HackerEarth

author’s Articles

Insights & Stories by Vishwastam Shukla

Vishwastam Shukla's content is built for talent leaders who want results—fast. Actionable, relevant, and packed with real-world learnings from the frontlines of growth.

Hackathons

Vibe Coding: Shaping the Future of Software

A New Era of Code

Vibe coding is a new method of using natural language prompts and AI tools to generate code. I have seen firsthand that this change makes software more accessible to everyone. In the past, being able to produce functional code was a strong advantage for developers. Today, when code is produced quickly through AI, the true value lies in designing, refining, and optimizing systems. Our role now goes beyond writing code; we must also ensure that our systems remain efficient and reliable.

From Machine Language to Natural Language

I recall the early days when every line of code was written manually. We progressed from machine language to high-level programming, and now we are beginning to interact with our tools using natural language. This development does not only increase speed but also changes how we approach problem solving. Product managers can now create working demos in hours instead of weeks, and founders have a clearer way of pitching their ideas with functional prototypes. It is important for us to rethink our role as developers and focus on architecture and system design rather than simply on typing c

The Promise and the Pitfalls

I have experienced both sides of vibe coding. In cases where the goal was to build a quick prototype or a simple internal tool, AI-generated code provided impressive results. Teams have been able to test new ideas and validate concepts much faster. However, when it comes to more complex systems that require careful planning and attention to detail, the output from AI can be problematic. I have seen situations where AI produces large volumes of code that become difficult to manage without significant human intervention.

AI-powered coding tools like GitHub Copilot and AWS’s Q Developer have demonstrated significant productivity gains. For instance, at the National Australia Bank, it’s reported that half of the production code is generated by Q Developer, allowing developers to focus on higher-level problem-solving . Similarly, platforms like Lovable or Hostinger Horizons enable non-coders to build viable tech businesses using natural language prompts, contributing to a shift where AI-generated code reduces the need for large engineering teams. However, there are challenges. AI-generated code can sometimes be verbose or lack the architectural discipline required for complex systems. While AI can rapidly produce prototypes or simple utilities, building large-scale systems still necessitates experienced engineers to refine and optimize the code.

The Economic Impact

The democratization of code generation is altering the economic landscape of software development. As AI tools become more prevalent, the value of average coding skills may diminish, potentially affecting salaries for entry-level positions. Conversely, developers who excel in system design, architecture, and optimization are likely to see increased demand and compensation.
Seizing the Opportunity

Vibe coding is most beneficial in areas such as rapid prototyping and building simple applications or internal tools. It frees up valuable time that we can then invest in higher-level tasks such as system architecture, security, and user experience. When used in the right context, AI becomes a helpful partner that accelerates the development process without replacing the need for skilled engineers.

This is revolutionizing our craft, much like the shift from machine language to assembly to high-level languages did in the past. AI can churn out code at lightning speed, but remember, “Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.” Use AI for rapid prototyping, but it’s your expertise that transforms raw output into robust, scalable software. By honing our skills in design and architecture, we ensure our work remains impactful and enduring. Let’s continue to learn, adapt, and build software that stands the test of time.

Ready to streamline your recruitment process? Get a free demo to explore cutting-edge solutions and resources for your hiring needs.

DEI Hiring

3 Tips To Help You Make The Shift Towards Remote Hiring In 2022

In the face of it all, remote hiring turned out to be a convenient, efficient, cost and time-effective option for both recruiters and candidates. In the post-Covid world, remote hiring has emerged as a common phenomenon in contemporary HR practices. The use of online AI-enabled talent management platforms such as the one provided by HackerEarth has now made it possible to hire from anywhere in an objective and skill-first manner while rooting out the inherent biases that have been the bane of traditional hiring practices.

Creating an effective remote hiring and onboarding process

Regardless of the differences between in-house and remote work, there are some fundamentals of employee screening and hiring that remain unchanged. At HackerEarth, we have always believed in matching skills to the best opportunities—which is what talent hiring is, in a nutshell. The hiring organization needs a skilled developer who will meet or exceed performance expectations. The candidate, on the other hand, is looking for opportunities to showcase their gamut of skills and experience, meet their financial and benefits goals, and feel empowered, engaged, and appreciated.

