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I had a glimpse into that "lack of recognition" recently when the company had an AGM type thing for all employees. We're fundamentally a software company, we f

• simonh 13y ago
  I've worked (as a support engineer) at software companies where, over a 7 or 8 year period, almost every member of the development team has been replaced, and those that weren't could have been. The same was true of the support team too. I then left and the company survived the shock just fine, so clearly I was replaceable too. So yes developers are vital, there would be no product without a development team to develop it, but then without a sales team it would never get sold. Without a support team it would be unsupported, etc. Removing any one team would be like cutting one of the organs out of someone's body. Sure you can outsource stuff, but the function being outsourced still needs to get done. The problem comes when people from one world start making the decisions about how to run one of the other worlds. In my experience it's pretty rare for a technologist to try and tell the sales and marketing team how to do their job and expend their resources. Unfortunately I've seen several companies essentially collapse because really good sales and marketing people tried to run the engineering groups and make what are fundamentally technical decisions. I've never yet seen that end well. I think it's partly because if you run a duff sales campaign, you can regroup and try an alternate strategy relatively quickly. The problem with development projects is they can take several years to come to fruition and if you're on the wrong path it can take several more years to fix the problems. By then it's often way too late.
• marcus_holmes 13y ago
  I had an exit interview with a software company like this. The CEO was a marketing guy, and asked me why I was leaving after only a few months. I explained that the salary they paid was pretty low compared to what I could get elsewhere. He agreed and said they considered paying software developers the market rate was too expensive and that they would prefer to have a high turnover of devs rather than pay more. I pointed out that this was a short-sighted policy for a software company to have, and he asked why. I explained that the quality of their product would be lower than if they weren't continually training new staff, and he was surprised that I thought that developers had anything to do with the product. As far as he was concerned, the product was produced by marketing, and the code was unrelated to it. By far the most bizarre exit interview I'd had, but very genial and good-natured for that. Out of curiosity, I just checked out how they're going. And yes, they did have >90% of the market, now down to 60% ish and dropping.
  • mathattack 13y ago
    If you left over pay, wouldn't you have known that a few months earlier when you took the job ?
    • groovy2shoes 13y ago
      If you're in a desperate position, bad pay is better than no pay.
    • philbarr 13y ago
      Sometimes I think it takes a few months/years of being undervalued before it really sinks in that you're being undervalued. And then even more before you actually do something about it.
    • reboog711 13y ago
      I don't know the situation; but it is easier to get a job when you have a job. People love the thrill of the chase and like the fact that you are choosing them over your option. It can also be a factor that, if you are jobless, people wonder why and that can work against you. So, depending on the situation, a job with low pay may be better than no job at all.
• philbarr 13y ago
  Yes, it's often difficult for developers to prove their worth because they're so far removed from the money. The closer to the money you are, the easier it is to say you deserve a piece of it. It's easy for sales - they say, "I sold £X amount last year so I deserve £Y amount bonus." The only way as a developer you can really do this is to find a niche for yourself that is yours and yours alone. That way you can say, "product X wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for me, and that sold £Y amount last year. Hence, the £Z amount bonus I'm asking for is nothing in comparison." Also try and get some friends in sales who can tell you what's going on. I know the separate species of dev and sales don't usually mix, but it's a relationship that can help both of you individually. You'd be amazed how often managers will push the "next big product" so you work on that thinking you'll be in line for the big bucks and the promotion, but then you speak to sales and find that it's actually the old tried and tested stuff that's actually making the cash. And for the sales guys they actually like having an "insider" in the dev team so they can get one up on their colleagues. "What's that? New product X has fallen behind schedule again?! We were told everything was fine and to go and sell it!"
  • DrJokepu 13y ago
    You need to take credit for everything you do and you need to tell people about it. Stayed very late to work on something urgent (and therefore important)? Send out an email when you leave that you need to leave now but you have achieved this and this. CC in as many people as you think you can get away with, ideally the manager of your manager as well.
• deleted 13y ago
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• badman_ting 13y ago
  Right, that's a problem with the notion that you should work at a software shop because you're making the product rather than being a cost-center. It might be that way, but not necessarily, as you found. There's no easy heuristic like that to determine what's a good place to work and what isn't, unfortunately.
• deleted 13y ago
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• allochthon 13y ago
  > It was clear from this event that ... it was support and sales who were the "real" business. You're company appears to be a corporation for the mutual benefit of support and sales.