Output or Attitude – which is the most important when assessing the performance of a Software Engineers?
Output or Attitude – which is the most important when assessing the performance of a Software Engineers?
When the big companies move, the rest of the market listens! While that is a pretty generalist comment there is no doubt that CEO’s, Founders, VC’s and Board Members will be asking their Software Engineering leaders the same questions as a result of the media commentary on the changes relating to performance management that are being implemented at some of the largest SW houses in Australia.
In addition, having worked through the 2001 ‘tech wreck’ and the 2009 GFC as a specialist software engineering recruiter I know with certainty that that the focus on performance will become a more and more regular conversation as organisations respond to uncertainty in the economy.As a Software Engineering Leader, you need to be prepared to tackle these conversations head on.
This is a complex subject with no simple answer. Inherently, writing software is a creative task. Solving business problems is difficult, takes time and deep expertise. Software Engineering performance measurement is a subject that is extensively written about and there are numerous companies building products to try to ‘solve’ the problem.Companies like Google have whole teams dedicated to researching how they can tackle scale whilst maintaining the agility required to move quickly.
In the current market successful Software Engineering leaders need to be prepared to juggle the needs of their software teams whilst demonstrating the value the team is producing to the business management.Here are some great blogs on the topic that can really help:
