There's really only 3 non-exec roles in a software company, only 2 of them cut code, and one is just a placeholder for the junior devs.
Want to know how to keep people? Give them a little pay rise every 6 months and let them own a part of the product instead of having a no-responsibility JIRA burn and churn roster.
My answer to that question would be three parts:
1. Make sure that you agree on what success looks like, at the micro and macro levels.
2. Discuss what that person needs to achieve success for both of you - mentoring, training, tooling, access, time, money, whatever.
3. Frequently make sure they actually have what they need.
When people are regularly missing out on what you call success, you’ll probably get rid of them. When they’re missing out on what they call success, they’ll get rid of you by leaving. Don’t assume you’ve understood what they think success looks like until you’ve really discussed it with them individually.
I’ve had exceptional coders who were able and willing to make valuable contributions to the codebase, but needed to spoonfed the requirements. Maybe success in your team is a sense of ownership, in which case that person may not be right for your team - and that’s ok. Just don’t try shoehorning them into something they don’t want to do and expect successful results.
A ton of people want a calm, quiet, peaceful workplace with not a lot of pressure.
If people need to "beg" for a payrise, then you're doing it all wrong anyway.
And once you've hired them, it's what 1 to 1s for, instead of "give me a status update on all your projects".
Everyone gets the same raise as long as they aren't obviously failing? A lot of people who have a more competitive personality would be completely demotivated by something like that.
I feel the urge to constantly outdo oneself and everybody else tends to burn people out (it has burned out me), and innovation or change just to complete a checkmark on a CV can lead to unnecessary and abandoned projects. Like it happens a lot at Google for example.
I find this worldview to be very detrimental to teamwork. People are different, we have diverse motivations and personalities, and we have to find ways to use this diversity to our mutual advantage, instead of trying saying that some of those are right and some are wrong.
I strongly disagree, constant competition and a desire to be the best/most payed in a team dissolves cooperation. Why should I contribute to a team if person A tries to "win teamwork". I'm not saying you do that, and I'm not saying I believe that, because:
> People are different, we have diverse motivations and personalities, and we have to find ways to use this diversity to our mutual advantage, instead of trying saying that some of those are right and some are wrong.
I absolute agree with that statement. Mutual advantage to me is exactly that, even if I know someone else is smarter than me and can produce more quality work than me, the fact that I still contribute to the team success should mean I also get regular raises. Even if I only do the menial work those go-getters deem not worth their time.
Getting regular raises for contributing to the everyday work of a company is appreciation, and I gladly continue to the company if I feel valued. But not at the expense of my physical or mental health. If have the feeling I constantly have to outsmart and outdo everyone else just to keep my job and stagnate, my appreciation for the company drops. It's worst when the company instills the feeling that I'm replaceable at a whim if I don't put it 110%.
Again, I'm not saying you think that way. I'm saying that cooperation and inter team competition are orthogonal, but in my experience competition can demotivate people who otherwise deliver regular, good work. Not exceptional, and exceptional isn't always needed. Constant good work is more valuable to me that irregular exceptional.
I understand that you wouldn't be motivated by competition, and that's fine. I wouldn't want to work in a company that forces everybody to compete. That's actually my point: working in a company that builds it motivation structure that suits only one personality type is wrong, whatever personality type that is.
What you pay me changes my family experience, so I care deeply about it. What you pay someone else doesn’t, so I don’t care about the latter.
I know someone who quit a job at Boeing years ago in part because he was at the bottom of the pay ladder doing tons of work while the highest paid non-manager in his department didn't do anything except keep the printers stocked with paper.
Throwing incentives on competitive people can be toxic, but the opposite problem is that when high performers don't get rewarded the organization will rot.
This works for most people, but some are hyper-focused on comp and will ask every few weeks about why they're not leveling up and making more.