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Why some of the best developers keep quitting

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Re: Why some of the best developers keep quitting

#161

Post by CM30 »

bberrry wrote: post #2

I definitely try to take the mantra "never be the smartest person in the room" to heart. It has been a fairly decent indicator of how enjoyable I've found working those particular roles.

I don't think it's always good to be the smartest in the room. Instead, I'd say you want a job where you're the smartest and a job where you're the dumbest at different points in your career.

That's because while being the dumbest lets you learn from people, it can also breed complacency. You've always got someone better to pass the buck to. You can easily end up relying on better coders to do the hard jobs, and not learn new stuff as a result.

Being the smartest means the buck stops with you. You need to learn anything you don't understand, or the site never gets done at all. It can be a big learning experience in its own way.

So my recommendation would be to have at least one job where you're the dumbest and least one where you're the smartest. They're two different situations experts need to be able to cope with.

Re: Why some of the best developers keep quitting

#162

Post by jhayward »

oddlyaromatic wrote: post #94
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's best to look at your directs as someone to help them advance for their next job. I'm happy to say this is my manager's position. I joined this team nearly 2 years ago mainly on the strength of a great discussion with him during the interview process, and our team is clearly excellent thanks to him, with significant investment in growth, responsibility and empowerment (I know they're buzzwords but ick, I don't…

I feel this way about my boss, I have stayed a long time after it does not make financial sense because she A) takes my ideas seriously even if she doesn't see the end game. Just says go for it and see what happens. B) comes up with trainings and stuff that match my role that she can send me on. C) holds me to a high standard without being a jerk about it. I will be bummed to leave and stop learning from this person'…

So... Why not find your boss her next job, and follow her there? Not suggesting something Machiavellian or that you have direct ability to do so, but if you think she's awesome you should be interested in her advancement. Put her name out there a little in places you respect. You never know what will happen.

Re: Why some of the best developers keep quitting

#163

Post by oddlyaromatic »

jhayward wrote: post #162
oddlyaromatic wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel this way about my boss, I have stayed a long time after it does not make financial sense because she A) takes my ideas seriously even if she doesn't see the end game. Just says go for it and see what happens. B) comes up with trainings and stuff that match my role that she can send me on. C) holds me to a high standard without being a jerk about it. I will be bummed to leave and stop learning from this person'…

So... Why not find your boss her next job, and follow her there? Not suggesting something Machiavellian or that you have direct ability to do so, but if you think she's awesome you should be interested in her advancement. Put her name out there a little in places you respect. You never know what will happen.

This is a great idea. Although, if I was staying in the nonprofit social work sector I would probably not even leave this company (I consider it to be a really high quality provider in its area). Unfortunately, like a lot of people, I'm being pulled towards web development. Partly by the large income difference, but more because I find I feel really at home in that world and I am hooked by the work. I'm getting to grow my programming skills at this company by solving little problems and writing useful tools. Similarly at my other job, I'm taking over the website. However, eventually, it would be nice to have only one job, and for it to be full time development. I'd bring my boss if I could!

Re: Why some of the best developers keep quitting

#165

Post by fweespeech »

morgante wrote: post #123
fweespeech wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest (at least in my experience) if you are really worth $X as a developer, you can generally get your current employer to give you $X if you are proactive about it. Quitting generally has more to do with: A) "You (the employer) Waited Until The Exit Interview To Ask What’s Wrong" B) "You (the employee) Waited Until The Exit Interview To Convey What's Wrong" Leaving my last job, I told them what I wanted 1-2…

Some companies have a hard limit on developer salaries. Many will never pay a developer over $200k, even if the developer is that good. This can come from two reasons: 1. The company doesn't have sufficiently valuable projects to capture the developer's potential. There are a lot of companies which simply don't need very senior developers and hence cannot match the price for a senior developer on the open market. 2.…

There is no real reason to pay developers (or anyone really) over $200k to be perfectly honest. At $200k/year, if you are valuing money over intangibles you are making terrible life choices imho.

Work less, get out and do fun things more.

Re: Why some of the best developers keep quitting

#166

Post by fweespeech »

preid24 wrote: post #155
fweespeech wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expecting countries to match salaries an ocean apart is...unwise. Countries have very different economic situations.

London is its own bubble. The part of the UK I'm in, £35k is the going rate for a senior software developer.

I'm really sorry. :\ That is absurd.

