Why is the retention of good software developers so much harder these days, and what can we do to solve it?

He looked at me.

Tears rolling down her cheeks.

“I’m going to get fired, and I will have to commute at least 1.5 hours daily again.”

My co-worker wasn’t a great employee for his job in tech.

He wasn’t a developer.

I knew he’d struggled to find another job.

In the meantime -

He’d do anything to keep the one he had.

For others with long commuting time, the ones who know they have high-demand skills and can work from remote, they leave. They job-hop. They do whatever they can to get reduce the commuting time.

Because when you have a family, the only thing on your mind is to stay with your kids.

Working at a company is no longer about how much you like the boss.

Or whether you care about the company’s mission.

To you -

You’re only thinking about one thing: How can I get home faster?

Because of that, you’re less likely to stick around when another employer offers remote work. The data shows it’s true.

Longer commute times reduce job satisfaction.

According to UWE Bristol, an additional 10 minutes (each way) of commuting time is associated with the equivalent effect on job satisfaction as a 19% reduction in gross personal income - source -

When you dig into the facts around what drives people to leave companies, you realize there’s no job-hopper problem.

It’s only a side-effect of the actual problem -

Long commute time.