists (use of music as a part of treatment plan, the way different organs respond to it, etc.). Naturally, many of those you gotta take with a grain of salt as there’s always the risk of crossing the line into pseudoscience, but there’s no shortage of reliable sources that confirm that link.

You don’t need to go further than Habr to find plenty of insightful articles that talk about the influence music has on a working environment and attention span of the workers. But this particular one has a slightly different intent.