what developers want

full transcript

auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

So let's go ahead and dive in to what this live show is talking, what my goal is for this live show is I think a lot of times, and this is from a hiring major's perspective, and I'm just trying to shed some light is that there is this fundamental issue within technology and if I am wrong, you can at me. You can at me, but there's a fundamental issue within technology for a promotion perspective that that developers that the good developers have to be promoted to leadership. Or the bad developers, we need to get them into leadership because because they're burning down the code base and we need to get them out.

So there's this really jacked up version of leadership within the technology community. So what my goal is over the next few minutes is to educate hiring managers, but also give a little bit to the job seekers, because you're a job seeker, I don't want you to log off. But I also want to just again talk about finding your why and what's important, right? And so for me, the first thing I see within software development is that hey listen, like I think with an organization, you need to have a leadership track and you need to have an individual contributor track right. I had Nate Taylor on from Plural site, I believe it's this week, days kind of run together, but he was talking about his experience at Caterpillar.

So Caterpillar, they had an individual individual contributor track. I think they had rankings or something because he talked about going up to 20s or 21 or like level 21. But basically like you worked up the individual track, but you own a specific product right. So he was talking about this guy that that like you know, own like this entire product of Caterpillar, that's like the lighting or something right lighting for construction and stuff. And so like this guy knew all about it, all about the product right. But he was an individual contributor right. But he had the motivation to dive in more to the product right.

So I love that I love that Caterpillar did that where there's a certain level that you can get up to his individual contributor right. And so he says Nate said, I promise I'm not just recapping my conversation with Nate, but it was so important where basically Nate was like you know some organizations like plateau individual contributor, but you keep going up as a as a people manager. And I just don't think that that needs to be the case right. I think companies need to be very intentional with with encouraging individual contributor and hands on the keyboard for and so you can be a lifer that company but also from a leadership perspective.

Another thing I see to companies and individuals to like software developers like they not all of them, some of them they love to mentor right. One of the things I see day in day out is like man like like is this is this going to be a is there going to have any mentorship like I don't want to lead. But is there mentorship right. I think mentorship if you can if you can give developers. If you can give it I to organizations if you can give developers a way to mentor as part of their like rise through the ranks. But not necessarily lead immediately I think that's huge because so many developers want to teach right I have so many developers talk to me about national software school shutout national software school they're fantastic.

But like you know they they're like man like should I go teach or I want to be a part time teacher and all this stuff like there's such an intrinsic motivation. For developers to want to teach or mentor but not necessarily lead so organizations need to be mindful that so organization so far we got being mindful of individual contributors right. rising up in the ranks in the company maybe owning a product being a SME subject matter expert within that specific product. And then they can stay with your company forever right they can rise up they can be level 22 25 whatever but in my opinion I think organizations who.

can. well, do it very, very well. I'm gonna put a pause on it, I've had some comments. Stu absolutely brother, I appreciate you. Edson goes, I guess developers want a non-toxic environment and be recognized, absolutely. Not receive Oscar statues. Yes, to achieve the goals, the management developers work as a team, this is best, absolutely. I think Edson says it, right? You don't need dagg on trophies, but you need some affirmations, right? And that's incredibly important with an IT organization is that you need to have affirmations on an individual contributor and also team, such as things like, for me, I have to constantly be aware with my team, right?

To make sure I give shout out to affirmations, even when it seems small, you have to give affirmations, you have to give shots. I love this, Jason comes in and goes, I think what I like is when a manager doesn't just say, no, that's not what I wanna try again, but it gives actual guidance or notes to reference. Too many times I've had managers give no direction, which is fine if it's for teaching, but not if it gets punished when it's not perfect. Yeah, I mean, listen, Jason, this is a whole another conversation, absolutely. But I think managers for a retention perspective need to be open to individuals wherever they go, or wherever they wanna do, right?

And not just say no, that's not what I wanna try again, but say, hey, listen, Jason, I hear you, I hear you, that's one thing I'm trying to pick up in my marriage, I hear you, but also from leading within my organization. Right, I hear you, Jason. We've tried this before, it's failed, here's what we've done. Do you think you can approach this problem differently? And then Jason, if Jason goes, you know what, that's how I'd approach it to, so maybe it's not a big deal. Jason feels validated because he was spoken to, he was acknowledged about what he wants to do, and then they come to a solution.

So again, that's incredibly important. Again, managers need to constantly be asking around, what do you wanna do, what do you wanna do, where do you wanna go, where do you wanna go, how can it help, how can it help, right? Few other things, Alicia, my man Alicia, hey Alicia, and I, we've got some things brewing. We got some things brewing that I'm very excited about, which will be very, very soon. Alicia goes, just cause you are in individual contribute, doesn't mean you don't influence. Building that influential skills key as an architect product under your need to influence decisions a lot. Listen, this is, so I tweet about this all the time, just because you're not a leader, doesn't mean you aren't a leader.

