Why developers leave: 8 reasons

There is such a phrase “No matter how well you raise a child, he will not care what to say to your psychoanalyst.” The same can be said about working with employees. No matter how well you work in the company, your employees will have something to say about the reasons for leaving the job interview - this is normal. But risks can always be minimized, and the life of an employee within a company can be increased.

We decided to analyze the main reasons for the departure of developers from previous places. This is not an in-depth study, but a short slice in the moment: we looked at 175 notes following the results of communication with developers, which are going on at different stages of our projects, chose the most vivid statements and grouped them into eight topics.
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For each topic there are recommendations for representatives of companies and employees who will help the two parties or to establish cooperation, or to part with minimal negative consequences.

Unimplemented workflows

The leader of our collection. It occurs in more than 60% of the reasons when changing jobs. The peculiarity is that this is a fairly broad concept, which includes management errors, software flaws, and a shortage of specialists to accomplish the tasks set.

“I left my last job at the end of last year, now I’m doing custom development. The development team had very few employees who could not find the right people for a long time, which was why there were problems with the work processes. ”

“At the current place, there are no well-established workflows for a long time: there is not enough testing department, all tasks have to be done in a short time without a deep dive, teams do not have time to write autotests.”

“There is no one who could competently build processes, you have to redo many things. There is a lack of specifics, I would like to work in a competent team and consult with professional colleagues in professional matters. ”

If you are an employer and want to understand how the outgoing employees perceive the company’s work processes, use the exit interview. It can be both personal and in the form of a survey. Its essence is to clarify the reasons for leaving through such questions: “what convinced you to move to another company?”, “Did you have enough resources to work?”, “What would you miss in the new workplace?”. It is recommended to conduct such an interview, when the company does not owe anything to the employee (salary paid, work record given), so that the employee does not think that his answers may affect payments or other bonuses from the company.

If you are a developer , clarify with your guide before you even quit, what is the cause of the inefficiency of workflows, how can this be corrected. When interviewing new companies, you may be asked questions like: “have you tried to influence this somehow?” Or “have you spoken with management on this topic?” To understand how active you are in the event of problems.

Leadership problems

For this reason, there is a phrase that has managed to get bored: "They come to work in the company, but they leave the manager." We will supplement it: “they leave from a manager, several managers or the entire top management”. This is a process that cannot be influenced. For example, because of a change in top management, the company's general strategy is changing, a new positioning in the market is taking place, so the company can react with an outflow of employees even without the desire of the management to optimize the team itself.

“I do not see any support from the management regarding changes and innovations (for example, to connect testers at the moment of architectural planning). Together with the team we are trying to establish processes. When I first came to the company, there was not enough experience and knowledge, but now the mess has become obvious: the attitude of management is demotivating. ”

“I began to consider something new for myself, since they are not satisfied with the processes in the current location: the project manager commits with the management for a certain time, but does not take into account the opinion of the developers.”

“I decided to look for a job because there are a lot of internal changes at the current place at the top management level, which entail the departure of developers by whole teams.”

If you are an employer , work on feedback tools. And accept the fact that in the event of a change of charismatic leader, part of the team can leave with him.

If you are a developer , try not to make a sharp decision about dismissal during rumors about a change of leadership - see how this actually affects the processes in the company. But for peace of mind, the labor market can always have time to monitor.

Financial problems at the company

Probably the only reason for leaving, which does not cause additional questions from new employers, if the candidate is not a commercial director, or even the project founder, of course.

“I decided to look for a job because since the new year, the company has gone with salary payments. Unfortunately, they began to focus not on the quality of the product, but on the speed of the release of new features, reduced the testers department. Initially, there were 10 developers in the team, now only 3-4 people are left. ”

“The company doesn’t have the best situation with the business part, they don’t buy the developed solution, but I don’t want to write code“ to the table ”.

If you are an employer , budget and budget again! Try not to hire 60 developers at the beginning of the year in order to reduce it to 50 by the end of the year.

If you are a developer , know that the labor code says: “In case of delay in paying salaries for more than 15 days, the employee has the right, having notified the employer in writing, to suspend work for the entire period until payment of the delayed amount.” During the period of suspension of work, you may be absent from the workplace during your working hours, for the sake of, for example, interviews at a new place of work.

Unfulfilled promises: expectations / reality

Sometimes at the interview so that the candidate accepts the offer, hiring managers can embellish the current situation or promise very attractive tasks / projects. If the choice of work will only take place according to a critical criterion, then, in case of his absence, the candidate will immediately resign. Therefore, experienced hiring managers do not rush to embellish workflows or tasks, and even talk about the difficulties encountered in their work, so that the candidate clearly understands what he agrees to, and the team did not suffer because of staff turnover.

“I left company X due to the fact that the new mobile development department in the Moscow office delivered for revision the old project, although initially they promised to develop a new one. The American colleagues were given a new application to work. ”

“I decided to start looking for a job, because at the current place they promised a strong team and interesting tasks, but as a result, the development department began to disband, many developers managed to leave, and the workflows were unimplemented. Initially, the team consisted of 11 people on the front end, now there are 7 people left. ”

“I liked the work according to tasks, but the initial agreements on the conditions were not respected, which is why I had to change jobs.”

If you are an employer , do not make promises that are impossible to keep, or they have an extremely low probability to come true. For example, if you plan to open an office in the United States, but for this event it is necessary to overcome a certain profit margin, tell the candidate: “We will open an office in the United States if we fulfill the sales plan by at least 90%”. It is not necessary to open all the numbers, it is enough transparency.