For this matchmaking (pun intended) to be successful, there are a few criteria that need to be met. As an employer, here are some tips that can help you create better processes to accelerate remote hiring in 2022:

#1. Imbibe a skill-first approach to tech hiring and change processes as needed

While this shift towards a skill-first approach to hiring is welcome, it also means that companies have to change their traditional processes. In a recent survey that we conducted, we found that companies that use assessment tools for their tech hiring report have a more standardized process. The process is also more objective, and evaluations more accurate.

What may have worked before may not necessarily work in the post-pandemic world where candidates are more sensitized to flaws in the process and are demanding change. Our annual Developer Survey showed that about 40% of developers would like to be interviewed via dedicated platforms, and by not making these tools a part of the process, companies are only losing out on top talent.

Along with these tools, a mindset change is also needed; and I couldn’t stress this enough. We need to break the conventional mold of a good developer and hire candidates who demonstrate excellence in real life, and not just on paper.

#2. Provide opportunities, pay, upskilling initiatives, and other benefits that distinguish you from other employers

Remember, the talent you are vying for has many opportunities knocking on their door. In the candidate market we are living in, employers are being pitted against each other. Mercilessly, if I may add.

How do you distinguish yourself from all other employers then? High pay aside, student developers, who are just starting in the tech world, say a good career growth curve is a must-have. Working professionals can be wooed by offers of a good career path and compensation.

The last two years have taught developers the importance of self-growth, happiness, and fuelling their creativity. They would not want to go back to a job that feels like a rut when there are better opportunities elsewhere. Diversity and inclusion policies are also prominent asks. As remote hiring opens up the talent sourcing funnel, it also lends itself to this new and improved archetype where equality is paramount.

This is again, proof of how ‘traditional’ just won’t work anymore in the new post-pandemic paradigm. We have outgrown the phase where only candidates were required to prove they had that ‘X factor’; employers too have to prove that they are worthy of the talent they are hiring.

Recommended read: Diversity And Inclusion In 2022

#3. Check for culture, emotional, and psychological fit before making an offer

Remote work has its own mores. Code needs to be shipped on agreed timelines, a common repository has to be maintained, communication needs to be succinct but also frequent. The frameworks for processes like promotions and appraisals also change. Goes without saying that the candidate you hire must be emotionally and psychologically fit to work in such an environment. Coding is, in many ways, a synergetic process, and it is not always easy on individual, remote contributors. Hire someone who can shoulder the burden without crumbling under the pressure, and who can work seamlessly with the tech team you have already built.

And thus, the takeaways…

When I look back at the last two years, I am amazed—as many others have been—at the amount of resilience the technology sector has displayed in the face of a massive outswinger (the World Cup hangover still holds fort as you can see). Adopting a remote-first work policy will, in my opinion, only increase this resilience. It will open the doors for more diverse talent, foster pay, and gender equality, and nudge companies to appreciate and nurture talent. It is not easy, and it requires us to change processes, use new tools and platforms, and bid goodbye to traditional mindsets.

As tech hiring begins to scale again, and businesses look to future-proof themselves, the need for top-tier tech talent is only set to increase. It is a war out there, and the only way to win it is by adapting to the ‘new normal’ and taking a fresh, improved approach to tech hiring.

AI Recruiting

3 Tips To Help You Make The Shift Towards Remote Hiring

2020 changed the way the globe went to work. While business continuity plans were quickly activated to offset the volatility of the pandemic, and people grew accustomed to the new normal of virtual meetings and remote working, talent hiring, on the whole, presented a challenge for HR and other people teams.

In the face of it all, remote hiring turned out to be a convenient, efficient, cost and time-effective option for both recruiters and candidates. In the post-Covid world, remote hiring has emerged as a common phenomenon in contemporary HR practices. The use of online AI-enabled talent management platforms such as the one provided by HackerEarth has now made it possible to hire from anywhere in an objective and skill-first manner while rooting out the inherent biases that have been the bane of traditional hiring practices.

