The talent of an engineer war is real. It’s been a while, but with a pandemic that has pushed businesses across industries to focus on e-commerce and virtual products and services, the demand for skilled engineers has exploded.
In June, more than 365,000 tech jobs in the United States were vacant, with software developers, IT support specialists, systems engineers and architects among the workers most coveted by employers.
Yet we hire 10 to 15 engineers per month, well above the industry average. What’s our secret?
First, it’s important to recognize that engineers – and most knowledge workers – have choice and bargaining power in today’s job market. An employer should not only respect this, but also take advantage of it to create a more attractive workplace and remain agile long after the hiring waves change.
You can’t overlook the elephant in the room – the money speaks. Today you can’t just offer the standard “competitive salaryâ€, you have to do better.
Overall, we’ve learned that it’s much harder to hire top talent than it is to generate income. This is one of our guiding principles, and we constantly remind our team of it. It’s up to everyone in the business to focus their energies on helping us find and retain great people. With that commitment in place, we know the rest will take care of themselves.
Certainly, we are fortunate that cryptocurrency and blockchain have a certain cachet and come with unique engineering needs that will keep even the most ambitious engineers challenged and rewarded in their day-to-day work. However, we still had to make a concerted effort to win over today’s in-demand engineers. Here are some ways we are winning the war for engineering talent.
Have a solid cash flow
You can’t overlook the elephant in the room – the money speaks. Today you can’t just offer the standard “competitive salaryâ€, you have to do better. We make sure our offers stand out and are hard to refuse. This approach is driven by our strong cash position (yes, we recognize our good fortune).
Ultimately, innovation is our lifeblood, so everything we do is measured with quality and speed before considering cost.
Review salaries at least every six months
We do not review salaries annually; the industry is too fast and competitive for this archaic approach. At least every six months, we review salary ranges across the organization based on employee performance and market trends and adjust employee compensation on a more flexible ad hoc basis.
This helps create a meritocratic and less bureaucratic culture and ensures that our team reaps the benefits commensurate with their work.
