How To Keep Your Best Programmers

http://www.daedtech.com/how-to-keep-your-best-programmers

by Illotus • 13 years ago

73 26 13 years ago

einhverfr4• 13 years ago

One of the basic ideas of distributism is that of subsidiarity, which I think is applicable in the workplace as well. The basic rule is this: Whoever does the work owns it and gets to make as many decisions regarding how to do the work as possible. This is how I run my open source projects.

The big issue is that of the less talented taking ownership of tasks. Give workers freedom to do their jobs right and expect good things from them.

yummyfajitas• 13 years ago

This doesn't work in all organizations. There is a big risk that some workers won't do their jobs right given the freedom to do so.

In a nicely compartmentalized organization/application this isn't a huge issue - worst case, one compartment performs poorly, the people running it are replaced, and a complete rewrite of one component is performed.

This can be really bad in a more monolithic organization/application. Bad work in one component (e.g., a poorly designed database schema) will leak out into the rest of the system. Because others are building things on top of it, it will be extremely difficult to rip out and replace.

derefr• 13 years ago

Sounds like the big risk is in choosing to have a monolithic architecture.

einhverfr4• 13 years ago

There is a big risk that some workers won't do their jobs right given the freedom to do so.

Find new workers then. The principle is you do the work, you own your work or job, it is yours with a share of the risk and reward that comes with it.

Bad work in one component (e.g., a poorly designed database schema) will leak out into the rest of the system.

The solution there is two-fold:

1. Encouraging (though not forcing) getting second opinions, discussions etc ahead of time.

2. Post-review once the component is nearing usefulness by respected peers. "Can we use this? What is the quality?"

Is there expense when you have to say "this needs more work" or even "this must be done again?" Sure. However does putting less technically apt managers in charge of the technical decisions cause fewer problems or more ones?

You can't just have management and review go away. But management is the midwifery of production, and review of technical peers beats review of managers any day.

JoeAltmaier• 13 years ago

The 'programmer laffer curve' may exist, but not for the reasons stated. A good programmer doesn't every 'offer all their experience' and runout. They got that experience somehow; this job is giving them more. They learn and grow, and don't stop having something to offer.

I'm leaning toward the 'bored and want an excuse to leave' school of thought on this one.

6d0debc071• 13 years ago

I think the theme of the article was less that they have nothing more to offer but that the things they offer are rarely followed up on. They become disillusioned with the ability to get things done. That it's relatively difficult to get promoted into a position of power as much as it is to go to another company and try to get things done there - at the very least you get another throw of the dice with people who might be more inclined to listen to reason.

skyraider3• 13 years ago

>> it is okay if the talented developer narrative doesn’t necessarily involve the company in five or ten years. That’s fine.

I always get queasy reading lines like this. In the US, most employers can fire at will. The corollary should be that any employee can leave at will. There should be no cultural stigma against the latter.

>> humans are not motivated economically toward self-actualization

The RSA video that supposedly supports this claim cites research that is only tangentially related to full-time employment. I'm not sure it's as applicable as the video host thinks: I can't help but note that ownership of tasks doesn't come with ownership of the company relative to the value of the tasks. It's all about who started it, or who got big equity.

Am I the only programmer who doesn't like being economically exploited (in the formal microeconomic sense)? For me, it's demotivating to know I'm putting forth effort for which someone else is reaping huge value.

Asking me to stick around for salary only (and perhaps a few worthless options) doesn't overpower my understanding of economics and make me excited to drive someone else's value creation process.

vinceguidry2• 13 years ago

I always get queasy reading lines like this. In the US, most employers can fire at will. The corollary should be that any employee can leave at will. There should be no cultural stigma against the latter.