Creating an effective remote hiring and onboarding process

Regardless of the differences between in-house and remote work, there are some fundamentals of employee screening and hiring that remain unchanged. At HackerEarth, we have always believed in matching skills to the best opportunities - which is what talent hiring is, in a nutshell. The hiring organization needs a skilled developer who will meet or exceed performance expectations. The candidate, on the other hand, is looking for opportunities to showcase their gamut of skills and experience, meet their financial and benefits goals, and feel empowered, engaged, and appreciated.

For this matchmaking (pun intended) to be successful, there are a few criteria that need to be met. As an employer here are some tips that can help you create better processes to accelerate remote hiring in 2022:

#1. Imbibe a skill-first approach to tech hiring and change processes as needed

Before the pandemic, location-specific hiring was at its peak. Recruiters preferred candidates who were in the same geographical location or were ready to relocate. Post-pandemic, we know that code can be shipped from anywhere in the world as long as the developer writing it is skilled. Remote hiring in 2022 puts the spotlight on objective bias-free hiring because when you take parameters like location, academic pedigree, race, ethnicity, etc. out of the picture, all you are left with is core skills.

While this shift towards a skill-first approach to hiring is welcome, it also means that companies have to change their traditional processes. In a recent survey that we conducted, we found that companies that use assessment tools for their tech hiring report have a more standardized process. The process is also more objective, and evaluations more accurate.

What may have worked before may not necessarily work in the post-pandemic world where candidates are more sensitized to flaws in the process and are demanding change. Our annual Developer Survey showed that about 40% of developers would like to be interviewed via dedicated platforms, and by not making these tools a part of the process, companies are only losing out on top talent.

Along with these tools, a mindset change is also needed; and I couldn’t stress this enough. We need to break the conventional mold of a good developer and hire candidates who demonstrate excellence in real life, and not just on paper.

Recommended read: 4 Features of FaceCode That Make Remote Interviews Are Easier!

#2. Provide opportunities, pay, upskilling initiatives, and other benefits that distinguish you from other employers

Remember, the talent you are vying for has many opportunities knocking on their door. In the candidate market, we are living in, employers are being pitted against each other. Mercilessly, if I may add.

How do you distinguish yourself from all other employers then? High pay aside, student developers, who are just starting in the tech world, say a good career growth curve is a must-have. Working professionals can be wooed by offers of a good career path and compensation.

The last two years have taught developers the importance of self-growth, happiness, and fuelling their creativity. They would not want to go back to a job that feels like a rut when there are better opportunities elsewhere. Diversity and inclusion policies are also prominent asks. As remote hiring opens up the talent sourcing funnel, it also lends itself to this new and improved archetype where equality is paramount.

This is again, proof of how ‘traditional’ just won’t work anymore in the new post-pandemic paradigm. We have outgrown the phase where only candidates were required to prove they had that ‘X factor’; employers too have to prove that they are worthy of the talent they are hiring.

Recommended read: Diversity And Inclusion In 2022

#3. Check for culture, emotional, and psychological fit before making an offer

The terms ‘culture’, ‘collaboration’, and ‘commitment’ have different meanings in today’s world. Collaborating on code from halfway across the world requires a different etiquette. It’s not the same as turning around in your swivel hair in your office and asking your colleague for help.

Remote work has its own mores. Code needs to be shipped on agreed timelines, a common repository has to be maintained, communication needs to be succinct but also frequent. The frameworks for processes like promotions and appraisals also change. Goes without saying that the candidate you hire must be emotionally and psychologically fit to work in such an environment. Coding is, in many ways, a synergetic process, and it is not always easy on individual, remote contributors. Hire someone who can shoulder the burden without crumbling under the pressure, and who can work seamlessly with the tech team you have already built.

And thus, the takeaways…

When I look back at the last two years, I am amazed - as many others have been - at the amount of resilience the technology sector has displayed in the face of a massive outswinger (the World Cup hangover still holds fort as you can see). Adopting a remote-first work policy will, in my opinion, only increase this resilience. It will open the doors for more diverse talent, foster pay, and gender equality, and nudge companies to appreciate and nurture talent. It is not easy, and it requires us to change processes, use new tools and platforms, and bid goodbye to traditional mindsets.