You should be able to find remote work that pays £50k+ relatively easily. Although the whole Brexit thing may make that harder. :\

To me, £70k was more a geographic / economic area issue. Under $50k/£50k you just have to get out.

Re: Why some of the best developers keep quitting

#167

Post by mercutio2 »

tensor wrote: post #118
thehardsphere wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your theory is not based upon sound economics. If everyone was colluding in the way you describe to pay themselves more, then a situation would emerge where companies that didn't comply with this conspiracy would be significantly more profitable than those that did. Note that, although managers may wish to throw money around because it's not theirs, shareholders view every penny spent on salaries as an expense that e…

Apparently Apple pays less than average for silicon valley: http://bgr.com/2016/01/04/steve-jobs-answer-apple-engineer-s...

Did you read that story to the end? There’s a bunch of editorializing not backed up by the actual details.

Who do you think knew more about compensation at Apple, Steve Jobs, or the random employee? Or perhaps your argument is Steve Jobs was just lying?

Re: Why some of the best developers keep quitting

#168

Post by mercutio2 »

ethbro wrote: post #34
vvanders wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enthusiastic(and authentic) recognition. Everyone knows those tasks suck but you can still use it as an opportunity to re-enforce how critical they can be and give a big kudos for whoever rolled up their sleeves and dived in. Another nice upside of this approach is it helps re-enforce a culture of doing the right thing because we ship and don't just write code.

I think group recognition works excellently. Especially in terms of ensuring folks who didn't choose the ugly tasks recognize that they won't have to do them now thanks to John / Jane.

Many people, especially developers, specifically hate group recognition. People who like group recognition are the easiest to support (if they’re actually good), but sadly, these folks are the least likely to actually enjoy maintenance work; enjoying group approval correlates with a desire to work on the Big Cool Sexy New, which maintenance work decidedly is not.

You have to know your people, and give them support that motivates them. But that takes (gasp!) good managers.

Re: Why some of the best developers keep quitting

#169

Post by ethbro »

mercutio2 wrote: post #168
ethbro wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think group recognition works excellently. Especially in terms of ensuring folks who didn't choose the ugly tasks recognize that they won't have to do them now thanks to John / Jane.

Many people, especially developers, specifically hate group recognition. People who like group recognition are the easiest to support (if they’re actually good), but sadly, these folks are the least likely to actually enjoy maintenance work; enjoying group approval correlates with a desire to work on the Big Cool Sexy New, which maintenance work decidedly is not. You have to know your people, and give them support th…

I'm curious, how do you get from people who enjoy group recognition are the least likely to enjoy maintenance work?

My gut is that it goes the other way around. People who desire to work on the Big Cool Sexy New are often less motivated by peers, and more by personal drive, as by definition most of their peers won't know what the hell BCSN even is. Unless the person in question is working in a 100% BCSN shop, in which case there's likely to be fewer maintenance tasks in the first place as the codebase will be fresher.

Re: Why some of the best developers keep quitting

#170

Post by manyxcxi »

kamaal wrote: post #119
manyxcxi wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most decent companies have two pools of money. One for raises, and one for retention. The key here is, the manager has to really fight for it. If they believe enough in the employee to battle for the retention dollars, I've typically seen it go well. Here's the key, a lot of managers are too afraid, confrontation averse, or short sighted to make a fight for their employee.

I had a manager who used to tell, he was surprised how timid people at managerial levels act when it comes to fighting for their people. There are cases where there isn't even a competition for funds. All you need to do is ask for a raise and it passes through without any problems, managers just don't do it because they are too afraid of even making that very request.

I remember the first time I went to my CTO to get a retention raise and, frankly, how easy it was. I think you're right in that there's a decent amount of money left on the table because the managers don't reach for it when they can.

That being said, I've always been able to get _SOME_ money for retention, but I've not always been able to get enough. If they go interview somewhere else and their current salary is $120K, it's entirely conceivable they could be getting an offer of $160 with a bonus structure that's better.

I've even encouraged employees to leave before when it sounded like they were going to get put into a position for growth that we couldn't offer. If they're already feeling stifled or short changed enough to go looking, any move you do to keep them now is just delaying the inevitable. If I let someone leave with a clear conscience, that's someone who could come back to the company even better than they left (it's happened a surprising amount of times in my career). It's also someone who can help me and/or my company in the future, whenever our paths may cross again.

I have followed managers to companies and I've had employees follow me to companies. If you just adhere to the damn golden rule things are a lot easier for everyone involved.

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