If you are a developer , it will be harder to know the real working conditions and the degree of attractiveness of the tasks. Some companies arrange test days with the subsequent payment, some within the framework of the test task give a touch on the technology on the project - this is the best option if you are not sure that the expectations and the reality will converge. Word of mouth may help, but it is advisable to rely on several sources.

The desire to change working conditions

The criterion, which, in the case of the company's inflexibility, becomes the final point in the decision to change work.

“I work remotely, I don’t have enough teamwork, I would like to find an interesting job in the office, I want more movement, sharing experience with colleagues and more involvement in the process.”

“The company cannot provide official employment, which also affected the change of job.”

“Several times a week I had to call up with work colleagues from the States, and because of the time difference, I had to constantly stay up late at work, which was also not very convenient.”

“I decided to leave the last job last month because of the constant reworking on weekends and the frequent jobs of all hands.”

If you are an employer , your main assistants are official registration and a flexible start to the day. If you can not guarantee a permanent remote work, then you can do a certain number of days remotely per week or month. A free work schedule allows employees to handle personal matters without compromising workflows. Although one of our examples above was a developer looking for work in an office, each candidate has his or her own set of requirements for an employer. And yes, warn about recycling if they occur.

If you are a developer , look for a job that matches your needs. If the conservative structure can affect the flexibility of working hours, then definitely not on the distance of work.

Professional Development

The most positive reason why developers change jobs. But some employers are frightened away by thinking something like this: “Oh, and he won’t be bored with us? what if it leaves in a few months? ” And it’s good if you think so, because in most cases it is obvious that the candidate and the tasks are not suitable for each other.

“In general, everything suits me at the current place, but I lack professional development. Interesting work in a financial company, and this is what the proposed position is like. ”

“I am working on project X related to robotics. I decided to do a search, because now I only work on the backend and there is nobody to learn from ”.

“I was looking for a job, because I would like to work on a more interesting project with which it was possible to develop together professionally, performing more complex and interesting tasks. Now the project is at the stage of stagnation, there will be no global challenges in the near future. ”

“I have been working in company X for 2 years now. I am developing both iOS and Android applications, which is not very convenient, because I initially came to iOS and would like to develop more in this direction. ”

If you are an employer , discuss at the interview stage how the developer sees your development. Does he need a mentor, internal meetings, access to courses or literature, what technologies he wants to learn or wants to improve management - knowing this, you can create comfortable conditions for development, and, therefore, for work.

If you are a candidate , decide in which direction you want to move, what to study and how, and look for it from a future employer. Enough for you new technologies on the project or need more lecture presentation.

Coding VS Management

The reason for leaving, which, when management wins, becomes critical. It occurs mainly in leading developers and timlidov - not everyone is ready to improve the experience of managing a team.

“I joined the company in the team to another QA, but the mentoring did not last long - after 2 months I was left alone with three projects. She picked up the tools for solving problems and searched for information. Then she became a leading tester, now there are already 5 people in the team. But such growth was more a necessity than a sincere desire: now I’m looking for positions without working with a team, because I want to develop technically. ”

“I play the role of the lead of the video services team. The ratio of tasks is approximately 50/50 (writing the code / duty of the lead - distribution of tasks, review). Now I want coding to prevail. ”

“The team was quite small and consisted of one backend and one front-end developer, two content managers were often involved in the work. Initially they were engaged in the development of three sites of online stores, a little later four more online stores appeared. He left the company, because he realized that he liked developing more than management tasks. In addition, management began to put KPI on sales to the development department. ”

If you are an employer : conduct internal career conversations to understand where the employee wants to grow. Even if the conditions of work you can not change, you will be ready for the potential care of the developer.

If you are a developer , try to quickly convey to the manual what you don’t like. If you like the new lead role, but you doubt yourself, conferences or meeting rooms for team leaders will help you, for example, TeamLead Conf.

Uninteresting tasks / scope

A related term of social networking is associated with this cause: burnout. But we would call it a leap in professional development: when you begin to perform difficult tasks on automatism and you feel that every day the thought is working less and less.

“I worked on an application with scheduled payments, on a new feature with a personal financial manager, and was engaged in maintaining the old code. I left because I was transferred to a team that was engaged in a hybrid application, and it was not very interesting, there was little work, they wrote native code that transmitted data, got bored ”.

“I made a decision to leave company X, now I transfer projects. A bit tired of banking products, plus I don’t always see the involvement of colleagues. ”

“I work for company X and are considering proposals. On the current project, which led the last two years, all the functionality has been implemented and no new tasks are expected. ”

If you are an employer and cannot offer new projects and tasks, then it remains only to be glad that a strong specialist has grown in your company.

If you are a candidate , and you realize that it’s getting boring, discuss with the manager what new tasks can give you a job - if there are no problems, then there is no choice, get ready for a smooth transition to a new company. What it is undesirable to do: to count without talking with the management that you have no options for growth - only an open conversation can put everything in its place.

Instead of output

Rarely employees change jobs for one reason. Very often, initially agreeing with any offer and knowing about the lack of a future job (inconvenient location of the office or the need for processing), the candidate balances it with advantages: growth opportunities, non-trivial tasks or a highly professional team. But as soon as the minuses begin to exceed the pluses (it turns out that there is no place to grow anymore, an interesting project replaces the routine), then the monitoring of the labor market begins. Therefore, the reasons for leaving are like this: “no large-scale tasks are foreseen and I don’t feel the team’s involvement”, “they don’t index wages and a mess in work processes”, “I want to learn new technologies, but I am tired of the current sphere”. This, as we said at the beginning of the article, is inevitable, but not irreparably.

Katerina Gavrilova , Founder of the DigitalHR Recruiting Agency