As tech hiring begins to scale again, and businesses look to future-proof themselves, the need for top-tier tech talent is only set to increase. It is a war out there, and the only way to win it is by adapting to the ‘new normal’ and taking a fresh, improved approach to tech hiring.

Tech Assessment

War For Talent: 4 Tips for Tech Founders On Team Building And Scaling

With a surge of tech expansion fueled by the Covid-19 pandemic and a predicted mass exodus of workers later this year, many software companies in search of talented developers are coming up short. The shift to remote work forced virtually every company to become a digital company in 2020, increasing the need for software professionals to manage the move to the cloud, virtual team correspondence, and other tech challenges—pushing tech adoption forward by nearly a decade.

Tech giants like Amazon and Microsoft, which also find themselves fighting to hire amid the talent shortage, are breaking the traditional Ivy League-to-intern-to full-time-employee pipeline to fill open roles. However, startups and mid-sized companies, which are unable to offer beefy benefits packages and above-average salaries, are struggling to compete with the big names for qualified talent.

As a former Amazon team leader, I understand how to build an effective team and retain developers in a competitive environment at the biggest of the big. Today, as the CTO of a growth-stage tech venture, I also have experience with building tech teams at smaller companies. For tech founders and executives looking to build, grow, and retain a driven, thoughtful, and collaborative tech team amidst the war for talent, consider these tips:

Team Building And Scaling

Look Beyond the Resume

There is no doubt that automation has increased the efficiency of the hiring cycle, with employers using AI to screen the resumes of thousands of candidates in a single day. However, founders should not only rely on resumes while assessing the skills of potential team members. Online assessment tools can test the practical skills of candidates on the spot. You can even ask job applicants to develop a small application through online platforms to analyze their skills as a developer. According to HackerEarth’s 2021 Developer Survey, the majority of developer candidates (40%) prefer a live coding test as opposed to a traditional video interview. Look to allocate resources to these tools that enhance the recruiting experience.

Refine your tech hiring with our Ultimate Playbook For Better Hiring ebook. Get your copy today!

You can go one step further by checking if the candidate has contributed to any open-source software by simply going through their Github profile. Another skill signal to look for is participation in hackathons. If a candidate has taken part in a lot of hackathons, it shows that the person can perform problem-solving under time pressure and quickly move from ideation to product development. It can also show that they have strong collaboration skills—something extremely important in a team setup, especially for startups and early-stage companies.

If you can look beyond the college degree section of a resume, you’ll be in good company. Top tech organizations such as Apple, Google, and IBM have stopped looking at college degrees and are focused on other more verifiable and dependable skill signals. In recent years, they have bolstered their tech apprenticeship programs, many of which don’t require applicants to have a college degree at all.

Embrace A Flexible Work Setup

If your startup doesn’t have the resources to offer a top-end salary, create other initiatives that draw talent to you. Consider how a hybrid model might work in your office. Could you allow employees to work from home for two or three days a week while still providing office space for collaboration? You could also go a step farther and offer what many organizations can’t — flexible work hours. According to a recent Gartner survey of digital workers, 43% of respondents said they were more productive with flexible work hours. Oftentimes, they are happier too.

If flex teams aren’t right for your organization right now, there are other ways to employ top talent without draining your resources. Connecting with freelance developers that excel in one specific skill could be hugely beneficial if you are working on a project-by-project basis.

Alternatively, think about how your teams—especially entry-level developers—could embrace low-code and no-code platforms. Those candidates who show excellent potential but lack technical experience may be able to create solutions that are just as valuable to your organization without writing complicated code.

Show the Human Face of Leadership

Often, candidates end up choosing between a large company with a storied reputation and a small team that offers more autonomy and potential for growth. To win over those candidates, concentrate on culture. Building and promoting a positive work environment is of utmost importance for team building and scaling.

You can start by utilizing effective communication practices in the workplace. First and foremost, ask open-ended questions in order to promote analytical thinking among your employees. Welcome constructive feedback by asking your employees to voice their opinions and offer suggestions for improvement. The best teams are not authoritarian where new members are afraid to speak up, but rather ones that promote conversation across all seniority levels. Open communication is a proven and time-tested way to boost morale among team members while dialing up both efficiency and productivity.

