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Somewhat related to this point: A large conglomerate I worked for managed to kill one of their major products by making the mistake of assuming that programmers

Somewhat related to this point: A large conglomerate I worked for managed to kill one of their major products by making the mistake of assuming that programmers are easy to replace with any other skilled programmer. So they moved a product team to a new office, knowing that the highest-paid people on the team would not choose to relocate, and assuming it would be easy to backfill them with inexpensive new hires at the new location. Except, in this case, the programmers in question had decades' worth of hard-won domain expertise that was absolutely critical to their job function. And, this product targeting a niche industry, it was relatively uncommon domain expertise. So much so that the only people on the job market who had it were these folks whom they were ousting. All of whom had found positions at competitors within a day or two. So then the company lost their ability to maintain the product in any meaningful way, and, within a year or two, customers started moving on as well.

Tainnor 6y ago
Sounds similar to what happened to my team. In our case, it was "only" two years of hard-won domain expertise, but we were also "trained" by the original founders (who had left at some point after the acquisition). The new team had zero domain knowledge and while we tried to hand everything over as well as we could, it seemed like a lost cause to me. A couple of months later, we found out our old company ended up buying the competition.
perl4ever 6y ago
>So much so that the only people on the job market who had it were these folks whom they were ousting. All of whom had found positions at competitors within a day or two. If they were the only people anywhere who had the critical domain expertise, then how could there be any competitors to snap them up? This story doesn't sound internally consistent to me.
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  Not the only people anywhere. The only people on the job market. So the skills in question, while niche, still enjoyed a supply/demand ratio that ensured that the structural unemployment rate for people who had them was 0%. And most companies know to get who you can and then make sure they stay happy. Unfortunately, large conglomerates tend to be very credientialist. So leadership positions tend to be filled with people who have diplomas from schools with a lot of name recognition, rather than people who have enough of their own domain expertise to understand the product's business environment.
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    >on the job market. That's a very nebulous term, as this whole thread bears out. I feel sometimes like my comments are abducted by aliens.
    - mumblemumble 6y ago
      Perhaps we understand the word differently. To me, it isn't particularly nebulous, it just means, "People who are currently looking for a new job." Which would roughly be composed of people who are currently unemployed, and people who have jobs but are looking for a new one. I suppose the developers in the story I relate would actually be sort of the latter group looking to avoid becoming the former group, but that's perhaps diving a little bit too deeply into the semantics for a conversation that doesn't involve someone playing bongos or a djembe. I suppose you could expand that to include, "People who are happy with their job, but could be lured away if you offer them enough money." But it's pretty obvious that that's not a useful subcategory of people for the purposes of the company in the story I'm relating.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]

Tainnor 6y ago

Sounds similar to what happened to my team. In our case, it was "only" two years of hard-won domain expertise, but we were also "trained" by the original founders (who had left at some point after the acquisition). The new team had zero domain knowledge and while we tried to hand everything over as well as we could, it seemed like a lost cause to me. A couple of months later, we found out our old company ended up buying the competition.

perl4ever 6y ago

>So much so that the only people on the job market who had it were these folks whom they were ousting. All of whom had found positions at competitors within a day or two. If they were the only people anywhere who had the critical domain expertise, then how could there be any competitors to snap them up? This story doesn't sound internally consistent to me.

mumblemumble 6y ago
Not the only people anywhere. The only people on the job market. So the skills in question, while niche, still enjoyed a supply/demand ratio that ensured that the structural unemployment rate for people who had them was 0%. And most companies know to get who you can and then make sure they stay happy. Unfortunately, large conglomerates tend to be very credientialist. So leadership positions tend to be filled with people who have diplomas from schools with a lot of name recognition, rather than people who have enough of their own domain expertise to understand the product's business environment.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  >on the job market. That's a very nebulous term, as this whole thread bears out. I feel sometimes like my comments are abducted by aliens.
  - mumblemumble 6y ago
    Perhaps we understand the word differently. To me, it isn't particularly nebulous, it just means, "People who are currently looking for a new job." Which would roughly be composed of people who are currently unemployed, and people who have jobs but are looking for a new one. I suppose the developers in the story I relate would actually be sort of the latter group looking to avoid becoming the former group, but that's perhaps diving a little bit too deeply into the semantics for a conversation that doesn't involve someone playing bongos or a djembe. I suppose you could expand that to include, "People who are happy with their job, but could be lured away if you offer them enough money." But it's pretty obvious that that's not a useful subcategory of people for the purposes of the company in the story I'm relating.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]