7 ms·

I am thrilled to hear this. If you can't hold on to your employees, pay them more, or give them working conditions like WFH or an easier commute, then you don't

I am thrilled to hear this. If you can't hold on to your employees, pay them more, or give them working conditions like WFH or an easier commute, then you don't deserve to have them! That said, I sort of hate this headline. These people aren't quitters. They're ambitious, and they want more.

ravenstine 8y ago
It seems like these days people have to "move around to move up", or companies have a problem creating opportunities for advancement that don't involve promoting people to middle management, if one can even call that a promotion. Of course that's only one part of the bigger picture.
- iamdave 8y ago
  Is there a word or a phrase whereby the Peter Principle takes such a hold in the structure of management that it no longer becomes possible to even promote? The 'Peters' get to a position and create an artificial ceiling where potentially more capable would-be managers don't get promoted because their manager is a bit too dim to realize there are people languishing underneath them?
  - flukus 8y ago
    I think this would be territory covered by the dead sea effect: http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-dead-sea-effect/ http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-d... IME this is in full swing at just about every company complaining about job hoppers.
    - iamdave 8y ago
      That may be the best description of the phenomenon I've described. I lived that. It was unbearable-stayed around way longer than I should have because I did genuinely and truly believe in the mission of the company. They gave us reason to and backed it up-but after a while, well yeah the water began to evaporate org wide, not just engineering. It got to the point where engineering was down to three people-present company included-and a guy managing us who probably should have been let go long enough and neither myself or the other fellow could really stand to be around even socially-much less as a cohort and colleague (and to this day, the other guy and I strongly believe was the root cause of so many of our other engineers quitting once the former Director left, leaving jerk character as the most senior in the room by longevity alone).
      - dbcurtis 8y ago
        > engineering douchebaggery is actually the biggest thing to hurt engineering since the dawn of time Quote from Fetch Robotics CEO Melonee Wise on SXSW panel. https://venturebeat.com/2018/03/13/fetch-robotics-ceo-douchebaggery-is-ruining-engineering/ https://venturebeat.com/2018/03/13/fetch-robotics-ceo-douche... Melonee kicks ass.
    - itronitron 8y ago
      Thank you, this pretty much describes my current employer. The dead sea is so dead that the entrenched folks have established a number of policies that restrict access to various resources that are critical to performing work. If you ever walk out of a technical meeting, summarize key details with one of the senior attendees and they tell you, "that's not what we discussed", then you probably work in a dead sea.
    - InclinedPlane 8y ago
      I've seen this phenomenon almost everywhere. A lot of times it kicks into high gear when "the powers that be" start making big, dumb changes (though often times they don't seem quite so bad in the moment). The best talent with the most important experience evaporates. The thing that is the most pernicious about this effect is that it can be difficult to notice objectively. People who are in the trenches, are clueful, and know first hand the qualities of individuals who leave will know immediately that this is a bad development and that the organization has lost something of significant value. Even so, it can often be difficult to back up that gut instinct with factual evidence. It often takes years for it to become fully evident unless there's utter incompetence on display, and that evidence is usually in the form of it being more difficult and taking longer to execute on challenging projects, while achieving less success as a result. The thing is, in almost every dev shop on Earth and especially