4 ms·

I can't believe some of you are saying they should put together a bunch of awesome programmers and rewrite their platform from scratch. Certainly that is an op

by jtchang 15y ago

I can't believe some of you are saying they should put together a bunch of awesome programmers and rewrite their platform from scratch. Certainly that is an option. But rarely is it ever the correct one. Your new platform could be as riddled with bugs as the old one. The truth is that finding good engineers is about knowing the right incentives. Retailers are losing the talent wars because they don't know how to compete. And while salary is one lever Target can fiddle with, it certainly isn't the only one. Target needs to look at the right incentives for the people they want to hire. Is telecommuting an option? How about direct authority to approve changes? Or the chance to build your own team? These are the incentives that matter to engineers. The problem is cutting through all the rhetoric in hiring. Target can say "we want to revolutionize the ecommerce industry" but do any engineers actually believe them? That's tough.

Roboprog 15y ago
Well said. Debugging, instrumentation, refactoring and understanding "system integration" are going to be big skills in an environment like this. Making a whiz-bang social-media site on a clean slate is a valuable skill, but it's not what this problem needs solved. Compensation can be non monetary as well. I telecommute a few days a week at my current position, and the hours are reasonable (important when you have a family!). My compensation is probably quite meager by Bay Area standards, but things are cheap in the Sacramento area.
kls 15y ago
And while salary is one lever Target can fiddle with, it certainly isn't the only one. I would argue set high enough it is the only lever. Many that play the start up game do so because first and foremost, there is the chance to earn far more than they can at an organization like Target. Sure it's a long shot but, there is at least the chance, if large organizations started to cross that chasm. I believe that they would indeed start to attract talent. If one could become moderately wealthy working for Target then a lot of people would choose that option, sure it's not the fame and fortune of making it in a start up, but a road somewhere in the middle is a road I would imagine that many developers would be willing to travel.
- bluedanieru 15y ago
  That's not very realistic and they almost certainly don't have the money for it. Moreover, increasing salary nets diminishing returns for motivating people after a certain point, and if it sucks to work for you, then no matter how much you pay, people are going to get bored and frustrated and leave.
  - kls 15y ago
    I would be hard pressed to believe that they do not have the money for it, while I was at Marriott I doubled our budget for salary and did not change head count. I raised salaries above market rate and used some of it for merit based bonuses. It was very effective in recruiting and retaining talent. It was not the only thing that I did, but money cannot be discounted as a motivating factor. I will cede to your point that it the place flat out sucks even an astronomical amount of money may not retain your talent. But I am giving them the benefit of the doubt that they are mediocre at worst.

by jtchang 15y ago

Roboprog 15y ago

Well said. Debugging, instrumentation, refactoring and understanding "system integration" are going to be big skills in an environment like this. Making a whiz-bang social-media site on a clean slate is a valuable skill, but it's not what this problem needs solved. Compensation can be non monetary as well. I telecommute a few days a week at my current position, and the hours are reasonable (important when you have a family!). My compensation is probably quite meager by Bay Area standards, but things are cheap in the Sacramento area.

kls 15y ago

And while salary is one lever Target can fiddle with, it certainly isn't the only one. I would argue set high enough it is the only lever. Many that play the start up game do so because first and foremost, there is the chance to earn far more than they can at an organization like Target. Sure it's a long shot but, there is at least the chance, if large organizations started to cross that chasm. I believe that they would indeed start to attract talent. If one could become moderately wealthy working for Target then a lot of people would choose that option, sure it's not the fame and fortune of making it in a start up, but a road somewhere in the middle is a road I would imagine that many developers would be willing to travel.

bluedanieru 15y ago
That's not very realistic and they almost certainly don't have the money for it. Moreover, increasing salary nets diminishing returns for motivating people after a certain point, and if it sucks to work for you, then no matter how much you pay, people are going to get bored and frustrated and leave.
- kls 15y ago
  I would be hard pressed to believe that they do not have the money for it, while I was at Marriott I doubled our budget for salary and did not change head count. I raised salaries above market rate and used some of it for merit based bonuses. It was very effective in recruiting and retaining talent. It was not the only thing that I did, but money cannot be discounted as a motivating factor. I will cede to your point that it the place flat out sucks even an astronomical amount of money may not retain your talent. But I am giving them the benefit of the doubt that they are mediocre at worst.