Can't "Find" Developers? Increase Your Offer

This little rant about paying developers what the market demands instead of complaining you can't find them climbed its way up to the top of the Hacker News charts this morning and for good reason. While the blog post was written specifically for the Austrian market, great software developers are in high demand everywhere.

There is a limited supply of people with development skills. When software developers' skills are used properly, there is great potential for creating value in organizations ranging from startups to large government and commercial organizations. I've seen many organization make the mistake of paying as little as possible for their developers. That is a losing strategy (one I often come into to try to fix - although usually by then the organization is dug in too deep and is too far behind the competition for it to matter).

Great developers know their worth. They will seek out environments where either the salary is high enough that they feel they are adequately paid or compensated with a mix of salary, equity, and benefits. If you're not able to "find" developers, increase your offer in salary, vacation days, or some other compensation, such as 20% time for side projects.