What Executives Really Think Of Software Developers
Don’t let a bonus fool you.
Don’t lie to yourself. Executives see you as a resource and nothing more.
To a corporate CFO, you’re a line item in a spreadsheet. Their board members promote them for creating budgets to reduce your salary. Your 60+ hour weeks don’t affect them one bit, because your time is cheap. Your opinion isn’t respected. You’re seen as a thing to be managed, not a critical thinker.
This is the corporate condition in America.
I once worked for a company that seated engineers elbow to elbow along a park-like table. If you moved your mouse too far to the right, you bumped the keyboard of your colleague. And if you dared go to the bathroom, eyebrows raised.
Back then, office phones were a thing — so were desk hammocks. Every person had a phone, except for developers. Their excuse? Developers needed to “focus.” But the truth was they wanted us to shut up and code.
The Bro Club
The Bro Club is a fraternity of people with access. Their friends run companies or manage an investment fund. They’re a group of “decision-makers” who cast judgment but don’t get their hands dirty. Deep pockets and connections allow them to buy or manipulate their way into the technology game, not their talent.
The fraternity gets preferred treatment, shares, and everything else. We’re left with a bucket full of stress. We’re the ones sacrificing time with our loved ones for the “greater good.” Greater good means we make them money. And if we voice our frustration, we’re swapped out for overseas developers— ones deemed easier to exploit.
The Bro Club thinks we’re a commodity. To them, all talent is created equal. Writing code is simply cutting and pasting to meet a fictitious deadline. In their minds, we’re pawns on a chessboard manipulated to pad their bank accounts.
Think about it. When was the last time you shook the hand of someone from the Bro Club? How many of them are capable of finding the admin page for the product you build? Have they invested in your growth?
Far too many developers trust but don’t verify. We listen to their speeches, but we don’t fact-check. We fail to kick the tires of their ideas. We never say, “walk me through the business model?” Or, “would you mind if I joined a sales call?” We code, while the Bro Club makes decisions for themselves. We give away our voice because we’re too busy horsing around with tools like Jira.
Instead of letting the Bros think for us to benefit themselves, it’s time we take a hard look at the way executives think.
They Think We Believe Their Lip Service
Executives promise us the world, but we don’t see the follow-through. We’re bludgeoned with LinkedIn management mumbo jumbo, while our questions are only paid lip service
Nowadays, you can’t tell one company’s lip service from another. It’s hard to believe the well-crafted narratives when there’s no investment in making us, leaders.
We hear promises of being purchased or an IPO. There’s some financial panacea past the horizon that we’re supposed to work for. We want to believe, but the proof is in the pudding.
It’s uninspiring to talk only in terms of financial gain. And many of us would rather have empowerment over a podunk, insulting raise. Gone are the days of believing in stock converting into astronomical wealth.
Words pop out of their mouths like an auctioneer at a live auction, but nothing happens — not for us.
You may have heard party lines like these:
- This company is an excellent opportunity for your career; you have to buckle down for now and grind.
- If you produce this extra feature, we’ll get more revenue, profit, blah blah blah.
- If we capture one percent of the market, you’ll be rich.
- Think about your resume. On your next opportunity, you’ll be able to ask for what you want.
- We’re all in this together.
It’s all lip service. Action speaks louder than words.
They Think We Don’t Understand Business Concepts
How is it we can make it through science courses, but they believe business development confuses us? We forged the internet from dust, but debits, credits, and sales funnels stump us?
Tell me the last time executives had a conversation about your business perspective. And I don’t mean condescending all-hands meetings sandwiched between fancy words. I mean respectful, insightful exchanges where you feel like your opinion matters. Have executives ever taken your advice?
They don’t care what we think.
The Bro Club feeds us BS jargon because we choose to be clueless. We buy in to happy path stories based on ridiculous what-if scenarios. But the actual plot is one where they collect, and we keep working.
Here’s a thought exercise. Do you know the state of the company? Who gets paid first when someone buys the company? If the company gets bought, don’t you end up with a new boss? What’s the last revenue-generating feature you can remember— better yet, profit?
An in-crowd knows the state of the business, but do you? It’s a group comprised of C-levels and their entourage. Together, they wield information like a sword.
What you see is not what you get. What you see is fake platitudes designed to keep your fingers on the keyboard. It’s all part of the shut up and code narrative.
They Think We Care About Salary
The truth is: We can get an excellent salary from anywhere.
Salaries aren’t enough to satisfy us. Dollars don’t always make us fist pump the air. Money isn’t the only way to feel free. What about knowing how a business works so we can create legacies for our own families?
Consider what makes really us better—learning sales and business terminology. Understanding how to raise cash or attract our own investors is more valuable than a 20% raise. We want leaders who take the time to have a conversation with us about the challenges of the business over coffee.
A salary increase doesn’t create passive income. And after taxes, a bump in pay does nothing more than appeasing you while you crank out more code.
Executives need to start talking about actual growth:
- Leadership training
- Investment in your personal goals (They’ll have to ask)
- Trust
- Help build your network
Their modus operandi is to paper over our needs with dollars. Consider this. If you make $100,000 a year and receive a 20% bonus, that amounts to about $769.23 per pay period — assuming 26 pay periods. It’s nothing to sneeze at, but it’s a cheap trick. It’s the easy way out. They use this escape hatch when they’ve failed to lead and inspire you — an attempt to buy your complacency.
You’re worth more.
It might seem as if the Bro Club is a villainous fraternity hoping to squeeze every waking minute out of your life. In some cases this is true. But there's a large portion of people in software who don’t understand the business. They fail to see the art. And they’re baptized by ignorance believing all we need is fancy monitors and technology toys.
The question we should ask is: Are we being inspired by leaders? We should feel the investment in our bones. We know they try by their actions. It’s time to ignore lip service and watch what they do.
A successful person finds the right place for himself. But a successful leader finds the right place for others. — John C. Maxwell
Take a moment, and ask yourself if this reflects your executive team. Do they think enough of you to grow you?
Do you know how they see you?
