The company I work for now is a big, fast growing and very profitable corporation. It also has a problem retaining top talent.
While big and growing and profitable it is noticeably disturbed that the best people keep leaving. It is trying to fix that and failing miserably.
Here is what is making me leave.
1. Severe lack of control over how I work. A new, crappy source control tool is being shoved down our throats over our objections.
2. Because it is not a tech company, but a company which happens to have software development department, IT has washed their hands of us, and is in fact in open warfare with us. Fun!
3. Software is always seen as the problem. Just don't take it personally. This was told to me by a very senior manager who has been here for many, many years.
4. Official corporate policy STRONGLY discourages contact between software and the rest of the company. Contact I might use to try and fix that "software is always the problem" perception. But nope, not allowed to try.
5. The director of engineering tends to undercut us at random instances. For example, while I was the tech lead on a project he decided certain documents must not leave the company because they ware too sensitive. I was not consulted. It made my job 10x more difficult. Other documents which contained the exact same information + more, were sent out like free hot cakes.
6. A couple of hyper confrontational, screaming, perfectionist control freaks which are cronies of the director of engineering and I happen to report to one of them. Not actually the worst boss possible. Within that loud control freak perfectionist there is a mostly rational engineer. Who is also very technically competent. He just sucks big time as a manager and dealing with him is incredibly emotionally exhausting.
At one point he become so frustrated with another member of our team he literally gave up on him and dumped managing him in my lap. My management of him consisted of talking to him calmly. This resulted in him over-delivering on all his assigned tasks.
7. Corporate red tape bullshit bureaucracy.
8. My team has a few open positions (go figure!) one of them happens to be damn near identical to mine, the position is advertised for 20K more than I am getting paid. This is after I have asked for a raise. After I took a huge project that was supposed to be a train wreck, saved it, shipped it on time, and made a ton of money for the company.
I have an interview with another smaller company at the end of this week.
Wow, do you work at the company where I worked last? It's disheartening to see how common the situation is.
> the position is advertised for 20K more than I am getting paid
In fairness, it's pretty much accepted that you have to switch companies to get a sizable (say, 10%+) raise in IT. Not that it should be this way... but I think it's that way pretty much everywhere.
Interesting, our IT department is also in open warfare with my department. It's because the President of the company comes to me and my people when something needs to get done even if it's something IT should be doing. We have become the Skunkworks of the organization if something needs to get done they bring it here and of course that makes the .Net/IIS/"We only buy Dell" guys angry.
Comments
The company I work for now is a big, fast growing and very profitable corporation. It also has a problem retaining top talent.
While big and growing and profitable it is noticeably disturbed that the best people keep leaving. It is trying to fix that and failing miserably.
Here is what is making me leave.
1. Severe lack of control over how I work. A new, crappy source control tool is being shoved down our throats over our objections.
2. Because it is not a tech company, but a company which happens to have software development department, IT has washed their hands of us, and is in fact in open warfare with us. Fun!
3. Software is always seen as the problem. Just don't take it personally. This was told to me by a very senior manager who has been here for many, many years.
4. Official corporate policy STRONGLY discourages contact between software and the rest of the company. Contact I might use to try and fix that "software is always the problem" perception. But nope, not allowed to try.
5. The director of engineering tends to undercut us at random instances. For example, while I was the tech lead on a project he decided certain documents must not leave the company because they ware too sensitive. I was not consulted. It made my job 10x more difficult. Other documents which contained the exact same information + more, were sent out like free hot cakes.
6. A couple of hyper confrontational, screaming, perfectionist control freaks which are cronies of the director of engineering and I happen to report to one of them. Not actually the worst boss possible. Within that loud control freak perfectionist there is a mostly rational engineer. Who is also very technically competent. He just sucks big time as a manager and dealing with him is incredibly emotionally exhausting.
At one point he become so frustrated with another member of our team he literally gave up on him and dumped managing him in my lap. My management of him consisted of talking to him calmly. This resulted in him over-delivering on all his assigned tasks.
7. Corporate red tape bullshit bureaucracy.
8. My team has a few open positions (go figure!) one of them happens to be damn near identical to mine, the position is advertised for 20K more than I am getting paid. This is after I have asked for a raise. After I took a huge project that was supposed to be a train wreck, saved it, shipped it on time, and made a ton of money for the company.
I have an interview with another smaller company at the end of this week.
Wow, do you work at the company where I worked last? It's disheartening to see how common the situation is.
> the position is advertised for 20K more than I am getting paid
In fairness, it's pretty much accepted that you have to switch companies to get a sizable (say, 10%+) raise in IT. Not that it should be this way... but I think it's that way pretty much everywhere.
>In fairness, it's pretty much accepted that you have to switch companies to get a sizable (say, 10%+) raise in IT
More people need to understand this. Slaving away hoping to "stand out" doesn't work in IT because of caps on compensation increases.
Interesting, our IT department is also in open warfare with my department. It's because the President of the company comes to me and my people when something needs to get done even if it's something IT should be doing. We have become the Skunkworks of the organization if something needs to get done they bring it here and of course that makes the .Net/IIS/"We only buy Dell" guys angry.