Your willingness to share your vulnerabilities as a leader can go a long way toward earning the trust of your employees. It encourages employees to share their own points of view and take a stand on them. If your organization becomes an echo chamber of your own thoughts, you run the risk of stagnating your growth. Your leadership style can make or break a positive and open work culture where everyone learns and grows together.

Keep an Eye on Metrics of Growth

Having a fair and objective method of evaluating your team members is a crucial element of team building and scaling. Assessments give you a benchmark of areas where your organization can improve and a place to refer back to as you scale.

Hiring can be a cumbersome process that typically takes a significant amount of time and resources. Keeping track of how long it takes to complete a hiring cycle is a fundamental metric that can help your team recruit more effectively. How long you retain talent is also a vital metric when you are measuring leadership success, especially in the fast-moving tech industry where turnover is common.

If your employees are not growing, you are not growing as an organization. Prioritize finding ways to track the growth trajectory of your employees, along with the speed of their professional development. As seen in the HackerEarth 2021 Developer Survey, 63% of student developers said that a good growth curve is a must-have and a total of 69% of working professionals look for a good career path in a company. Motivation and productivity will suffer if team members don’t find value in their roles, or if they feel there is a lack of proper mentorship.

Talent is Out There

Though challenging, it is not impossible to attract quality talent right now. Focus on building a community for your developers where they feel heard and supported, intellectually stimulated, and welcomed into an honest, transparent culture. When you commit time to the things that are important to your employees, like communicating expectations and laying out a path for upward mobility, your organization grows in lockstep with building happy, productive teams.

Hiring Strategies

Reshaping The Education Landscape For India’s Future-Ready Tech Talent

In May this year the global banking giant Credit Suisse reported that it would hire more than a thousand developers from India, making our country a base for global innovation, and home to over 25% of its tech workforce. I recount this statistic to underscore how over the last two decades, India has emerged as the largest pool of tech talent in the world.

The developer community grows exponentially year on year, and from playing a supporting role for other industries, we have now graduated to the forefront of developing cutting-edge technologies and innovative applications that will power the future. To sustain this momentum, we must understand the secret of creating a future-ready tech community lies in how we support and educate them.

With the continuous evolution of technology, devising education curricula that keep up with advancements becomes imperative.

When I was in college, we used hard disks and CDs for storing code. The first thing I learnt during my internship was how to store code in a code base and the importance of checking in to a central repository. I hadn’t heard of GitHub till then.This is but a small example, to showcase the gap between what coders are taught in professional institutions and what their work environment demands of them. In today’s startup culture where the learning curve is extremely steep and coders are expected to be shipping code as soon as they join work, rote learning has no reason to exist at all.

I know from experience - my own, and that of coders I have worked with - that what we are taught in our four-year degree courses leaves us underprepared for the workplace. The emphasis then should be on a holistic curriculum that prioritizes conceptual understanding and practical applications, over theoretical knowledge.

Let’s take another example - that of a data scientist, since this is a role currently in demand. An undergraduate student studies a plethora of courses in their four years, and dedicates only a semester or so studying core AI and Data Science topics. At work, they are expected to ace complex business problems with just a few months’ of knowledge. Needless to say, it is tough.

Many data scientists end up using online resources, certification programs, and practice platforms like Kaggle to upskill themselves on their own. This conclusively proves that the content of current engineering curriculums is nowhere it needs to be.

Skill-focused education that prioritizes and encourages interest in new and early technologies should be the norm going forward.

I believe there is ample scope to revamp our current college curricula and focus on improving students’ skill sets. One way of achieving this could be to condense our four-year courses. Colleges can then:

Create a teaching framework that includes at least 1-2 core languages like C++ and Python
Include the most important and popular coding frameworks for specific industry roles like backend or frontend engineers, or data scientists
Substantiate this with multiple internship programs and an ecosystem that hones the technical skills of students and fosters upskilling and growth by encouraging them to build practical applications

Reskilling is key to continuous, long-term growth in the developer world. Technology changes every day and a self-starter who can pick up new skills on the go is considered a prize in the business world. Our education system also needs to provide students with the means to be self-sufficient and job-ready. The need of the hour is not just learning new technical skills. Students must learn more about learning itself.

