IT departments are failing to keep hold of their best developers and struggling to attract new talent, the latest MuleSoft report suggests.
The integration software company polled 600 CIOs and IT decision-makers and found that "The Great Resignation” has made it difficult to retain skilled developers for 93% of businesses. At the same time, 86% said it has become much harder to recruit new developers in the last two years.
The Great Resignation, in some places also referred to as the Big Quit, is an ongoing trend whereby workers are quitting their jobs en masse and seeking employment elsewhere. The trend was triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic and the periods of lockdown that followed.
Demand outstripping supply
Although the departure of some developers is financially motivated, many others are seeking out jobs that take less of a toll on their mental and physical health, and offer greater flexibility when it comes to remote and hybrid working.
In the last two years, developers have had to endure increasing workloads and stress related to digital transformation. Furthermore, they were forced into learning new skills, and adapting to new technologies and approaches.
This turned out to be quite the challenge, as 76% of organizations said the cognitive load required to learn their software architecture is so high that the developers end up frustrated and unproductive.
To take the edge off, and make sure they attract the right talent, businesses need to embrace automation, the report concluded. The majority (70%) are already planning for AI, but are having trouble managing the integrations across multiple cloud platforms, struggle with limited automation in software development, data silos, governance and security, and limited access to lightweight tooling.
“The demand for digital solutions was already outpacing the supply of software developers before the pandemic, but now it’s through the roof. Churn caused by the ‘Great Resignation’ is widening this gap even further,” said Matt McLarty, Global Field CTO & VP of the Digital Transformation Office, MuleSoft.
”For organizations to truly transform digitally, they need to do two things: first, give developers user-friendly tools that maximize their productivity, and secondly, give the rest of the knowledge workers in the organization tools that empower them to become engaged in building digital solutions, not just documenting requirements.”
