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Don’t you always lose money on it though, since at least one dev should be working on it?
by mettamage 5y ago
Don’t you always lose money on it though, since at least one dev should be working on it?
- kqr 5y agoNot if it makes you more money in revenue than it costs in developer time. "But isn't that obvious and the case for all developer time?" Try running the numbers some time in your organisation. You'll be surprised at how often things are produced at a loss.
- thunkshift1 5y agoNo you dont..Paying a dev is not losing money.. why hire the dev in the first place in that case?
- Juliate 5y agoAccounting-wise, it's very common that R&D and developers are counted as cost centers, not profit centers. This is not necessarily a problem, unless the management (and shareholders) only understands costs as an impediment to be pressured and reduced (which is sadly also quite common - and not necessarily false either).
- chrisweekly 5y agoThis varies so much across companies, let alone industries. It was gratifying a few years back to realize that annual revenue per engineer north of $4m put our team in rarified company. I wonder how common it is to examine that metric. While I'm happier (and earning much more) consulting for a deep-pocketed enterprise where enginering and R&D are treated as cost centers, I kind of doubt it's something my current clients have ever even considered.
- judge2020 5y agoBut adding or removing developers doesn't add or remove that revenue. If some exec wants to make a show by increasing (short-term) profit, cutting developers is a quick and dirty to do that.
- VBprogrammer 5y agoI think the conversation is what is the expected return vs the cost. Honestly, I'm not sure I'd really like to have that conversation with the business people too often. Once a product is complete I doubt many feature enhancement have a decent business case.