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I am not sure if this is exclusive to software industry but at every job I had this was the case. Management needs some features done/bugs fixed and when deciding who's going to be the person for the job, others constantly underevaluate effort required.

"This is trivial. 2 hours max." "This one is easy, won't take much time." "This shouldn't be a problem at all."

Needless to say, it usually is a problem as features are often ill defined, bugs often lead to debugging hell or a need to setup a complex integration environment or mock.

Why is this happening? Why do software developers always seem to underevaluate their work? I think this has nothing to do with career advancement or brownnosing because usually a software developer has nowhere to advance.

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    If they have to do the job in the time they specified, what’s your problem? If you have to do the job in the time they specified then you need to pipe up at the start that their estimate is too low.
    – Solar Mike
    Commented Jul 11, 2020 at 13:11
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    Are you really asking why? You should really be asking us for a solution, not a 'why' question. 'Why' questions don't do well on this Stack Exchange.
    – Stephan Branczyk
    Commented Jul 11, 2020 at 16:18

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Because accurately estimating the time needed to solve a problem is usually at least as difficult as solving the problem itself.

Here’s a thought experiment for you: How long would it take you to solve a crossword?

You don’t know the solution, and honestly, you don’t know how long it will take you to find the solution. If you’ve done a bunch of crosswords before, you might have an idea, but some might have been done in an hour, some might have taken all day, some you might come back to after a few days when you have inspiration. And until you actually do it, you honestly have no idea.

Finding and fixing bugs is really not so different.

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Perhaps because nobody has ever pointed out to them that their estimates are always too low.

Many years ago, I had a manager who told me that he doubled every estimate I gave him. That prompted me to go back and work out where I was going wrong with my estimating.

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    From Star Trek III: Kirk: How much refit time till we can take [the Enterprise] out again? Scotty: Eight weeks, sir. (as Kirk opens his mouth) But you don't have eight weeks, so I'll do it for ya in two. Kirk: (considers) Mr. Scott. Have you always multiplied your repair estimates by a factor of four? Scotty: Certainly, sir. How else can I keep my reputation as a miracle worker?
    – TheVal
    Commented Jul 11, 2020 at 19:24

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