Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Software Developers Are Now More Valuable To Companies Than Money, Says Survey (cnbc.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the new-breed-of-corporate-leaders dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: As our global economy increasingly comes to run on technology-enabled rails and every company becomes a tech company, demand for high-quality software engineers is at an all-time high. A recent study from Stripe and Harris Poll found that 61 percent of C-suite executives believe access to developer talent is a threat to the success of their business. Perhaps more surprisingly -- as we mark a decade after the financial crisis -- this threat was even ranked above capital constraints. And yet, despite being many corporations' most precious resource, developer talents are all too often squandered. Collectively, companies today lose upward of $300 billion a year paying down "technical debt," as developers pour time into maintaining legacy systems or dealing with the ramifications of bad software. This is especially worrisome, given the outsized impact developers have on companies' chances of success. Software developers don't have a monopoly on good ideas, but their skill set makes them a uniquely deep source of innovation, productivity and new economic connections. When deployed correctly, developers can be economic multipliers -- coefficients that dramatically ratchet up the output of the teams and companies of which they're a part.

8 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. So why not treat them well? by gweihir · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Naa, that would be un-capitalist. Developers must be cheap wage-slaves that do not have a real career-path and are unable to find a job once they hit 50. That will surely not have any impact on whether smart people go into software writing or not, right?

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:So why not treat them well? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't understand this. I am 44, have been doing software development since college. I am already a millionaire (if you include my 401k savings), and am on track to be a multi-millionaire when I retire. I have never worked an 80 hour week, and only had a few 60 hours and one 70 hour week in my entire career.

      It helps that I never married or had kids, and invested wisely. But even so, I hear these horror stories about how software developers are treated and I just have not seen it.

      The city I live in is a tech hub, not a middle-of-nowhere city with no tech jobs. Maybe more people just need to move here.

    2. Re:So why not treat them well? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But even so, I hear these horror stories about how software developers are treated and I just have not seen it.

      Me neither. I have worked for companies that had catered meals, free soda, laundry service, sky diving bonding trips, etc. I have had plenty of opportunities to travel. I have worked some late nights, and done a few death marches, but those only lasted a few weeks, out of a career lasting decades.

      Software developers are likely the most spoiled employees in the history of the world.

      People will alway whine.

  2. And yet there's agile by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And open concept offices.

  3. Yeah, right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If they considered developers more important than money, they'd pay the developers more to keep the skilled ones. Every time a developer leaves a company, a hunk of business knowledge walks out the door with him.

    Companies care about that quarter's finance report, and the C-level execs care only about fleecing the company for all they can stuff into their own pockets. Look at what they do, not what some survey says.

  4. Yeah haven't heard that one before by Crashmarik · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Maybe it just sounds too much like 40 years of businesses claiming there was a shortage of engineers in the U.S. when what they meant was there was a shortage of engineers that could be treated really badly.

    Or maybe it's the fact that companies only seem to be willing to hire H1Bs that will do anything not to go back to their shitholes, or young kids who are stupid enough to believe managements promises and have no family or social life to distract from putting in 80+ hour weeks ?

  5. .ORG by fluffernutter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This just tells me that developers need to get organized and start saying no to 80+ work weeks collectively. Otherwise it will be divided they fall, forever.

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    1. Re:.ORG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      80+ hours a week ?!! How do you even write functioning software after 40+ hours in a week ? When your brain is your tool and it is fatigued how can that work ?
      Better work 40 hours a week and write something proper, go home and refill your battery, enjoy life and be fresh the following day. 80+ hours is just 'making hours' not getting actual work done.