Why We (Developers) Really Leave Your Company
Whether you’re the founder of a tech startup, chief whatever at a company that shouldn’t really be called startup anymore or just calling yourself an entrepreneur, you need a team of developers. They are your only real asset just like the rest of the people to whom you’ve sold your vision. This is what you’re good at and this is why you’ve become the glorified salesperson. I get it, business is about sales but the artificial inflation of qualities, achievements, contacts, and possible futures you present is so many times so far-fetched you’ve mistaken the word visionary with a dreamer. Don’t get me wrong, I dream myself. I dream about the hiring process where we don’t have to constantly prove our skills with 100 rounds of interviews, make offensively basic apps or live coding shows for your entertainment disregarding any previous experience or discussions we have. You’re very “cutting-edge” and “working with the latest technology” yet we still absolutely have to give you our CVs although you already have every information available on LinkedIn since 2003 plus CV is not even something you need in order to get talented people! Consider their achievements! Talk to them! Perhaps, you’re too busy to deal with this yourself and you’ve asked recruiters to supply people who will directly influence the quality of your core business. Sounds like a good idea? They also ask for a CV. Most of them know even less about development than you do.
But let’s assume that somehow, you’ve hired talented developers. These people think they are going to be part of something big or something they can really influence. A fresh opportunity to build a quality product that speaks for itself. This is what usually follows. You don’t care about how projects are built or you care too much-telling specialists you pay how to do their job. The most important is that it’s built with the latest “buzzword technology”, not the one that suits the problem the best. You claim quality and security is the top priority but the first thing you cut off when time is short is testing. You oversimplify complex problems and prefer solutions that bring substantial problems in the long run but well, they are “good enough for now”. Okay, I understand the world is not ideal and there’s always a trade-off plus those investors are at your back with customers asking when it is going to be ready. But what you’re doing has implications. You’ve promised too much, and you can’t deliver. Your team is burning out, fed up with your endless promises so are your customers. But somehow it still works, it still keeps going. If only we can do this a bit longer, if only we get this one more client. Is this the plan? Is this why we’re investing our life in those promises? Is any salary, vision, games in your awesome startup office really worth people’s lives?
What if we start with people? What if we focus on a process rather than a promise? What if we start solving existing problems instead of creating new ones?