If you think about it, there's a pretty good reason for why this perception exists. Human social dynamics. Just like pack animals, we tend to ascribe virtue to the collective and vice to the individual. We've a fairly individualistic society, but still, jumping out of a safe and secure collective for an uncertain and possibly lucrative future is still going to be looked at as somewhat sociopathic. Even if it's the only way to receive fair compensation for your services.

skyraider3• 13 years ago

I understand what you are saying, but cannot see how employees are comfortable with ascribing virtue to large-scale microeconomic exploitation.

To me, the behavior of employers towards employees ("here, go create all of our value; go let us economically exploit you") is the sociopathic behavior (and somewhat misanthropic too.. except not really, because founders take the risk and expect a reward, and that's how the economy works). I guess this gets into all kinds of deep economics, but employees either let it happen, are powerless, or most likely, are completely oblivious to their exploitation.

einhverfr4• 13 years ago

Am I the only programmer who doesn't like being economically exploited (in the formal microeconomic sense)? For me, it's demotivating to know I'm putting forth effort for which someone else is reaping huge value.

Jobs are the problem and self-employment is the answer ;-)

michaelochurch3• 13 years ago

#ShitHNSays

michaelochurch3• 13 years ago

No, far from it.

Personally, I'm willing to take an "unfair" deal if I get something for it. If the risk reduction merits the lower expected value, then fine.

Increasingly, though, organizational life is becoming about a world in which the higher-ups play "heads, I win; tails, you lose". You still get the mediocre compensation, but not the risk reduction and career development and easier lifestyle that have, traditionally, made mediocre remuneration tolerable for 90% of the population. Now employment is, for most people, not about genuine risk reduction or career support, but just a shit deal they take because they have no leverage.

dredmorbius• 13 years ago

Increasingly, though, organizational life is becoming about a world in which the higher-ups play "heads, I win; tails, you lose".

Economics and the market economy, as instantiated, is about a number of things other than the usual platitudes of Pareto efficiency, wealth creation, and "freedom".

I'd realized quite some time back that there's a fundamental relationship between economic and political power, a point driven home by Citizen's United and Lawrence Lessig's work. The inability of Libertarians to understand (or admit) this is the central weakness of their philosophy (not helped much by the exploitation of the American Libertarian and Tea Party movements by the Koch brothers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_the_Koc...).

Economics and business are also very much about risk management, reduction, and offset. Business legal structures (literally: LLCs -- limited liability corporations, among other forms) exist to reduce the risks of investors. Which can be a positive, but also a harm to society at large. Niall Ferguson, as much as I find him generally personally repulsive, hammers home this point in his Ascent of Money (see especially "Safe as Houses").

The shift of retirement plans from defined benefit to defined contribution is a handy way of shifting risks from fund managers (generally: employers) to employees. The fact that it's also leading to a general gross underfunding of retirement planning isn't unrelated. The story of the oil and energy industry (themselves really the core economic engines of the past century-plus of growth) are largely a continuous story of violation of free-market assumptions through monopoly, collusion, cartel, government ownership, military and diplomatic interventions, and commodity-markets manipulation (Standard Oil, As-Is agreement, Seven Sisters, OPEC, Saudi/Iranian/Venezualan/Mexican oil companies and others, broadly most 20th century wars but particularly WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Gulf I & II, Arab-Israeli conflicts, Britan's coup against Iranian Mohammad Mosaddegh (and all that's emerged from that)). Read or watch Daniel Yergin's The Prize.

The same risk transfers are seen within organizations -- the front line generally takes risks, management sees rewards (though tenure at top spots in firms has also become increasingly brief).

The economy is also as much about wealth concentration as it is of wealth creation, and moreso during decline. Especially in the absence of a progressive taxation system (or even a fair national lottery). John Michael Greer expands on this nicely: http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2011/12/what-peak-oil...

