The way you describe the problem, it sounds like paying them more fixes things and the objections to paying them more are wrong.
And as far as the "career track" aspect goes, have them keep coding part of the time and keep calling them a programmer.
And as far as the "career track" aspect goes, have them keep coding part of the time and keep calling them a programmer.
It sounds like you have a reading comprehension problem?
> And as far as the "career track" aspect goes, have them keep coding part of the time and keep calling them a programmer.
1) You're missing the part where the majority of programmers don't want to be doc writers, aren't qualified to be doc writers, and aren't good at being doc writers.
2) It's not as simple as having them "keep coding part of the time", because the standards for hiring a coder are different from the standards of hiring a doc writer. Apple wouldn't necessarily hire the same person to do both. It could be a rare situation where Apple would consider the same person to be good enough for both jobs. This is like saying of an American football team, "Why not just have the quarterback play defense part of the time?"
Remember, the point of this is to produce high quality docs. Quality over quantity. Apple is already churning out low quality docs.
> Apple is already churning out low quality docs.
The article listed some stats where Apple is not churning out enough docs. So there isn't even quantity
I can see that you have no respect for the difficulty of writing good documentation.
Well that's extremely rude.
You listed objections people might have and I'm calling those objections shallow and bad.
> This is like saying of an American football team, "Why not just have the quarterback play defense part of the time?"
This is a situation where you need experience on the defense to be a good quarterback, and physical shape is irrelevant, and the quarterback is worried about permanent salary loss because other teams don't value quarterbacks. In that case it would make sense to have a single job title and have them do a mix so they stay fresh on their defense experience.
Even if the doc writer isn't the optimal programmer, consider the gap as a training expense and a way to make sure you have enough doc writers applying. If it's a bad idea then there is always the option of paying them even more to compensate for career damage.
And nowhere did I suggest making the normal programmers do the doc writing.