
Ask HN: What makes a company worth staying with as engineer? - eric-hu
My impression is that many software engineers stay at a company for 1.5-3 years and then go elsewhere.  It&#x27;s usually at least financially motivated.  I also read about people looking for new engineering challenges and responsibilities--specifically not management.<p>It seems like Google and Facebook have this solved. Are there any small or medium sized companies that typically retain engineers for more than 3 years? What do they do to make this happen?
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ukoms
I used to work for over 6 years in company with 200+ employees, where only 30
people were developers. Why? Well, mainly because it was - at the time - hard
to find a good job in my town, and this company trained me as specialist in
not-so popular in my country programing language to maintain hermetic,
monolitic and ogrish system.

They paid moderately. It was not-so-bad salary if you were looking at earnings
in town, but it was low if you would compare it to other cities and other
companies.

But it wasn't the main reason I left and find myself a new, better, job. Yes -
financial reason was important but only as last nail to seal the coffin (so to
speak).

In my previous job I was told I am needed, but no one from mid and higher
managment act like it was so. When they insist to tell them about problems,
when they ask about solutions, when they thrive to change, you give them all
of that just to hear you are a nuisance - you became frustrated. And when your
frustration level reach certain point - you quit. Took me four years to make
this decision (I've got very high boiling temperature).

I don't know how other small and medium sized companies keep people longer
than 3 years, but my current employer act immidiately as I ask for tools or
suggest changes. Owners, co-CEOs have direct contact with team all the time.
People don't work in stress ("something happend on production? well, that's
rather bad news. Fix it, please, and avoid those errors in the future. Hey!
Anyone for darts?"). And hey - they pay better which is good thing (despite
everything you may say - you sell your most valuable thing - hours of your
life, it's rather smart to sell them at proper price). And they keep working
this way for 13 years. With 30+ people.

Turns out - you can.

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andyjdavis
I used to work at a place that was able to hold onto a sizable proportion of
its technical talent for many years at least in part by allowing remote work.

In the minority of cases this was an in-office employee who went for remote
either indefinitely or for a period of a year or two so they could go live
somewhere else.

In the majority of cases it was someone in another location who was hired.
They had the option to move to where the office was (including help with the
visa system if necessary) or just staying where they were and working
remotely. If a person is particularly attached to where they currently live
and that area happens to have relatively modest employment options for
technical people then chances are you will retain that person for a very long
time.

I would note that whether retaining staff for 5+ years for reasons like the
lack of similarly well paying options elsewhere is somewhat debatable. Holding
onto staff for a long time is not in and of itself always a good thing.

