The Real Reason Your Technical Talent Leaves

🌍 What’s the Problem?

Replacing engineers is expensive.
You pay for recruiting, onboarding, and training with every new hire.

That’s fine when your company is growing.
But when you hire because someone left, you also lose engineering capacity for the entire transition period.

That drop in velocity translates to very real money.

🧩 How Do Most People Solve It?

Usually, they don’t recognize the root cause.

When a valuable engineer resigns, the reflex is:

Most employees don’t expect a last-minute miracle. That’s why they give vague exit lines like:

We rarely hear the real reason someone quits. The ‘bullshit balance’ — that polite layer between employee and company — hides what’s actually going on.
I’ll explore this in a future issue.

🌱 Why Doesn’t It Work?

Leaders often assume nothing can be done because salaries are already competitive (or at least they hope so).

But here’s the real point:

In modern IT, salary is rarely the main reason people leave.

My own pattern was simple:
Every 3–5 years, even if I liked the company, I’d still move on.

Not for money. Not for a title.
In a healthy company, those should adjust naturally.

I left to avoid becoming outdated.
If you missed my recent post on job persistence, read it — it explains this dynamic in detail.

🧭 How Can You Solve It Differently?

Below are practical steps that keep your engineers talented, not just employed.

1. Technological Freedom

Older management strategies favored keeping the tech stack “narrow and stable.”

Today, that’s a mistake.

Technological freedom:

• keeps engineers learning

• makes projects more engaging

• raises the team’s collective expertise

• and helps you outpace competitors

Done well, it improves performance, reliability, and user experience.

Create a simple process for tech leads to propose, evaluate, and validate new approaches for complex features.

Cost: low (and often profitable)

2. Access to Learning Materials

Buy a subscription to a solid tech education platform.
Let engineers suggest and vote on options.

Or look at which technologies they want to explore this quarter and fund courses for the top 3.

Cost: low

3. Conference Passes

Support conference attendance — from tickets only to full travel packages.

Rotate attendees.
When they return, have them share their best takeaways.
It upgrades the whole team.

And please: don’t subtract conference days from vacation.
It sends the wrong signal.

Cost: low to high (your choice)

4. Invite a Speaker

Engineers appreciate hearing from respected people in the field:

• technology evangelists

• well-known GitHub contributors

• engineers from partner companies

This can be free (team swaps) or premium (external speakers).

Cost: from nothing to the skies

These activities work best when they feel like events, not obligations.
Companies that support learning still have turnover — but it’s healthier and lower.

5. Involvement and appreciation: The highest-impact factor — and the cheapest

• Ask engineers for their opinions.

• Include them in relevant discussions.

• Celebrate achievements out loud.

Example:

Costs nothing. Means everything.

This week:
Appreciate someone publicly in a meeting or call.

If nothing comes to mind today, track achievements throughout the week and pick the most impactful one on Friday.

Further steps:

• Choose one education or growth option from this list

• Outline how it fits into your setup

• Start implementing by the end of the week

💬 Your Turn

If you try any of these, share your experience with me via email or DM me on X.
I’d love to hear what worked.