51–60 of 408 posts
My takeaway is that companies need to start focusing on matching jobs to skill level instead of always competing for the best
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a Houston developer, that chart of motivating factors describes exactly what I'm looking for. I won't work on an ancient Java codebase that has no tests or no deployment pipeline, because doing that is death. Gotta keep moving forward or find yourself sliding backwards. I would say your analysis is spot on and I could have written the same article myself. Companies should realize doing things that seem "fluffy" an…
> Companies should realize doing things that seem "fluffy" and not entirely necessary, like moving to a newer tech stack, might be worth it as it will make it easier to attract new talent. Why are we as professionals (myself included, I'm not immune) so obsessed with shiny new things? Updating a product's tech stack just to attract new talent and not because the product needs it is objectively strange. Imagine if roa…
I wonder how many people in the survey interpret "opportunities for professional growth" as "opportunities to get rich". To me that makes the survey data more understandable. People, myself included, basically want more money for less hours (AKA work/life balance).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Companies should realize doing things that seem "fluffy" and not entirely necessary, like moving to a newer tech stack, might be worth it as it will make it easier to attract new talent. Why are we as professionals (myself included, I'm not immune) so obsessed with shiny new things? Updating a product's tech stack just to attract new talent and not because the product needs it is objectively strange. Imagine if roa…
Road-laying technology doesn't develop at the pace that computer technology does. We went from room-sized mainframes to powerful pocket computers in 40 years. Working on "new things" is objectively more interesting and pays better - modulo the COBOL devs making $500/hr now.
Don’t treat developers like bricklayers. Sack any product manager or manager that does it. This is the root of all evil, radical as it may sound. There needs to be a balance between engineering and product delivery, but too much emphasis on product delivery leads to tech debt, cutting too many corners and poor tech choices. Not to mention stress and little to no job satisfaction. Give devs some time to build somethin…
I get that getting good developers and facilitating good code requires incentives, but this is usually at odds with the perspective of business owners, which is that employees are both a liability and an asset. Lousy developers are (seemingly) low-liability and good assets because they can make it work for cheap and, if something goes wrong in the future because of all the spaghetti code, that's when you can hire the good developers to come clean up the mess.
I wonder how many people in the survey interpret "opportunities for professional growth" as "opportunities to get rich". To me that makes the survey data more understandable. People, myself included, basically want more money for less hours (AKA work/life balance).
Maybe upbringing / background plays a significant factor here? I watched both of my parents very unceremoniously lose their job-for-life jobs and nearly everything along with it.
My primary motivation, then, to stay abreast of the industry, to pursue new skills/technologies/challenges, things that I would put under the label of "opportunities for professional growth," has (not entirely, but for the most part) little to do with the amount that I'm paid (considering that I perceive myself to be paid well) and everything to do with maintaining a recurring paycheck until I'm retirement age.
I wonder how many people in the survey interpret "opportunities for professional growth" as "opportunities to get rich". To me that makes the survey data more understandable. People, myself included, basically want more money for less hours (AKA work/life balance).
There is some cognitive dissonance that I can't seem to get over while reading your comment. While your statement is technically true, I just don't see it being true in the real world. Any time I have gotten a job that has paid better, it also came with more challenges and more difficulty and invariably more of a time investment(even if that means studying outside of work). Maybe I am just taking the wrong jobs...
The thing that's interesting though, is on the consulting side, as my rates and overall project cost have increased, the time investment to close a sale has also gone up. Meanwhile, if you go for a more expensive & specialized skillset, there's also a time investment on the marketing & outreach front.
Basically, in my experience, there's a small handful of people who've managed to carve out a niche where they can work low hours and make a high hourly rate, but they're few and far between, and investing in passive income streams is really the way to go.
That said, I _really hate_ managing rental properties instead of slinging code, but in terms of dollar per hour there's no comparison.
Don’t treat developers like bricklayers. Sack any product manager or manager that does it. This is the root of all evil, radical as it may sound. There needs to be a balance between engineering and product delivery, but too much emphasis on product delivery leads to tech debt, cutting too many corners and poor tech choices. Not to mention stress and little to no job satisfaction. Give devs some time to build somethin…
But that's exactly the kind of employee that most businesses want: interchangeable bricklayers . I get that getting good developers and facilitating good code requires incentives, but this is usually at odds with the perspective of business owners, which is that employees are both a liability and an asset. Lousy developers are (seemingly) low-liability and good assets because they can make it work for cheap and, if s…
Don’t treat developers like bricklayers. Sack any product manager or manager that does it. This is the root of all evil, radical as it may sound. There needs to be a balance between engineering and product delivery, but too much emphasis on product delivery leads to tech debt, cutting too many corners and poor tech choices. Not to mention stress and little to no job satisfaction. Give devs some time to build somethin…
in my experience many developers want to be bricklayers (not to discount bricklaying, there's an art to it, but they're focused on the individual bricks, not the other aspects of the building). They get annoyed when they're asked to think about the bigger picture and just want to focus on the code, the architecture, and whatever is new and shiny. It is largely due to these sorts of developers that we've developed all…