Local talent drain

02 Mar 2024

Arco di Constantino, April 2023. @babafemio

I have been leading engineering and technology teams for almost two decades, and the industry’s biggest challenge when it comes to engineering and technology talent is losing them to managerial roles (which don’t allow them to continue to improve their skills or practice their craft) or, even worse, to non-engineering/technology roles.

Imagine working with a brilliant and creative software engineer, honing their skills. Five years later, they discover that those they started their careers with and have chosen to go to sales or business development have grown faster or are now earning more and have better opportunities.

Another variation of this, but almost as unproductive, is for the intelligent engineer to grow into or accept a managerial job where available. While this might be a rewarding option for that particular engineer, it is still a loss for the industry because we now have one less outstanding engineer—one less engineer who could have gone on to become a 10x developer!

To help illuminate this problem, consider Scott Hanselman of Microsoft. He has been a developer for 30 years. He is still very much involved with the more complex .NET framework code and architecture at Microsoft. He is the VP of the Developer Community. He is not in a sales or business development role but speaks and engages developers worldwide. Jeff Dean of Google is another name that comes to mind. He is the Chief Scientist of Google Deep Mind and Google Research, but this title masks his true value. Take a closer look at the details of his LinkedIn profile, and you will see that he has been involved as a ‘co-designer and implementor’ for most of Google’s most powerful platforms. They probably bring him with all the experience he has gathered over the years onboard whenever they are building the next big thing. So, armed with profiles like this, it is no wonder that organizations like Microsoft continue to build webscale products that we all consume.

So, how do we develop our own Scott Hanselmans’ and Jeff Deans’ so we have the experience and knowledge to build the infrastructure and platforms we desperately need in these parts? What do we do so we retain the experience of our best and brightest engineers? If we really hope to build platforms and systems that scale in Nigeria, we need to deal with this problem. We are already overly dependent on the developed world for our technology; our situation is now dire, and we must find a solution. And there are a few ideas to consider

Create a ladder for technical growth

Some people love getting their hands dirty and would appreciate it if they could continue to do this in the organization, continue to grow, and work on more exciting projects. Regardless of how the organization is structured, you can always (and should) call on your most experienced software engineers to be part of your most critical work, even if it is to ginger the troops and guide them along the way. And yes, it wouldn’t hurt to assign that key, but knotty library, nobody wants to code to your 10x resource.

Ensure engineering managers write code

Exceptional software engineering skills come from practice, and if you are not writing production code as a manager, you are not [really] practicing, and as such, you are not getting better at it. The tragedy here is that it is challenging to mentor and motivate the engineers who report to you if you are not in the game or have not been in the game for years. And let’s remember that technology continues to change at a rapid clip. Hence, engineers and their managers need to keep working and learning.

Engineering and technology employee experience

Engineering and technology talent are human beings, just like anyone else. They enjoy socializing and having fun. The organization should find ways to promote activities that foster team relationships. Moreover, a good employee experience involves eliminating ‘blockers.’ Blockers are obstacles in our systems, which are sometimes created to address a problem or, even worse, have been forgotten as to why they were implemented in the first place. Get rid of anything that makes work challenging without adding value to it.