Comments on: Nine Things Developers Want More Than Money

By: admin

admin — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 17:02:33 +0000

Of course…you’re not going to pay way below market and have happy developers. That’s not the point of this article. The point is that paying at or above market does not mean you are going to have happy developers. And when you have unhappy developers giving them more money is very unlikely to make them happy. So it’s not to say “developers don’t want money” or “developers will work for free if you give them this,” but to say “once the basics are accounted for in a job (such as market pay) here are some things that will keep developers happy and working at your company.” Again, I am absolutely not saying that developers don’t want money. Developers want money! But there comes a point where you have to go beyond that simplistic solution to keep your developers happy and loyal. Throwing money at a problem shows a lack of creativity. It’s a lot like price wars — if you’re a vendor you never want to compete with another vendor on price because there’s always someone who will go cheaper, and you will eventually become a commodity and lose the game. It’s the same thing with salaries – there is always a company that will be willing to pay more than you, so you have to offer something they can’t or won’t. Long-term, offering more of the “nine things” is a far more sustainable strategy than offering more and more money.

By: http://

http:// — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 09:10:57 +0000

This will keep your developers happy to a point. It won’t keep your developers if you don’t pay them enough or give a reasonable work/life balance. This whole “Developers don’t want money” meme is a lie.

By: http://

http:// — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 18:00:02 +0000

My company in *theory* scores a 9 or so. In practice probably a 4. We are supposed to be able to move around every 18 months or so to different internal jobs if our learning stops, supposed to be getting great recognition, supposed to be working on world class technology, supposed to have the right kind of problems…. this all happens occasionally. We definitely are reminded how much our SW matters frequently. Sometimes are set up to succeed. Management… is the only way to get more advancement sometimes and so is not so great.

By: http://

http:// — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 19:58:22 +0000

Very nice article. It even helped me to put my finger on somethings that I’ve been wanting. My current job, for my personal situation, scores about a 6, but will probably fall to a 5, as I’m nearing the end of the learning curve. Still, I’m happy. Also, I can start new small projects pretty much whenever I want.

By: Bronwen

Bronwen — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 09:21:08 +0000

Love it..hit the nail on the head

By: http://

http:// — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 00:15:58 +0000

Personally, I’ll take the cash, bitch.

By: Neil Mix

Neil Mix — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 07:17:28 +0000

Great post! May I suggest #10? High-quality teammates. Or from another perspective: no dead weight on the team. I’d say that factors into job satisfaction as much as the other nine.

By: Alex Man

Alex Man — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 01:28:18 +0000

I strongly agree on #9. In my previous job, I needed to build a big web application from scratch based on a huge, hard-to-maintain and buggy legacy web application. Because that crappy web app was very well UN-documented, no new hired developer really understand anything about it. Every time we needed to add a new feature to the new web app, we had to conduct several meetings with the senior software engineers to make sure that we were doing things that were consistent with the old web app. And most of the time the senior software engineers were so damn busy and we usually needed to wait for their approval for a day (a whole workday) before writing a single line of code. Some of my co-worker left because they just didn’t want to deal with that crap anymore. All the developers always made fun of that crappy web app. And one of the things that made me sick was that the boss was so proud of that crap and boasted about it all the time. One of this favorite quotes was “See, it’s powerful huh”. Although this was only was of the reasons that made me getting another job, it surely was a big one.

By: Spencer Schmerling

Spencer Schmerling — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 22:59:49 +0000

I just wrote about this in my own blog so I think this is applicable to employees in any industry. I think it touches on what employees place importance on and, in turn, what makes them stay at a company or choose one over others. You clearly defined what companies can do to go above and beyond the rest to ensure retention, happiness and success.

By: http://

http:// — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 15:24:51 +0000

You’re right on developers’ hot spots.

By: http://

http:// — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 12:49:16 +0000

Excellent article !! You seem to somehow know the mind of developers. Your differentiation of developers by hygiene factors is good. I seem to discover where I stand.

By: http://

http:// — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 09:12:01 +0000

‘We’ score 1 1/2. We’ve got #8 covered, but not because its supposed to work that way, it just does. Next to that we get about half a point for being recognized for hard work (#6). Half a point because the people giving the praise, while they’re intentions might be good, are not qualified to recognize the ‘hard’ stuff. Mostly we’re given recognition for the simplest of things, while we’ve build the impossible which nobody notices. That on itself is not exactly motivating. So.. I’m looking forward to my new job. Hopefully things will be better there. I’m well passed the point of trying to fix things. I’m definitely a ‘motivational developer’.

By: http://

http:// — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 03:18:36 +0000

My company would score a 4 for hygiene factors and a 1 for motivation factors, for an overall score of about 3. I am fairly well paid (although underpaid when compared with my peers), but there is no motivation to get anything done. All we do is maintain old software while being promised that the legacy system will go away in favor of a brand new system that we will get to help design and build. The “rewrite” keeps getting pushed off in order to satisfy immediate customer demands, even though these demands would be satisfied by a better, more customizable system (like, say, the “rewrite”). It’s ridiculous the amount of customer-specific development that exists in the code, and management insists that the trend continue, because if it doesn’t, “customers will start to leave.” The amount of legacy code is ruining our jobs, and turnover is high. I find this article inspiring and plan to talk at work about some of the points it makes. Thanks.

By: http://

http:// — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 20:27:46 +0000

For one, this can also apply to IT grunts — is the environment stagnant and in low-budget maintenance mode or is the environment energetic and keeping up with corporate demands and new/alternative technologies? Also, this phenomenon can apply to teams smaller than specified. Companies with more than 50 employees and a non-flat management tree will have a mix of “management styles”. It is novel to witness a situation where everyone is underpaid but group “A” is happy to be at work and group “B” is burning up the printers with resumes.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 20:01:23 +0000

The company I work for used to score about 5. We got taken over and now it’s about 0. I counted twice, just to make sure. Oddly enough, all the developers, bar one, are looking for jobs.

By: http://

http:// — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 19:33:58 +0000

A 1, maybe.

By: rwalling

rwalling — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 16:40:53 +0000

The funny thing is that line was written before Joel’s article was published, and originally read “A Lisp compiler.” When Joel published his article with almost exactly the same line I changed it to FORTRAN.

By: Mark Allanson

Mark Allanson — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 16:10:35 +0000

“At least the ones who realize how hard it is to write a Perl compiler. From scratch. In FORTRAN. On a Vic 20.” Nice shout-out to Joel there

By: Kym Phillpotts

Kym Phillpotts — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 06:42:28 +0000

Great article Rob! I think you’ve really touched on some important points here. For the record I have done my score and come up with 3.5.

By: http://

http:// — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 05:08:25 +0000

This is a great round-up of traits I look for in a company. Thanks! My company, a start-up developing an open-source storage software, scores an 8.5. Two of those points (having a voice and freedom to decide without having to consult with my boss and others) don’t apply to many others, so it’s a subjective tally. But we’re so communist that everyone from managemer to developer feels personal ownership in the company and its projects, and this is what ultimately makes a company great and fun to work for.