5 ms·

"Another way to attract and retain employees, and to support internal career advancement, is to engage employees in on-the-job education"

chrisseaton 5y ago
I don’t know why they suggest this before suggesting raising wages or improving conditions. Offer 50k more or a 4-day-week and you won’t have a shortage of anything.
- twiddling 5y ago
  Actually providing a path for advancement is cited over compensation concerns in a lot of exit interviews I have seen
  - marktangotango 5y ago
    This will always be the case. The last thing the majority of companies want to do is provide a clear path to promotion and pay increases. Face it, the vast majority of non technical companies are all about cost cutting, doing more with less. Hence job hopping is how developers get promotions and raises.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I think a lot of those are code for compensation, though. It’s a lot more polite to say “I didn’t see a path to advance here” than it is to say “this other company was willing to pay me more” [or “I was tired of your particular flavor of bullshit”].
  - EvilEy3 5y ago
    Because advancement offers what? Right, bigger compensation.
    - xxpor 5y ago
      It's not just that though. It's also the oppertunity to work on more interesting things and less on day to day drudge work.
      - ryandrake 5y ago
        Beyond a certain point, though, advancement can mean less and less interesting domain-specific work, and more things like managing people, strategic decision making, presenting to executives and business stakeholders, and yes politics. The only thing that is almost universally true about "advancement" is more compensation. So, if someone is complaining about advancement in their exit interview, it's very often code-word for compensation.
        jacobr1 5y ago
        I've also seen advancement as a cover for "unfair advancement of others." Which is sometimes the trigger for leaving: "why did they get the promotion when I have been-here-longer/work-harder/do-better-work?"
    - handrous 5y ago
      - Better comp (significantly better, not insulting 4% raises) - Better working conditions (possibly including more respect and higher social status) - Different work (sick of development, want to move into management or product or whatever) - Better prospects for future employment ("when I'm a middling-quality 45 year old developer I might not be able to find a job anymore... as a middling-quality 45-year-old manager, on the other hand, I'll do just fine) One or (probably) more of those are what people want when they talk about wanting advancement opportunities. The comp is pretty much always going to be one of the things they're focused on, as it's a big part of what distinguishes advancement from changing careers. The better pay and/or status is what makes it advancement.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > path for advancement I'm pretty sure that's code for better compensation and better working conditions.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    Because discussing compensation is impolitic. "Path for advancement" is often code for under-compensation.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  ACM is an academic organization. So education is going to be the answer they reach for. Software devs already make a lot more than most staff-level jobs. Why will another 50K shake out talent that is not already in the market? I think the more likely approach is that companies are going to be more open to remote contracting in places like Eastern Europe, South America, India, and Southeast Asia. There are a lot of examples of this not working so well in the past, but there were also a lot of examples of WFH not working so well, until there was no choice and companies figured out how to make it work.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - mmarq 5y ago
    > I think the more likely approach is that companies are going to be more open to remote contracting in places like Eastern Europe, South America, India, and Southeast Asia. There are a lot of examples of this not working so well in the past, but there were also a lot of examples of WFH not working so well, until there was no choice and companies figured out how to make it work. It’s very hard to hire and coordinate good developers abroad. We have some devs in India and Spain, but some directors spent weeks there talking to consultancies and ensuring they were hiring good candidates. They are cheaper local consultancies, but not much cheaper than local individual contractors. One who plans to hire randos in east Asia and pay them peanuts, should prepare for troubles. Good developers may be a bit cheaper in India than in the UK, but they don’t come for free and they require non-negligible coordination costs.
    - jacobr1 5y ago
      Yep, but there are price points where it starts being worth costs. If you want to hire a team of 10 engineers (mix of junior/mid/senior) at an average FTE cost of $150k and are struggling to do it in the US, and could probably make it happen at $200k - $250k, the looking at hiring 10 engineers in another country for $80-$120k and hiring another 3-4 local engineers/managers at $250k to manage the coordination inefficiencies still probably comes out ahead. You still need to hire (or get a vendor that hires) good developers or you'll be screwed though. I was burnt by some bad Indian outsourcing earlier in my career, but since then have worked with excellent firms from India, Ukraine and Columbia. But we paid top of market (for the foreign market) rates for that value.
Oras 5y ago
"establish a dual career path for managerial and technical staff, and invest in employee education and training." I have the impression that the article is assuming: 1. The work is already interesting for developers and they are learning and applying what they learn. 2. Developers are paid well. 3. There is a good culture.
SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
You can either give me more money, or make me more attractive to those who will pay me more, so I suppose either way works for me.