Along with this, there needs to be an acknowledgment of the soft skills a developer needs to excel at work.

It is always nice to have a high CGP, but the students who crack the top jobs have more than this. In the real world, a coder’s secondary and tertiary skills are their bread and butter. At school, it may not always be important to communicate well, but when you are with your peers and superiors, not being able to communicate well can make a huge impact on how you grow within the organization. I have personally seen many good coders stay stuck in their jobs because they couldn’t communicate their issues, and ask for help.

My mentor at my first job said to me that my emails were ‘pithy’. Even today, I reread my emails thrice before hitting send. Why? Because part of my job description involves distilling technical jargons into layman terms so that the other spokes of the business wheel (namely marketing, customer support, product management, etc.) can do their jobs as well.

I am glad someone pointed out my lack of communication skills to me early on and allowed me to improve. Students in engineering colleges need this particular brand of mentorship as well. Along with their core skills, they should be given opportunities to groom themselves. Colleges can work with companies and provide mentorship programs for young graduates to help them with interview prep, and other life skills so that our graduates leave school with a well-rounded skill set.

The pandemic has changed the way we look at education and learning. Colleges need to take note of this.

Online learning has created a level playing field irrespective of location and delivery channels. Education has been democratized and anyone with access to the internet can potentially learn the skills they need to be a coder. Compared to these online resources, the cost of a college degree remains comparatively high. (Sidebar: I took a full course online on Blockchain and Crypto by Gary Gensler, a professor at MIT, free of cost. Imagine what a specialized course like this would cost in a premier institution!)

As businesses move ahead with a skill-first approach to hiring, it won’t be long before college pedigree loses its sheen. You may hail from an IIT, but can you code better than the self-taught developer who learned their skills on YouTube? There are ISAs that offer a reputable degree at a fraction of the cost that a premier institution in India does. The gap is narrowing, and the high cost of a degree could be the final nail in the coffin for engineering colleges.

For educational institutions to retain their prominence, they must create a curriculum that meets the needs of the future. Collaboration between educators and tech companies is critical. Foresight and expertise should be the guiding principle for educating future tech talent. It is imperative to have education and training that have well-defined outcomes, allowing education providers to work backward from the market requirement and future advancement.

To wit...

There is a growing consensus that the demand and nature of our jobs have changed over the years and the importance of coding as a massive in-demand skill now cannot be ignored.The pandemic has eliminated barriers of geography that existed. This has opened up opportunities for skill-based learning that goes beyond large cities. Businesses now realize that education and work can happen anywhere - interest and ability are the only deciding factors. They are more than happy to hire developers with proven skills rather than with good resumes. Businesses need tech talent that can foresee challenges and remain forearmed. Education plays a key role in building this future-ready talent pool.

The aim of education and training, therefore, should be to create a new generation of coders who are not only great programmers but are also well-adapted to a changing world of remote work and rapid growth, which demands innovation even amid a crisis. Geography is no barrier to learning anymore, and skills are the only currency in this new normal. Our education systems must adapt, pronto.

****

As originally published in The Hindu Business Line.

Tech Assessment

CTOs vs. Attrition: Tips To Keep Tech Employee Churn Low

This article from Forbes is slightly dated. The reason I mention it here is because it’s a fellow manager in the tech world talking about attrition in their team (oh how I hate the word). Liz Ryan, Founder and CEO of Human Workplace, gives the manager in question some very relevant advice for their issues.

The one that I took away and have held close to my heart ever since is this: Employee Turnover IS A Leadership Problem.Liz says that as leaders, we make certain commitments to the ones we hire. It then becomes our responsibility and obligation to make good on those promises. As CTOs, department heads, or team leads - it’s our integrity on the line.

Battling the performance dip

Research shows that about 40% of attrition happens in the very first year of a new employee joining your workforce. Your role then, is to ensure that this ‘honeymoon’ or ‘performing’ phase lasts for longer and your hires have enough and more reasons to stay put even after the initial high wears off.This voluntary attrition happens for a few universal reasons:

Overworked and underpaid workforce
The quality of work being lesser than expected
Culture misfit

When fighting attrition, it’s important to understand these factors and use them as ‘levers’ of discussion when dealing with a disgruntled employee. Allow me to demonstrate.

