Why We Fire🔥 the Best Software Developers
Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash
The best software developers keep dropping out of the job. This is partly because they are promoted upwards and out of the hands-on work.
There is a more basic reason why companies keep firing their best software developers, and it may not be the reason you expect.
”I’m expecting a reason laced with corporate incompetence. Or management incompetence. I wonder which it will be this time?”
Incompetence
There is no great secret or surprise here. The fact of the matter is many companies fail to identify their top performers. They even fail to disambiguate their top performers from their worst performers. This issue is made worse by the fact that some developers don’t like to “big themselves up” and shout about their achievements.
”Not me. My code is the best.”
The inevitable result of this is that companies sometimes fire their top performers mistaking them for their worst performers. It’s a dreadful situation, but is one that The Secret Developer has seen during their time working in the industry. The fact is that you can be a great coder performing well but don’t get the credo for doing so.
What Developers Should Do
As a workforce, we need to do the following:
Shout about our achievements
Tell the business and customers what we do
Make sure we are valued
This is easier said than done. So, I propose everyone reading this article do the following:
Over Slack celebrate your successes both team and individual
Talk to your manager regularly about what you have done well
When ready for a promotion speak to your manager about that
You owe it to yourself to advertise what a great developer you are!
What the Industry Should Do
Ultimately the industry needs to look at their recruitment tactics to check the quality of staff as they enter a particular company. They then need to look at how they measure the performance of their staff. There is much that needs to change and if you think all is perfect I’ll be glad to read your incoherent tirade in the comments.
”Come on management. Please make things better for all of us!”
Conclusion
Let us leave the final comment to The Secret Developer.
”At last. An acceptable reason why The Secret Developer might get fired. Companies don’t know a good thing when they see it,”