I think it is also important to remember that users are not the only consumers of a software development pipeline. If developers don't want to work for you bec

I think it is also important to remember that users are not the only consumers of a software development pipeline. If developers don't want to work for you because they feel held back in creativity or career progression, support staff have to stay up late for downtime deployments, and managers and/or ownership feel blind to the process, then you can still have a miserable company with happy users. Quality of the work is an important part of a compensation plan. Eventually this hits an organization's bottom line in the form of turnover, employee productivity, etc. In software development with high salary, difficult to recruit employees, this can be significant.