Does that make sense? Just because you are not a leader, doesn't mean you are a leader. There are so many individuals, my organization, that aren't considered leaders, but they are impacting me. They're impacting me to be better, right? There are individuals, and they know who they are, if they watch this, right? And so for me, I think you need to be aware that just because you don't have a leadership title, you are a leader, especially been the organization for any amount of time right now. I love that Alicia, thanks buddy. Mentoring really helps with developing knowledge. You have to make sure you're sharing corrective information.

Yeah, right? And so this is another thing with mentorship. I think it's incredibly important. I think you need a mentorship program within your organization. Basically, in my mind, it's like diet leadership, right? Because if you have a mentoring track, cause that's kind of how I got started at Make-O, is basically I was a lead or mentoring like three people. And we tried that out, tried that out, had huge success that I moved to more of a manager also. I think mentorship, if you're a hiring manager, I think mentorship could be a very easy way to eat an easy leadership. I think another thing too, that that individuals want as well is, is this kind of goes on the individual contributor track?

Is they want to be able to tinker with things, right? I see a lot of things where, I see a lot of times where individuals like want to learn new stuff, like on the job, and they want a tinker and they want to do this, they want to do that. That's incredibly important. And so I think hiring managers companies need to be aware of that as well. That's a little bit more an individual contributor track. Let's talk about leadership track, right? So we talked about mentoring, right? As a way to get into leadership, then we grow within leadership with an organization. But I think another thing too, is it doesn't need to be looked down upon if that person gets barn out of leadership after five years, and they go back an individual contributor track, right?

That needs to be embraced within the organization. That needs to be embraced within cultures that, wow, Tom or Susan has enough awareness where they can't run this way as a leader for three, four years. They can't do it for 10 years. So they want to take a break and step down from leadership and own a specific part of the product or whatever, right? So again, that's incredibly important as well. And things to keep in mind for as you're growing leadership tracks. And the reason why I want to come and talk about this today is because organizations, companies, hiring agencies, you have to keep your people engaged so they will leave you.

They will leave you. I mean, honestly, I think there needs to be, there is more of a burden right now in leaders within tech organizations to make sure they are tending to their people and engaging their people and making sure their people are enjoying what they're doing because they will get picked off. I will pick them off. JK, not really, but I may pick them off. Unless you work with me, then I won't pick them off. You see how this works? You work with me. I obviously don't take your people away from you. So again, I'm just saying all these things because I've been talking to a lot of engineers that are on the job search.

I say, there's one question that says, why you're on the job search? Why are you on the job search? Why are you on the job search? This whole entire topic is like 75% of the reason why they're on the job search, right? They're not growing, they're not being compensated, they're not feeling validated, like there's no growth opportunity. Like these are all the things, like everything I'm sharing to you today, is everything I've heard over the last 4,000 people I've met from the engineer and side of things, right? So I'm not just like making this shit up. Elliot, mentors at our company have come along organically and they are shaping a standard that's provided vision and provides buying within the culture.

This has helped devs become missionaries rather than mercenaries. Ooh, Elliot, that'll preach, I love that. I love that. In our company, I have come along organically and are shaping a standard. Yes, I love that, right? I think mentorship is such a good way to kind of get into things and also develop culture, right? If you have people that want to step up and be mentors but don't want to be leaders, that helps culture. There's a lot of people on my team that want to be mentors that they don't want to lead, helps culture, right? It's incredibly important. Elliot, thank you, hope you don't know about it.

And so now how to bad, I've had bad and amazing manager in my career, but it's important for each of us to extract lessons, learn and voice. Yeah, I mean, here's the deal, right? Like companies that are losing right now aren't changing. They're not changing, they're leadership ways, they're not changing, they're on site policy, they're not changing, they're tech stacked, they're not changing, they're not changing any of that, right? And so like my thing is, is that like, like people need to learn, people need to learn and understand that you need to be asking yourself what do we need to change right now, right? I'm not saying change your entire business model, but I'm saying how do you do things internally to engage your individuals on a day and day basis?

So that's all I got today y'all. I appreciate y'all hanging with me today. It means so much. At me, comment me, let me know if you have any questions. I'll stay on here and answer any more, throw up any more comments, any comments, concerns. At me, comment me. Again, few other things, taildissen.com, resume template. 10 questions of stuff for recruiter. My virtual 100% remote job board is now live. So check that out, share it to friends, hiring managers. You're about to see all of my candidates, no names. You're about to see all of my camps that I have available that I've screened that I like as well.

So more to come there. Finally, text me 615-235-5650. Listen, my text community has been going off lately. There are so many individuals that are getting jobs because of my text messaging community. So go ahead, join that one text message a day. I won't spam you. And y'all, appreciate it. Thank you again. I'm off tomorrow or off. I'm off tomorrow. Sorry. I'm off Monday. So I'll be with y'all in Tuesday. Thank y'all again. I appreciate y'all having a good one.