And while I agree with your observation that life as a cog in the corporate machine is increasingly less rewarding (again: see the early economists, including Smith's observations on labor wages and Ricardo's Law of Rent for the mechanics behind this), it's a bit less of a vast conspiracy (though there are conspirers) and more of an inevitable Greek tragedy. Not that you might not be able to wage your own Horatio Alger victory over the short or perhaps even longer term, but the fundamental issue is reduced real growth rates within the economy as a whole, very likely caused by increasing constraints on energy flows, availability, and costs.

And that is a subject largely ignored by orthodox neoclassical economics, but increasingly the focus of heterodox economics. I'm finding thermoeconomics (a/k/a biophysical economics) and ecological economics rather more powerful in explaining past, recent, and likely future economic events than the neoclassical models. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoeconomics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_economics

mc-lovin3• 13 years ago

Am I the only programmer who doesn't like being economically exploited (in the formal microeconomic sense)? For me, it's demotivating to know I'm putting forth effort for which someone else is reaping huge value.

There is no formal micro-economic sense of exploitation, except perhaps not getting the competitive wage, which is not what you are describing.

skyraider3• 13 years ago

Not getting a wage equal to your productivity at the margin may be considered exploitation in several schools of microeconomics. If an employee provides value X and receives wages X-10, the amount of exploitation is 10.

However, depending on who you talk to, workers are not 'exploited' in a loose sense because they can move to another organization that pays the prevailing wage. But the fact remains that the prevailing wage may be below the worker's contribution to organizational productivity at the margin. Thus, my econ professor still taught that exploitation, in a formal sense, occurs whenever wage(worker) < marginal_productivity(worker).

jwdunne• 13 years ago

I think it's fairly straight forward how to keep any great employee, whether they clean your floors or maintain your $1 million a year generating product. Treat them with respect. This may go as far as allowing them to leave, which seems counter to what we want, but still. "Treat them with respect" is very broad but no matter what angle you think from, it works.

For example, employees get bored because they are consistently doing work which is far below their skill level in a vocation which they haven't fully explored[1]. The respectful thing to do would be to either find work that is more challenging for this employee or allow them to move on to greener pastures, giving them great references and even assisting find their ideal role. If they do move on, whoever used to be our second best employee in that area becomes the best we have, who will be closer to what we need in terms of skills, whilst maintaining a great relationship with the previous employee.

Also, if I'm overseeing an absolute wizard at what they do and they are far better than me at it, they deserve respect by being listened to when they offer advice when it comes to their craft. They deserve recognition of skill and if something isn't feasible or if there's a better way, I damn well better make sure I do it their way for the sake of my product/service/building/whatever and for the sake of my employee's general wellbeing. Hell, if they're that good, perhaps I can entrust them with a little bit more. After all, we should be hiring people to both do the jobs we haven't got the time for anymore and, at the same time, do them better than us.

Telling an employee "do x by this time and you get a promotion" is not respectful either. This will create a bad culture, where cutting corners is rewarded where as doing your best work and offering sound advice is ignored or punished.

It's really interesting to talk about theories of motivation, value and what not, I've done this and applying tactics and strategies like this works but it's overcomplicating shit that can be kept simple: treat everyone with respect, treat everyone as you'd like to be treated. It's very motivating going to your manager and saying "look, I need work that's a bit more challenging" and them replying with "understood mate. give me a bit of time and we'll work something out" (and, for brevity, ignoring the conversation in between of what exactly 'more challenging' means). It's very motivating your manager calling on you to give advice on the best course of action, rather than dictating how things will be done. This is simply respect.

You should aim to give absolute respect to every person you work with, who works under you and works above you. Hell, you should do this for everyone in your life. Whether they return in kind is irrelevant, just keep at it. Sometimes those who haven't treated you right before will warm to you.

[1] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Cha... taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

yekko2• 13 years ago

Pay them far above market.

hkarthik• 13 years ago

That's the easy way out, and in my experience, far more likely to produce "the residue" type of employees mentioned in the article who sticks around due to "golden handcuffs."

yekko2• 13 years ago

Way better than having none left. Then it's game over of C player hiring D players.

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