chrisseaton 5y ago

I don’t know why they suggest this before suggesting raising wages or improving conditions. Offer 50k more or a 4-day-week and you won’t have a shortage of anything.

twiddling 5y ago
Actually providing a path for advancement is cited over compensation concerns in a lot of exit interviews I have seen
- marktangotango 5y ago
  This will always be the case. The last thing the majority of companies want to do is provide a clear path to promotion and pay increases. Face it, the vast majority of non technical companies are all about cost cutting, doing more with less. Hence job hopping is how developers get promotions and raises.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  I think a lot of those are code for compensation, though. It’s a lot more polite to say “I didn’t see a path to advance here” than it is to say “this other company was willing to pay me more” [or “I was tired of your particular flavor of bullshit”].
- EvilEy3 5y ago
  Because advancement offers what? Right, bigger compensation.
  - xxpor 5y ago
    It's not just that though. It's also the oppertunity to work on more interesting things and less on day to day drudge work.
    - ryandrake 5y ago
      Beyond a certain point, though, advancement can mean less and less interesting domain-specific work, and more things like managing people, strategic decision making, presenting to executives and business stakeholders, and yes politics. The only thing that is almost universally true about "advancement" is more compensation. So, if someone is complaining about advancement in their exit interview, it's very often code-word for compensation.
      - jacobr1 5y ago
        I've also seen advancement as a cover for "unfair advancement of others." Which is sometimes the trigger for leaving: "why did they get the promotion when I have been-here-longer/work-harder/do-better-work?"
  - handrous 5y ago
    - Better comp (significantly better, not insulting 4% raises) - Better working conditions (possibly including more respect and higher social status) - Different work (sick of development, want to move into management or product or whatever) - Better prospects for future employment ("when I'm a middling-quality 45 year old developer I might not be able to find a job anymore... as a middling-quality 45-year-old manager, on the other hand, I'll do just fine) One or (probably) more of those are what people want when they talk about wanting advancement opportunities. The comp is pretty much always going to be one of the things they're focused on, as it's a big part of what distinguishes advancement from changing careers. The better pay and/or status is what makes it advancement.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > path for advancement I'm pretty sure that's code for better compensation and better working conditions.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  Because discussing compensation is impolitic. "Path for advancement" is often code for under-compensation.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
throwawayboise 5y ago
ACM is an academic organization. So education is going to be the answer they reach for. Software devs already make a lot more than most staff-level jobs. Why will another 50K shake out talent that is not already in the market? I think the more likely approach is that companies are going to be more open to remote contracting in places like Eastern Europe, South America, India, and Southeast Asia. There are a lot of examples of this not working so well in the past, but there were also a lot of examples of WFH not working so well, until there was no choice and companies figured out how to make it work.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mmarq 5y ago
  > I think the more likely approach is that companies are going to be more open to remote contracting in places like Eastern Europe, South America, India, and Southeast Asia. There are a lot of examples of this not working so well in the past, but there were also a lot of examples of WFH not working so well, until there was no choice and companies figured out how to make it work. It’s very hard to hire and coordinate good developers abroad. We have some devs in India and Spain, but some directors spent weeks there talking to consultancies and ensuring they were hiring good candidates. They are cheaper local consultancies, but not much cheaper than local individual contractors. One who plans to hire randos in east Asia and pay them peanuts, should prepare for troubles. Good developers may be a bit cheaper in India than in the UK, but they don’t come for free and they require non-negligible coordination costs.
  - jacobr1 5y ago
    Yep, but there are price points where it starts being worth costs. If you want to hire a team of 10 engineers (mix of junior/mid/senior) at an average FTE cost of $150k and are struggling to do it in the US, and could probably make it happen at $200k - $250k, the looking at hiring 10 engineers in another country for $80-$120k and hiring another 3-4 local engineers/managers at $250k to manage the coordination inefficiencies still probably comes out ahead. You still need to hire (or get a vendor that hires) good developers or you'll be screwed though. I was burnt by some bad Indian outsourcing earlier in my career, but since then have worked with excellent firms from India, Ukraine and Columbia. But we paid top of market (for the foreign market) rates for that value.

Oras 5y ago

"establish a dual career path for managerial and technical staff, and invest in employee education and training." I have the impression that the article is assuming: 1. The work is already interesting for developers and they are learning and applying what they learn. 2. Developers are paid well. 3. There is a good culture.

SketchySeaBeast 5y ago

You can either give me more money, or make me more attractive to those who will pay me more, so I suppose either way works for me.