in the "higher level" ones the projects from year to year or "release cycle to release cycle" are often not 1:1 comparable, each has their own unique difficulties and complexities and even without losing any talent it would take a different amount of time to tackle those projects and the results and "level of success" would still be different. Without a window into a parallel universe it's hard to say how much you've fallen behind the nominal "unevaporated" track. And in the eyes of management it's even more difficult because they are even more resistant to the notion that something they've done has had a negative impact on the company. If the end result is anything other than abject failure, if the lower quality "dead sea" org is still able to achieve a decent measure of success, still operate a profitable and successful enterprise, and so on, then they will think everything is fine. Even if the difference might have ultimately been orders of magnitude difference in levels of success, because that alternate timeline is unknowable. And if you wonder why so very much software is surprisingly mediocre despite many hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of dev-years of work being put into making it better, well, maybe there's a reason for that.
      - Felz 8y ago
        Thank you for this comment. It helped summarize my thoughts. Do you know if there's any pattern to the big, dumb changes? Are specific changes more likely to signal shipjumping time for top talent? Or is it a growing dysfunction?
    - CzechTech 8y ago
      > ‘interchangeable code monkeys’ mindset Which is pretty much the default mindset these days...
    - gaius 8y ago
      becoming maintenance experts on critical systems, assuming responsibilities that no one else wants The problem is people who are not experts and do not take on responsibility, but stay anyway. The responsibility-taking experts are the backbone of any organisation.
    - HankB99 8y ago
      I saw exactly that at the first shop I contracted at decades ago. They treated their engineers like dirt. During the interview they were told that travel would be a couple weeks a year. Then some were literally handed airplane tickets when they arrived their first day of work and left on (remote) site for months. To compound things, they would return expense reports unpaid if everything was not filled out exactly correctly. One day a co-contractor commented at the lack of energy among the employees. He observed that none had any get-up-and-go. I thought about a moment and replied that anyone with get-up-and-go had got-up-and-gone.
borplk 8y ago
Companies aren't trying at all. Just go look at the job ads and see what pathetic items they list as "benefits". - natural sunlight - monthly social events - snacks - ping pong table All either basic workplace expectations or intangible irrelevant gimmicks. People are not that dumb. If you want to avoid paying people tangible benefits and what they are worth they will dump you and no amount of sunlight and social events and catered lunches is going to change it.
- MrBuddyCasino 8y ago
  > natural sunlight Is that a US thing? Never ever seen that in Germany, sounds like "free oxygen" too me.
  - ahartmetz 8y ago
    There are regulations for that in Germany.
    - MrBuddyCasino 8y ago
      Seems there is, there must be direct line of sight to the outside world: https://www.komnet.nrw.de/_sitetools/dialog/5278 https://www.komnet.nrw.de/_sitetools/dialog/5278 The more you know.
      - tudelo 8y ago
        Wait, as in you can't be stuck in a cubicle farm without a view of a window?
  - borplk 8y ago
    US and many other countries. It's a sad brag that shows just how low the expectations have come down to.
  - vonmoltke 8y ago
    I have yet to see that listed in a job ad here. I ignore California openings, though, so maybe it's an SFBA thing.
neilwilson 8y ago
The market will sort it out. Those companies taking a 'doing you a favour' attitude will be competed out.
- perfunctory 8y ago
  I wish this was the case.
- falcolas 8y ago
  If it hasn't happened by now (this is not even remotely a new phenomenon), what makes you believe that it will happen ever?