1. Compensation vs. Work

Industry standard is a very oft-used term when candidate hunting. Everyone professes to offer compensation that is at par with the “industry” norms. The thing we need to understand is that monetary benefits are just one aspect of what developers look for when joining a new job.As our recent Developer Survey points out, both student developers (63%) and experienced developers (69%) look for a challenging atmosphere where they can grow their skills. Monetary compensation ranks fourth on the list of must-haves for students, and second overall for experienced developers.Along with financial benefits, it is necessary to foster an environment of unbiased and objective learning. Learning to code, as I have talked about before, has become more accessible than ever and the YouTubes and GitHubs of the world offer developers an open platform to learn on their own. There is no reason why companies should not be offering upskilling initiatives as part of their compensation package, and encourage employees to become better. This is not monetary “compensation” per se, but a very attractive benefit nonetheless.

Read more insights from over 25,000 developers in our annual developer survey here!

2. Quality of work

Someone recently asked me if QA is as boring as it sounds. I find it to be one of the most important parts of product building. It can, however, get exhausting. This is where as a CTO you need to ensure that your team is not burning out by avoiding repeat work through automation. Monotony doesn't make for painlessness after all. You can hire a CTO as a service for startups if you don't have a technical founder.Upskilling your team and keeping the spotlight on skills is all good, but your team also needs to have the scope to use those skills in real-time. Look for signs of dipped productivity that are a result of poor quality of work. These signs could pop up in various ways:

Procedural signs: If the input (workload) has remained the same but your team’s efficiency is still dipping, then it could be because your team has lost interest in the work itself. Increased mistakes in code, decreased quality of product - all of these are signs of exhaustion brought about by low quality of work.

Behavioral and emotional signs: When someone is invested in their work, they will take ownership of it and make sure targets are met. If any of your teammates are shirking responsibility, passing the buck, and generally refusing to take ownership or accountability then you have to ask them if it’s because they do not like the work they do anymore. Don’t let it get to the point where the monotony kills their spirit to work.

3. Culture fit

CTOs world over need to understand and acknowledge that ‘culture’ as we knew it is now dead. A year and more of remote work has shown us all that company culture is now moving towards personalization and specialization. As this article states, organizations thinking about hiring for cultural fit should accept that employees no longer need to fit into a monolithic organizational culture. “In fact, their diversity rather than their similarities could actually make the organization more culturally dynamic”, says the piece.

In my personal capacity as a CTO, I have always tried to hire employees who are smarter than me.

How does one figure that out? Look for skills that perhaps you are not very proficient at, and hire developers who have their ear on the ground for new tech. This creates a culture within the team where everyone is eager to learn, and the CTO is not a mythical figure spearheading innovation, change, and all things good. I want my team to know that they can drive change at their own level, and feel that this also helps take care of the feeling of monotony or decreased work quality.

Some other ‘tips’ from my experience...

Apart from ensuring that your team has no qualms on compensation, work quality, or office culture, there are some other things you can do as a CTO to ensure attrition remains low.

Don’t be reactionary: Attrition is not a sudden occurrence. It is the culmination of several factors, and being proactive about understanding your team’s needs will help you keep this number low. As a CTO, you can either choose to react when an employee brings their resignation letter to your table, or you can actively look for signs of unhappiness and work to solve them. A sentiment analysis, or regular check-ins with your teammates should help you understand the pulse of your team.

Act fast and be decisive: You must have heard the adage that employees don’t leave companies, they quit managers. It’s never more true than in this context. Imagine a scenario where an employee brings you their grievances, but you fail to act in time. Not only have you failed to retain a good employee, you have also failed to show your team that you care about their issues and are willing to take a stand when needed. Fast and decisive action will instill trust and loyalty among your team.

Think about the message you’re sending across: People management can be tricky. Before you take an action, think about how it affects your team. Does it show favoritism in any way? Or, does it invalidate their legitimate demands?

Even when you work with HR teams to design management processes, remember that your every action builds up your personal brand as a CTO. You don’t necessarily need to be the one with all the answers all the time, but you definitely need to be the one who tries the hardest.