Comment by OldHand2018
5 years ago
There needs to be some sort of prerequisite to make this valid.
Having been through a number of downturns in my career, you do see really talented people leaving at the worst time possible for the business. But assuming that everyone who leaves is your best talent is not such a good thing to do.
The prerequisite is a lackluster/dysfunctional/toxic work environment, which is probably like 99% of jobs out there.
Is it though?
Right, it doesn't even need to be a bad environment. The situation might even be worse in a good environment.
Consider the team that has no dead weight at all. There is a normal talent distribution and everyone is productive.
Layoffs come around and the bottom 25% are let go. All that work needs to be distributed to the remaining developers. The best members of the team now have less time to work on the really hard, interesting problems because they have to pick up some of the boring work that still needs to be done. Some of them may leave because of this.
I've seen this happen.
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Right. The old adage - if you smell shit all day, check your shoe - seems to apply. If you think virtually every organization is toxic, then the problem probably lies with you.
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For people leaving in a downturn that is a reasonable assumption. If the employment market is bad, then mediocre employees have no good options to leave - they might try, but they won't find anything better; but really good techs will have opportunities in any market; well, at least they had in the last 'busts'.