ravenstine 8y ago

It seems like these days people have to "move around to move up", or companies have a problem creating opportunities for advancement that don't involve promoting people to middle management, if one can even call that a promotion. Of course that's only one part of the bigger picture.

iamdave 8y ago
Is there a word or a phrase whereby the Peter Principle takes such a hold in the structure of management that it no longer becomes possible to even promote? The 'Peters' get to a position and create an artificial ceiling where potentially more capable would-be managers don't get promoted because their manager is a bit too dim to realize there are people languishing underneath them?
- flukus 8y ago
  I think this would be territory covered by the dead sea effect: http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-dead-sea-effect/ http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-d... IME this is in full swing at just about every company complaining about job hoppers.
  - iamdave 8y ago
    That may be the best description of the phenomenon I've described. I lived that. It was unbearable-stayed around way longer than I should have because I did genuinely and truly believe in the mission of the company. They gave us reason to and backed it up-but after a while, well yeah the water began to evaporate org wide, not just engineering. It got to the point where engineering was down to three people-present company included-and a guy managing us who probably should have been let go long enough and neither myself or the other fellow could really stand to be around even socially-much less as a cohort and colleague (and to this day, the other guy and I strongly believe was the root cause of so many of our other engineers quitting once the former Director left, leaving jerk character as the most senior in the room by longevity alone).
    - dbcurtis 8y ago
      > engineering douchebaggery is actually the biggest thing to hurt engineering since the dawn of time Quote from Fetch Robotics CEO Melonee Wise on SXSW panel. https://venturebeat.com/2018/03/13/fetch-robotics-ceo-douchebaggery-is-ruining-engineering/ https://venturebeat.com/2018/03/13/fetch-robotics-ceo-douche... Melonee kicks ass.
  - itronitron 8y ago
    Thank you, this pretty much describes my current employer. The dead sea is so dead that the entrenched folks have established a number of policies that restrict access to various resources that are critical to performing work. If you ever walk out of a technical meeting, summarize key details with one of the senior attendees and they tell you, "that's not what we discussed", then you probably work in a dead sea.
  - InclinedPlane 8y ago
    I've seen this phenomenon almost everywhere. A lot of times it kicks into high gear when "the powers that be" start making big, dumb changes (though often times they don't seem quite so bad in the moment). The best talent with the most important experience evaporates. The thing that is the most pernicious about this effect is that it can be difficult to notice objectively. People who are in the trenches, are clueful, and know first hand the qualities of individuals who leave will know immediately that this is a bad development and that the organization has lost something of significant value. Even so, it can often be difficult to back up that gut instinct with factual evidence. It often takes years for it to become fully evident unless there's utter incompetence on display, and that evidence is usually in the form of it being more difficult and taking longer to execute on challenging projects, while achieving less success as a result. The thing is, in almost every dev shop on Earth and especially in the "higher level" ones the projects from year to year or "release cycle to release cycle" are often not 1:1 comparable, each has their own unique difficulties and complexities and even without losing any talent it would take a different amount of time to tackle those projects and the results and "level of success" would still be different. Without a window into a parallel universe it's hard to say how much you've fallen behind the nominal "unevaporated" track. And in the eyes of management it's even more difficult because they are even more resistant to the notion that something they've done has had a negative impact on the company. If the end result is anything other than abject failure, if the lower quality "dead sea" org is still able to achieve a decent measure of success, still operate a profitable and successful enterprise, and so on, then they will think everything is fine. Even if the difference might have ultimately been orders of magnitude difference in levels of success, because that alternate timeline is unknowable. And if you wonder why so very much software is surprisingly mediocre despite many hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of dev-years of work being put into making it better, well, maybe there's a reason for that.
    - Felz 8y ago
      Thank you for this comment. It helped summarize my thoughts. Do you know if there's any pattern to the big, dumb changes? Are specific changes more likely to signal shipjumping time for top talent? Or is it a growing dysfunction?
  - CzechTech 8y ago
    > ‘interchangeable code monkeys’ mindset Which is pretty much the default mindset these days...
  - gaius 8y ago
    becoming maintenance experts on critical systems, assuming responsibilities that no one else wants The problem is people who are not experts and do not take on responsibility, but stay anyway. The responsibility-taking experts are the backbone of any organisation.
  - HankB99 8y ago
    I saw exactly that at the first shop I contracted at decades ago. They treated their engineers like dirt. During the interview they were told that travel would be a couple weeks a year. Then some were literally handed airplane tickets when they arrived their first day of work and left on (remote) site for months. To compound things, they would return expense reports unpaid if everything was not filled out exactly correctly. One day a co-contractor commented at the lack of energy among the employees. He observed that none had any get-up-and-go. I thought about a moment and replied that anyone with get-up-and-go had got-up-and-gone.

borplk 8y ago

Companies aren't trying at all. Just go look at the job ads and see what pathetic items they list as "benefits". - natural sunlight - monthly social events - snacks - ping pong table All either basic workplace expectations or intangible irrelevant gimmicks. People are not that dumb. If you want to avoid paying people tangible benefits and what they are worth they will dump you and no amount of sunlight and social events and catered lunches is going to change it.

MrBuddyCasino 8y ago
> natural sunlight Is that a US thing? Never ever seen that in Germany, sounds like "free oxygen" too me.
- ahartmetz 8y ago
  There are regulations for that in Germany.
  - MrBuddyCasino 8y ago
    Seems there is, there must be direct line of sight to the outside world: https://www.komnet.nrw.de/_sitetools/dialog/5278 https://www.komnet.nrw.de/_sitetools/dialog/5278 The more you know.
    - tudelo 8y ago
      Wait, as in you can't be stuck in a cubicle farm without a view of a window?
- borplk 8y ago
  US and many other countries. It's a sad brag that shows just how low the expectations have come down to.
- vonmoltke 8y ago
  I have yet to see that listed in a job ad here. I ignore California openings, though, so maybe it's an SFBA thing.

neilwilson 8y ago

The market will sort it out. Those companies taking a 'doing you a favour' attitude will be competed out.

perfunctory 8y ago
I wish this was the case.
falcolas 8y ago
If it hasn't happened by now (this is not even remotely a new phenomenon), what makes you believe that it will happen ever?