As a co-founder and director of a software specialist, I have always known that great software engineers and developers are rarer than gold. But now there’s a survey proving it.
Access to software engineers and developers is a bigger constraint to companies than access to capital, the survey by economic internet infrastructure company Stripe found.
Stripe asked Harris Poll to study thousands of company executives and software developers in more than 30 industries to see how businesses were leveraging software developer talent, and what they could be doing differently. The results were recently published on Stripe’s website.
“Companies no longer face challenges with [the] scarcity of capital. Instead, as technology fracks into every aspect of the world economy, high-quality software engineers [and developers] are becoming the world’s most precious resource,” Stripe’s survey found.
“Developers act as force-multipliers, and if used effectively, have the collective potential to raise global GDP by $3 trillion over the next 10 years.”
There are an estimated 18 million software developers in the world contributing NZD$77,000 each to global GDP.
None of the findings of this report was news to us at Company-X. Nor, I suspect, the good folk at Stripe. The reason they embarked on an expensive survey was to prove to the world just how worthwhile great software developers are and how hard it is to find them.
Such is our reality at Company-X. We don’t bother advertising most of our software development opportunities externally because that would invite a plethora of applications from anyone who thought they could write code. Senior executives surveyed said the lack of quality software developer talent was one of the biggest potential threats to their businesses.
Instead, we inform the Company-X team about the opportunities and encourage them to recommend the great software engineers and developers that they know. That way we can tap the best talent on the shoulder and chat with them about the possibilities of joining us.
David Hallett is co-founder and director of New Zealand software specialist Company-X.