Retaining top developers is about more than offering bigger paychecks. It requires creating a work environment that fosters both productivity and longevity. When your development team feels supported, challenged, and valued, they’re far less likely to look elsewhere for opportunities—and far more likely to stick around and help your business grow.
With tech companies losing from 13.2% to 18.3% of their top IT talent every year, it’s a red flag. And since you don’t want to be losing one out of every six or seven of your developers yearly, you need strategies in place that keep your developers productive, engaged, and committed for the long haul.
To help you with that I’ll share with you the top 5 strategies that will definitely lower your turnover rates and boost your developer retention.
Why Retaining Software Engineers is Essential
When a developer quits, (1) it messes up the workflow, (2) holds up projects, and (3) piles more work on the rest of the team, (4) which might burn them out. So, in sum, losing a developer costs way more than just the expenses of hiring a new one—it costs your company the loss of all that inside knowledge and a steep productivity drop, which, in turn, slows down your startup’s growth.
And when we talk about financial expenses, it’s not just about what it costs to hire someone new. Data shows that actually replacing a developer can cost anywhere from 30% to 70% of their yearly salary. And this includes recruitment, training, and productivity losses. For example, for a coder making $100,000 a year, you might spend $40,000 in recruitment, $25,000 in training, and even $60,000 alone due to decreased productivity. Steep, no?
The thing is—if you find a way to keep your developers fulfilled and satisfied, they’ll stick around keeping things moving, coming up with new ideas while helping your business stay stable in the long run without hurting your bottom line. So, it’s definitely worth working on that strategically.
5 Proven Ways to Retain Your Top Software Developers
Let’s explore the 5 top strategies you can and should implement today if you want to make sure your top IT talent stays, from building a culture of connection to how async work is not really helping with longevity, what to do about interruptions and distractions, and how to empower your management team.
1. Connect to Retain
I often say, “Company culture means connection; the connection is the culture.” And while many business leaders try and fail to understand, explain, and implement one, the truth about company cultures, in the end, is that it either makes or breaks real connections and, as a consequence, employee retention. Because ultimately, when people genuinely connect, they tend to be more engaged, more productive, and actually more willing to stick around long-term.
And in order to build that connection, you have to get personal.
So, instead of making every daily or weekly all about work. Rather, kick off your meetings by asking about your developers’ weekend, telling a quick story about something that happened to you or your family, or even wishing someone a happy birthday. Don’t make your team meetings about just routine check-ins; make it so they’re intentional moments to encourage genuine and real interaction. Also, try to share some of your hobbies on your team chat and encourage your team members to do the same, set up casual virtual hang-outs, or arrange one-on-one meetings. When you do this, you go from having a bunch of remote workers working somewhere individually to building a true team, a cohesive, connected unit, that gets along and works together well.
Another tip I always share is to be your team’s therapist. Which means paying attention and acting fast when you start noticing early signs of frustration or resentment—whether it’s passive-aggressive comments, subtle cues of dissatisfaction regarding salary or position, or even signs of depression and burnout. Besides their interpersonal relationships, their mental health should also be a top priority. Don’t let these signals pass you by; address them head-on and do so with empathy and open dialogue so they get resolved before they snowball and you end up losing your best coders. This way, you can build trust from the beginning by creating an environment where people feel free to share their feelings and work through disagreements constructively rather than letting them snowball into even bigger problems.
If you follow these tips and invest in legitimate interactions between you and your teams and amongst each of your team members, you’ll see that what you’re doing is actually laying the foundation for a culture where connection lowers your attrition rates and drives long-term developer retention.
2. Invest in Your Management Team
“Employees don’t quit their job, they quit their bosses.” Have you ever heard this phrase? I bet you have. In fact, this idea is becoming so common that in a Quora discussion about why software developers don’t stay long in a company, the word “boss” can be found at least 18 times.
So, it’s safe to say that strong management is, without a doubt, what holds any successful company together.
And what I’ve learned from my experience is that truly effective managers don’t just keep projects on track but also help create and put into action that connection culture we just talked about.They know their job isn’t to simply hand out tasks; it’s to work with their team and set a clear, consistent tone that everyone on their dev team can count on.
That’s why investing in your management team is key. And by investing I mean teaching them to notice subtle hints, like a shift in tone in a written message or a bit of uncertainty or anxiety during a call, and giving them the skills and tools they need in order to truly bond with their staff, tackle issues before they grow, and keep an eye on team spirit. When your leaders often check in, give clear direction, and make room for honest feedback, they build the kind of trust that keeps your IT talent loyal which, as a matter of fact, stops them from leaving. And let’s not forget: a great manager leads by example, by setting clear expectations, keeping their word, and encouraging open and honest talks.
And here’s the thing: when you invest in your leadership by giving them the right tools and knowledge and thus empowering them to become and be better leaders, you’re not just making your day-to-day operations better—you’re making sure your top software engineers work in an environment that’s conducive to their retention not their attrition.
