externalreality

I'll start by saying "Agile Project Management Is Farce and does more harm than good". I've been researching tech turnover for a bit now, with a focus on programmer turnover, and with no reservations I can say that so-called Agile project management is a leading cause.

The goal of Agile project management is to make software development a more customer-centric and more iterative. This is a noble goal. Agile however, whether intentionally or unintentionally, has had a secondary effect of robbing developers of job satisfaction.

Here let me give you an example. About 10 years ago I worked with somewhat of an influential in the Ruby community. We both worked at an "Agile" software consultancy. After finishing a task on our project work board I remember watching as that developer went back to claim the task the followed logically from what he just finished. He was shocked when he saw that the task's card has been claimed by another. He then said, right there in the office, quite loudly and openly "I am not getting the satisfaction of completing a thing when working like this."

So Agile robs developers of sense of satisfaction of ownership and completion. Well if the developer is being robbed of this satisfaction then to whom is this satisfaction being transferred? Well, project managers. Who get rewarded for the "velocity" of the team, which is more of a product of the hard work and less of a product of task management.

So developers have three things making them want out:

1) No ownership satisfaction 2) No completion satisfaction 3) Someone else taking credit for their work

Ok, this are not the only reasons for developer turn over but this is a big one. There are others like toxic environments, Title VII discrimination, and so on.

It can be denied that 1.5 - 2.0 year developer turnover at tech companies is pretty woeful. We are dropping the ball somewhere and its hurting business bottom lines and developer careers.

Good developers who are open minded and free spirited don't trust employers. This is the conclusion I have drawn after spending far to much time researching articles and academic papers theorizing why tech turnover is so high. There are 2 reason actually:

1. Companies over hype the position (like requiring an Architect's training when the job really requires a construction worker). The Architect will likely leave the job in 1.5 years (which is the average turnover rate at many tech companies)

2. Trust between companies and tech developers is low. Tech environments are pretty hostile at times and developers absorb all of this. They wait for employers to address these problems but only receive lip service and wishful thinking. Trust devolves. After multiple rounds of this, developers develop a general distrust for companies in general and leave at the first sign of higher pay or better benefits. Loyalty is rare.

These are the major take aways I got from hawking every article and paper on the topic I can find. If you have a good article on the topic and care to share it, please do. I will definitely read it carefully.

I see library after library, and tool after tool released to help minimize the massive boilerplate associated with react and to help manage front-end state. Does anyone else feel like a good GUI designer over React (like React Studio) is the answer? This, instead of just different add-ons and different takes on state management?

Sometimes code isn't the best human interface representation.

When I was younger I learned to program because I wanted to write a program. I never wanted to "Learn C" I just kept on reading chapters of K&R so that I could write my program (Just a small game). Now, decades later, I just finished reading "The Rust Programming Language" with no real desire to write a program -- I just wanted to read the book. Great language but I have this sort of empty feeling -- kind of like "What now". I wonder how many people suffer from this. I'll likely will never get paid to write Rust, and given I find programming to be the the least lucrative way to put my tech skills to use, I guess I'll likely never get to use Rust. How many people learn languages that they will never get to use?

I've seen articles breaking down the science of white supremacist shooting. I've seen articles on the lack of diversity in tech. They seem to get flagged pretty frequently by hacker news. Why? Do they get flagged because the comments start to get out of control? Or is it something else?