Organizational Dysfunction Drives Senior Engineer Attrition in Tech Companies
By
rbanffy
If you only eat one bagel today, this is the bagel.
Summary
The article discusses why senior engineers leave companies, using a case study of a SaaS company that lost five senior engineers in 18 months. While exit interviews cited compensation as the reason, the real issue was organizational dysfunction where technical expertise and warnings from engineers were ignored by leadership. The article argues that when information doesn't flow upward through organizational hierarchies, problems fester until engineers become disengaged and start looking elsewhere, with resignation decisions often made months before they actually leave.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledHe started interviewing that week. Not because of the technical decision—those happen. Because his judgment did not matter.
Eighteen months later, the company had lost five senior engineers and hired a fractional C
Exit interviews cited compensation. The real problem: information does not flow upward through organizational hierarchy.
By the time problems reach executive level, they have metastasized into resignation decisions made months earlier.
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