Prioritizing DevEx: how retailers can win the war for developer talent
How e-commerce businesses can create winning customer journeys by prioritizing developer experiences.
Competition for the best developer talent is hotting up in every industry, with shortages growing. An overwhelming majority (69%) of software developers leave positions after less than two years, often citing undue levels of stress, excessive unpaid overtime and toxic working cultures. Even when convinced to stay, three in four developers are burned-out and unable to work to their full potential, leaving critical projects at risk of serious impact due to lack of productivity.
Developer shortages are detrimental across the board, but particularly so for e-commerce businesses. Retailers rely on software developers to create and manage engaging online experiences for customers, improve SEO visibility and drive traffic to their sites, and keep user data encrypted and secure.
If steps aren’t taken to improve developer experience, retailers risk losing top developers to forward-thinking competitors, with ecommerce experiences for customers suffering as a result. So how can ecommerce businesses keep developers on side?
Letting devs self-manage
Developers are often interrupted by required updates or routine tasks – particularly during busy seasons like the holiday shopping period. There’s no reason to waste this time with unnecessary meetings or distractions; it only widens the gap between devs and their immediate priorities.
“Flow” is a well-known concept amongst developers. Also called “deep work”, this term refers to a state of complete concentration without distraction, something that many devs deem necessary on a daily basis to remain productive. It can take a programmer between 10-15 minutes to resume coding after an interruption, meaning that even the most trivial of delays can rapidly snowball into major project setbacks.
Learning how devs use their time at work can help to restructure workflows, identify helpful tools, and shorten lead times by up to 40%. Managers should collect regular feedback from developers on how they can best spend their time at work and plan accordingly, for instance by rescheduling meetings or allowing for flexi-time if required.
Identifying the right (and wrong) resources
Considering their staggering turnover rate, devs must see many positions as “dead-end jobs”. Developer roles must be just as valuable to the employees as they are to the company, with opportunities to learn, grow and progress.
For example, 44% of devs aren’t always sure which system or resource should be used to answer a question, which affects both productivity levels and stress management. Complex coding projects require exhaustive resources, but not all teams are suitably trained on how to use them.
Managers may assume that devs are familiar with certain platforms or tools, but this assumption may end up stunting the growth of young talent, or worse, discouraging them from asking questions. This is why project managers must ensure that all resources are accessible, user-friendly and comprehensively explained to all members of staff. Communications must also be air-tight, especially when working with remote teams, to keep devs in that ever-valuable flow state.
Another way to keep devs progressing and learning new things is to offer periodical training, whether on essential work practices or to develop skills that your business might someday need. By giving devs a chance to develop their knowledge of the latest technologies, businesses can close the skills gap while ensuring their team acquires valuable skills on the job.
However, it’s important to keep time frames and workload in mind for individual team members. Devs are likely to quit intensive courses or programs if it impedes them from their core responsibilities, especially if it’s a busy retail period. Instead of long training courses, businesses could instead consider more flexible resources without time restrictions to encourage devs to learn vital new skills on the job when they are able.
Freedom at work
70% of devs code in their spare time. For them, coding is not just work, but a hobby and a craft – it’s something they love to do. However many devs (especially those in-house) find all their time consumed by bug-hunting and other necessary, but boring and laborious, fixes, further impacting their job satisfaction. When barriers are created between devs and creative coding, it impedes innovation across the board – devs become less interested, and offer fewer ideas that would enrich the customer experience.
Without addressing the issue of devs’ freedom at work, businesses may soon be faced with a dispassionate workforce – not for lack of enthusiasm, but because their ideas have not been encouraged in the first place. This complacency will keep businesses behind while major competitors roll out innovative new ways to delight their customers.
Freedom comes from using modern flexible software that takes care of the mundane jobs developers are often tasked with, like bug fixing. This also frees up developers to add to the ecosystem. By removing tedious and laborious tasks from their workload, developers have more resources to focus on providing business value and actually contributing to the overall business strategy.
It’s natural for managers to want to maintain the hygiene of their ecommerce site, but making it a dev’s full-time job is not an efficient use of their time – it stifles innovation, distracts from more urgent tasks, and disengages the team. To reduce this kind of repetitive administrative work, businesses could consider investing in tools that can automate tests and identify bugs, freeing up devs for more complex, stimulating tasks that more directly impact conversion rates and customer satisfaction.
Where composable comes in
Top developers have become a hot commodity for ecommerce businesses. A good team of developers is crucial to creating engaging, frictionless customer journeys – so retailers have got to find ways to keep developers happy and motivated.
Self management, freedom, and airtight communication are all integral to improving developers’ experience. By giving developers the freedom and flexibility to create experiences that provide business value, retailers reap the benefits with unique, engaging experiences that help them differentiate themselves from their competitors.
Investing in new technologies, such as headless infrastructure, grants developers full control of the customer experience – without constraints from proprietary front-end tech – across the frameworks of their choice. With a composable approach, developers can make use of existing capabilities, allowing them to showcase their creativity – rather than getting bogged down in fixes and mundane tasks.
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