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Why some of the best developers keep quitting

fastcompany.com

111–120 of 172 posts

Re: Why some of the best developers keep quitting

#111

> You Waited Until The Exit Interview To Ask What’s Wrong For sure that's what's happened with me. We are a small company of ~10 people. We're meant to have a review with the CEO every 3 months, it's been over 6 months since I've had one, despite my constant reminders to the CEO, he keeps fobbing me off. He's also managed to dodge giving my a payrise, despite having worked in total for 15 months, and still having the…

Sounds like its time to switch companies. If you are being dodged by the CEO like this you are unlikely to be a benefactor of goodwill in the future

Already on that, I'm handing in my notice in 3 weeks.

Re: Why some of the best developers keep quitting

#112
I quit mine 120k job because Im not dealing with any disrespect and or unfairness! For 3 months I tried to work out a situation with a co-worker but it was a constant fight with this jerk. Tried to get managements help, but no help or concern was provided.

There's too much opportunity to deal with any B.S. no matter the money you are paying me...ok id deal with some if it paid $250k and the govt took zero.

Re: Why some of the best developers keep quitting

#113
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most companies don't want to pay for retention. But many companies, the companies with that 20% greener grass, are willing to give a complete stranger a 20% raise. "The irony ... the irony ..."

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.

ime, that's driven from the ceo/whoever actually runs eng down. Some places appreciate keeping the engineers who built a system around; other places prefer to pay more to hire new people and then have them spend 6 months getting up to speed. Those costs are invisible in the budget though; they just manifest as slower output.

Re: Why some of the best developers keep quitting

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you handle boring unglamorous but important tasks?

Bonuses. Whoever works on this pile get's an extra $5000 at the end of every quarter. You only have to work on this pile for 6 months unless you volunteer for more. Companies tend to try everything except the obvious: more money.

Stuck on patching up legacy software right now, project has been dragging for four months already and the next years worth of projects in the pipeline are all just as shitty. Definitely enough to make me bored, definitely enough to make me buff up my resume in case any offers come along... even $5000 would go a long way in making me feel like what I'm doing isn't such an endless slog.

Re: Why some of the best developers keep quitting

#115
post #7

None of these 4 reasons (TD;LR: you waited until the exit interview, you assume mentors want to manage, you assume the natural ascension of developers is management and not higher-level IC roles, you aren't supporting them and their career) are why they quit. People quit because the modern, zero-loyalty, everyone-for-hire company does not provide a long term strategy for providing intrinsic motivation (autonomy, mast…

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Re: Why some of the best developers keep quitting

#116
post #7

None of these 4 reasons (TD;LR: you waited until the exit interview, you assume mentors want to manage, you assume the natural ascension of developers is management and not higher-level IC roles, you aren't supporting them and their career) are why they quit. People quit because the modern, zero-loyalty, everyone-for-hire company does not provide a long term strategy for providing intrinsic motivation (autonomy, mast…

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Re: Why some of the best developers keep quitting

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Less than a year if you are at the beginning of your career in one of the tech hub.

I'd consider a string of < 1 year positions a red flag when hiring. I think there's an element of courtesy and maturity in staying 2 years unless there are reasonable circumstances why it's not possible. As a hiring manager I want to make sure that my time and effort recruiting are not wasted. Same for training and development of subject matter expertise. Obviously I need to reciprocate in compensation/learning oppor…

We automatically exclude anyone who has a string of positions they've kept for only a year or less. If someone can't show that they stay at least two years then it's not worth it to us to bother bringing them up to speed on our code base.

As you say, there can be exceptions, but it's generally a big red flag and a sign that someone is overpaid and arrogant to boot.

Re: Why some of the best developers keep quitting

#118
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a theory that most people in the US are overpaid. However the overpayment is a strategy by management so that they themselves can be even more overpaid. This can be afforded because the overpaid people are locked into middle class life scripts driving up cost of living (houses) so that they are still reliant on the jobs. It's potential "fuck u" money but isn't because of the attractive force of a domain and re…

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...

Re: Why some of the best developers keep quitting

#119
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most companies don't want to pay for retention. But many companies, the companies with that 20% greener grass, are willing to give a complete stranger a 20% raise. "The irony ... the irony ..."

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.

Re: Why some of the best developers keep quitting

#120
post #7

None of these 4 reasons (TD;LR: you waited until the exit interview, you assume mentors want to manage, you assume the natural ascension of developers is management and not higher-level IC roles, you aren't supporting them and their career) are why they quit. People quit because the modern, zero-loyalty, everyone-for-hire company does not provide a long term strategy for providing intrinsic motivation (autonomy, mast…

People quit because the modern, zero-loyalty, everyone-for-hire company does not provide a long term strategy for providing intrinsic motivation (autonomy, mastery, purpose) Rands refers to this as your "shields down" moment. http://randsinrepose.com/archives/shields-down/

Any reviews about their leadership slack? Am always looking for good communities to join, but the signal to noise ratio is very very high in most.
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