Why Software Engineers Quit

“Have you got a minute?”

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Software engineers frequently change jobs, with an average tenure of under 2 years. There are many reasons to resign, but why do engineers quit so often?

While many people leave their jobs because they are unhappy, this isn’t the only reason. Circumstances or unpredictable events may occur that take priority. This may be family, relocation, health, a life-changing opportunity, or launching a startup.

Behind all the perks, titles, and shiny technologies, there’s an elephant in the room. Let’s explore some reasons and scenarios.

Mission

• People must feel part of something bigger than their product or project. When people connect with a company’s mission and purpose, there is a higher chance they will stay, especially if their project or product ends. They might be happy to switch teams rather than searching externally.
• Engineers may feel unfulfilled if their role, product, or outcome has little impact. They may simply want to work in a domain that's important to them. E.g. Climate change.

Culture and Management

• Hiring a single great engineer and placing them in a toxic environment will not fix it. They will likely grow frustrated and leave. Address the root cause before they join or be upfront about the situation and challenges. Sometimes a company isn’t ready for a great engineer. A great swimmer cannot swim in mud.
• The team is working to please a manager or individual. Instead, the team should have a mission. Everyone, including the manager, should be working towards that mission. A great manager will serve and help the team succeed.
• Prolonged exposure to negative politics and toxic situations may affect one’s mental health. Letting go and caring less is a skill. When one finally realizes they are thinking about work 24/7 and discussing toxic colleagues every night over dinner. A change might be due.

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• An imbalanced team with too many seniors with different strong opinions may result in friction and frustration. Similarly, a team with few seniors and many juniors who do not challenge the senior's decisions can be detrimental. Culture screening and/or structuring teams proportionally minimizes this risk. Well-balanced teams provide an opportunity for everyone to grow and develop together.
• Organizational mismatch. Some engineers prefer structure, titles, and clear responsibilities. Others thrive in chaos and ambiguity. Culture fit screening is key here.
• Lack of role transparency, especially who can help mediate conflicts. For example, a new engineer struggling to work with a colleague may be unaware of who can help mediate. This can be present in flat hierarchies if roles and responsibilities are unclear. Under these circumstances, people may try to handle it alone or leave. Not everyone will escalate to a CTO.
• People may simply be searching for a safe environment where they are listened to and heard. Some engineers want to be able to influence the product, processes, and culture, while others just want to be told exactly what to do.
• As long as the tech job market is hot, some people will not stay long, no matter what. For example, Gen Z is changing jobs at a rate 134% higher than they were in 2019. Organizations that accept this and adopt accelerated onboarding to get engineers productive as fast as possible can actually find positives in this.
• Burnout. Overcommitted, overworked, and overstressed. No work-life balance.

Career Development and Growth

• Limited career development opportunities. This may result from a lack of communication and understanding of individual engineers’ desires. For example, an individual contributor may want to dive deep into a core technology or product in order to grow into a subject matter expert. Others prefer the challenge of rapid proto-typing using a wide range of technologies. Or simply, there are no opportunities to take on more responsibilities, work with a technology stack or make that move into management.
• Lack of challenging work and meaningful outcomes.
• Boredom. A company may have strategic plans to reconcile and focus on its current offering. Rather than grow and invest in new products and services. People may get bored, and the new direction may not align with others’ aspirations. For example, those looking for an IPO.

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Compensation

• Underpaying employees, or falling behind the market. A certain gap may be tolerated. But when times get tough, employees who feel undervalued will have little motivation to stick around. Triggers include moving toward a technical direction, not aligned with the employee’s thoughts. A key symptom is quitting without another job secured. Companies should conduct regular trimodal salary benchmarks against local, regional and global companies.
• Lack of communication and an unsafe environment. An employee is unhappy with their pay raise or missed promotion and feels that they are unable to discuss it. The first time management is aware is after the employee resigns.
• Companies often counter unmeaningful and unsatisfying work with large compensation packages. This can work for a certain period, but generally, people eventually quit.
• Many tech companies reward and increase staff engagement by allocating equity packages with multi-year vesting schedules. Also known as golden handcuffs. This works well to retain staff, especially if the company is public.

That's not the job I applied for

• Excited to start that job working on cutting-edge technologies? Only to find a legacy codebase with on-call support on your first day. Or perhaps that management position disappeared? You can bet that behind that IDE, glassdoor and LinkedIn are open.
• Employers must ensure that job descriptions and interviews match reality. Candidates must have plenty of opportunities to ask questions. Similarly, candidates must gather enough information to decide if the company, job, and role are a mutual fit.
• An engineer has culture fit interviews with team A, but they are re-assigned to team B on their first day. Many candidates mutually assess their potential teammates. If teams A and B have very different cultures and ways of working, there is a risk it may not work out well.

Autonomy and Flexibility

• A tech team may have little autonomy and is unable to make key decisions. This can include solutions architecture, processes, and technology choices. Perhaps there are too many slow processes and red tape around getting things done. Over time, small repetitive tasks can become very frustrating. Some early red flags include the time taken to get the codebase checked out and running, and the steps required to ship a feature.
• Flexible employers will always win, especially regarding the location of work (Remote, hybrid) and working hours.

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Fortunately, it’s not all doom and gloom. There are many great tech organizations that care deeply about people and culture. Investing heavily in safe, supportive, and people-focused engineering cultures. Which, often reattract boomerang employees.

Let’s keep learning and try our best to ensure people leave for good reasons.

Have a great day!