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How exactly can you attribute certain actions to broad results like boosting sales x% YoY? I feel like its rare for someone to be in the position to know that w

How exactly can you attribute certain actions to broad results like boosting sales x% YoY? I feel like its rare for someone to be in the position to know that well enough to say that without stretching the truth. Maybe the secret sauce is that it's impossible to verify?

stephen_greet 5y ago
I don't think you need to get the attribution exactly correct. Rather, you need to be able to defend how you arrived at a metric. You can walk through the assumptions you made then build up the components of those assumptions to arrive at an estimated impact.
waheoo 5y ago
Not everything needs to be sales based or even numbers based. The lesson here is fact based, not baseless claims. I write high quality code. Vague statement, nothing backing it, don't even want to ask how or why you think you do because its pure fluff. I leverage code review and unit testing to ensure my code is modular and resilient to change. Fact based and easily verifiable with an interview question: Tell me about your code review and testing practices, do you use ci?
busterarm 5y ago
Everyone owes it to themselves to understand directly how their contributions create value for their comapny. It will help you enormously in compensation negotiations. If you aren't creating value for the business, you're on an eventual path to downsizing and should look for another job.
- varajelle 5y ago
  I am a developer. I mainly fix bugs reported by customers and I implement some features asked by PM. But I have no idea how to quantify this value. I'm paid X$, so I assume it is > X$. Maybe PM knows, but they don't tell me the value of each features. Am I on the path to downsizing? Or what should I put on my resume?
  - busterarm 5y ago
    Based on the description I would say that yeah, your business probably views you as a cost rather than a source of value. If financial circumstances for the company were to change, your position would be insecure. (aka, sales people get fired last). Your negotiating power for higher salaries is also probably limited. There's plenty of jobs that are like this and if you're comfortable than I can't really tell you what to do, but I always position myself to be a source of value to my company rather than a cost. The salaries are much higher here. I'm also a developer, but deep on the IC track (architect). I create platforms that give my company whole capabilities that it wouldn't have otherwise. I can directly measure the value in what I do.
  - chrononaut 5y ago
    Late here as I was brought in through another HN thread so hopefully you have a chance to catch this. If I was in your position I would be looking to understand from other business stakeholders how many customers my bug fixes have impacted, both from those that asked and those that would naturally benefit from them if they use the same product. If you know the total customer base, you now the % of the customer base that you have helped (1) improve the actual or perceived probability of retention, (2) directly influence the customer satisfaction of your product(s), (3) improved the chance that the customer continues to subscribes, buys other products / features that your company sells, or recommends your organization to their peers. This can be expressed as contributing to achieve retention goals, improving / meeting targets of NPS scores or other satisfaction measurements, and influencing quarterly or yearly upsell / expansion targets, which you might be able to get explicitly from those other business stakeholders. Likewise I disagree with the sibling comment that you might be considered a cost to that organization (the organization might actually perceive you that way, but in reality that's actually not the case otherwise there would be no one fixing bugs and implementing features) as are a fundamental core to an organization's strategy of maintaining or achieving retention targets and influence its upsell potential.
the_only_law 5y ago
There are a few times I’ve been told an approximate dollar value of my work, but they were at very tiny companies and never enough to impress.

stephen_greet 5y ago

I don't think you need to get the attribution exactly correct. Rather, you need to be able to defend how you arrived at a metric. You can walk through the assumptions you made then build up the components of those assumptions to arrive at an estimated impact.

waheoo 5y ago

Not everything needs to be sales based or even numbers based. The lesson here is fact based, not baseless claims. I write high quality code. Vague statement, nothing backing it, don't even want to ask how or why you think you do because its pure fluff. I leverage code review and unit testing to ensure my code is modular and resilient to change. Fact based and easily verifiable with an interview question: Tell me about your code review and testing practices, do you use ci?

busterarm 5y ago

Everyone owes it to themselves to understand directly how their contributions create value for their comapny. It will help you enormously in compensation negotiations. If you aren't creating value for the business, you're on an eventual path to downsizing and should look for another job.

varajelle 5y ago
I am a developer. I mainly fix bugs reported by customers and I implement some features asked by PM. But I have no idea how to quantify this value. I'm paid X$, so I assume it is > X$. Maybe PM knows, but they don't tell me the value of each features. Am I on the path to downsizing? Or what should I put on my resume?
- busterarm 5y ago
  Based on the description I would say that yeah, your business probably views you as a cost rather than a source of value. If financial circumstances for the company were to change, your position would be insecure. (aka, sales people get fired last). Your negotiating power for higher salaries is also probably limited. There's plenty of jobs that are like this and if you're comfortable than I can't really tell you what to do, but I always position myself to be a source of value to my company rather than a cost. The salaries are much higher here. I'm also a developer, but deep on the IC track (architect). I create platforms that give my company whole capabilities that it wouldn't have otherwise. I can directly measure the value in what I do.
- chrononaut 5y ago
  Late here as I was brought in through another HN thread so hopefully you have a chance to catch this. If I was in your position I would be looking to understand from other business stakeholders how many customers my bug fixes have impacted, both from those that asked and those that would naturally benefit from them if they use the same product. If you know the total customer base, you now the % of the customer base that you have helped (1) improve the actual or perceived probability of retention, (2) directly influence the customer satisfaction of your product(s), (3) improved the chance that the customer continues to subscribes, buys other products / features that your company sells, or recommends your organization to their peers. This can be expressed as contributing to achieve retention goals, improving / meeting targets of NPS scores or other satisfaction measurements, and influencing quarterly or yearly upsell / expansion targets, which you might be able to get explicitly from those other business stakeholders. Likewise I disagree with the sibling comment that you might be considered a cost to that organization (the organization might actually perceive you that way, but in reality that's actually not the case otherwise there would be no one fixing bugs and implementing features) as are a fundamental core to an organization's strategy of maintaining or achieving retention targets and influence its upsell potential.

the_only_law 5y ago

There are a few times I’ve been told an approximate dollar value of my work, but they were at very tiny companies and never enough to impress.