Whats motivating software developers and keeping them engaged?

What do developers care about in 2020?

If you're a recruiter or hiring manager that's selling software engineering roles based on free pizza and in-office Street Fighter 2 Turbo, the chances are that ain't going to cut it for most candidates in 2020. 

I get a lot of questions on what makes developers tick/stay in their roles. My clients have been making multiple offers to engineers recently, only to lose out to the Googles/Atlassians/Canvas of Sydney. 

First off, I would say - you won't compete with these businesses. They have so many resources and market clout now. My view is, don't take it personally if your candidate decides to go there.

Instead, think about what some of the achievable things you can do to make your team or company an attractive proposition for Software Developers? 

Here's my opinion on what's attracting software developers in 2020 & how to retain them:

Flexible working; 

Often, this is one of the first questions that candidates ask me when I speak to them. 

Atlassian has been hiring 100% remote engineers recently in places like Adelaide, Darwin and Perth and is finding some great talent as a result. 

Some companies with flexible working arrangements are allowing at least one day a week working from home as a starting point. That does not mean they have to have a specific reason to work that day at home (for example, they are expecting a delivery or something). It means one day a week allocated to them (sometimes more), provided their tech lead has signed off on it and is aware. If you're telling staff its fine to work from home but there must be a reason, you're actually saying working from home isnt allowed and they'll also feel un-comfortable in asking for it - feeling like they're getting special treatment over their colleagues.

In Sydney / NSW, lots of people live up to 2 hours away, each way from work. So that extra Friday working from home can make a huge difference. A lot of developers are more productive when people aren't tapping on their shoulder in an office, and many companies report an increase in productivity when done right.

Tech Leads and managers do expect engineers to be present on Zoom/Skype for their stand-ups though and also check through what they produced/contributed when working from home. Tools like Gitlab & Github can be practical tools at measuring output\quality.

Flexible & remote working can be harder for smaller businesses with development teams of less than 10 to both grasp and champion. Managers concerns include: 'I’ve got to have one rule for everyone, and I can’t have an office with no one in it’. Ultimately, this comes down to trust and structuring your teams week as best you can and being honest with people in your organisation about which roles can offer flexible working and which cannot. 

This is one of the most significant trend shifts in the market, so if you are not offering flexible working, be sure that other companies that can will be dangling this benefit in front of your developers.

Modern technology; 

A fairly obvious one. I’ve seen a few developers quit jobs soon after they started because they had been sold on the fact that they would be working on the latest tech. When they started their new role, they were put in a legacy team and told ‘you’ll be in one of the newer teams in 6 months or so’. It is relatively easy to feel you’ve been led on here a little. So make sure if you’re a hiring manager or recruiter and you’re telling people they’ll be in a particular team, that that’s the team they’ll be in from day 1.

Having a say; 

I have recently seen software developers who have quit their jobs 2 - 3 months in because they felt like they are not allowed to contribute to a project. Many senior engineers feel they should have a certain level of independence/responsibility to speak up and have input on the way things are done. These are often developers with 10+ years of experience and they want to work in places where solutions are discussed and differences in opinions are heard. There is a commercial aspect here – you cannot just go changing a dev language on a multi-million dollar programme, but if a manager or tech lead is telling the entire team that it's their way or the high-way and the team cant openly discuss other better or faster ways to do things, it often takes away the enjoyment element.

Making sure all the devs in a scrum have input into what’s going on / feel included and can voice an opinion is a big plus at work.

Career paths/learning; 

Telling a candidate or your employees that they can get promoted and grow their career path is excellent, but how are you tracking and measuring success? 

A process I’ve seen work is where a manager sits down with a developer and maps out five key objectives that they want to achieve in a quarter. This is an excellent way to measure this and keep everyone accountable. Have a profile set up for them individually in whatever software tool/CRM you use and tick it off as you go. These can be a mix of things, for example, three professional outcomes and two personal goals that are still related to their work.

If your business has a bonus scheme of some sort too, their dollars awarded to them can be tracked against their OKRs (objectives / key results)..

Achieving a certification too can be an excellent incentive for a developer. Paying for an online course to be done at home (example, an AWS cert) can be beneficial to them personally and also you as a business.

Lunch/learning sessions on a Friday

Brown bag lunches/learning session – call them what you want. Everyone knows Friday afternoons can be fairly un-productive at a lot of workplaces. So wrangling the team together, grabbing a beer, some snacks and having a brainstorming session about what technology people are learning about at home and what could potentially be brought into the stack is a great team-bonding exercise. Perhaps one person could be chosen each week to do a short talk on something they are learning about at home?

These are just a few insights that I feel are current at the moment. Im sure there are many more; salary reviews, hackathons, allowing a portion of developers time at work, to work on a personal project - the list goes on.

What ways are you keeping your staff engaged in technology at the moment? Id love to hear! 

Comment down below..