3. Keep It Human
Now this is where the plot thickens. Ask any career guru or job expert out there and they’ll say that the secret to keeping your top talent happy is to work 100% asynchronously. But I’ll tell you this: while this approach might look good for productivity on paper, it misses the mark when it comes to building lasting human connections that yield longevity—the type of connection that is essential for long-term retention.
Solely using async communication can (and will) create a sterile, cold work environment where real connections fade away or are never built to begin with. And that’s backed up by workers themselves, with 30% of employees saying that async work does create a sense of disconnection and 26% stating that it creates social isolation.
In remote work, where we all lack live interaction, it means you end up missing those important and subtle hints like your team’s tone, their expressions and their body language, that really help you understand how they’re actually doing. As a consequence, you risk turning your team’s interactions into robotic exchanges that don’t have the warmth and spontaneity of face-to-face conversations (and by face-to-face I don’t mean in-person, as you can have them remotely as well).
And sure, while async has an impact on reducing interruptions (a topic we’ll cover next), it can’t always be the way to go, especially the only way to go. So it’s important to strike a balance. Here’s what I suggest: send routine updates and non-urgent matters through async channels, but don’t avoid real-time chats when you need them. So, if a Slack thread is going nowhere and you can’t reach a solution, just jump on a Zoom call with video on (video lets you see each other, not just hear their voices).
Also, stay away from endless remote brainstorming as it only disrupts work, and again, jump on a Zoom call to deal with it.To achieve that, set core working hours where synchronous interactions can happen, be them impromptu or scheduled meetings, so you can maintain the human touch that actually makes your team feel supported and connected and want to stick around. Allow for flexibility, of course, but also make sure your most introverted team members can’t just disappear into oblivion, as this is a sure way to lose them along the way.
4. Minimize Interruptions
The two biggest enemies of productivity are interruption and distraction. And these two, in turn, are huge enemies of developer retention, since if they can’t get their work done, they’re more likely to feel demotivated and feel like taking other job offers.
In truth, when you interrupt someone in the middle of a task, you’re actually creating 22 minutes of damage on average. And that gets worse: studies have found that employees face disruptions every 11 minutes, and a striking 27% of these breaks actually result in delays lasting more than two hours before people can and do get back to their tasks.
That’s even more prominent in a traditional office setting, where you have a tap on the shoulder, someone invites you to a meeting you never knew about, you have to go for lunch, or you need to leave at 5 pm to go home.
Now, if you have a boss or a leader that’s very intuitive, they would only approach their employees when they’re hanging out, meaning they would pay attention to when they’re not doing their core work, and just by the water cooler or the cafeteria.
In a remote work environment, although you don’t have the disruptions I just mentioned (lunch, going home, etc) you also don’t have the water cooler or just the ability to actually see what your team members are doing at any given period of time, which makes minimizing interruptions much more challenging. But also extremely important.
So, as a leader yourself and also when you’re instructing your leaders, you should be aware of the real need to focus on not interrupting your employees. To do so, establish clear boundaries and routines that prioritize focus while still keeping communication open, since as humans we need to connect, to have conversations. For example, define specific “focus time” blocks during which your people won’t be bothered (or at least shouldn’t), and set an open-door policy only during certain hours (although an unlimited open-door approach might seem helpful, it often leads to frequent, unplanned check-ins that mess up deep work and end up contributing to burnout).
And since we’ve already mentioned how important it is to stay connected with your team, schedule regular check-ins. By doing so, you stop surprise interruptions since all team members know exactly when they’ll be able to share updates, talk about problems, and get advice. Also encourage your engineers to set their Slack to “away” when in the flow, so there are less chances of disruption.
In the end, since you don’t want to hurt your human connections and you know by now 100% async doesn’t really work, you don’t want to cut out all interruptions since meaningful talks every now and then really keep your team connected, prevent misunderstandings and lower the overall stress of trying to make sense of bits and pieces from endless texts. So, ultimately, a good balance between minimizing interruptions and allowing for real-time interaction is key to not only top delivery but also to top IT talent retention.
5. Schedule Regular Face-to-Face Meetings
By now, we’ve already talked about how important it is to connect with people and the problems that come from using async only, especially in a remote environment where it’s far too easy and common to end up buried in endless chat threads or messy email back-and-forths that don’t leave much room for real talk.
So, in order to nurture connections and really make sure that your company culture is well and thriving, schedule regular face-to-face meetings—both in small groups and one-on-one sessions—where you can truly interact with your team on a personal level.
And when we say “face-to-face” we mean use video, not just audio. Why? Because there’s a significant difference in terms of connections when you’re just listening to somebody speak rather than when you’re actually seeing someone’s face. In fact, 95% of professionals agree, stating that this type of meeting is key to long-term relationships.
In truth, face time has a huge impact on both establishing connections and keeping them alive, since you’re able to pick up on small signs—their expressions, body language, even the spark in their eyes—that show how they’re really feeling and doing. Which, as a result, doesn’t just bring the team closer, but also helps managers keep track of their workers’ mental health while balancing out the loneliness that often comes with working remotely.
The Bottom Line
As you can see, retaining your top developers requires a mix of focusing on productivity while aiming at longevity. In order to do so, you need to make sure your company culture fosters true human connection while keeping the interactions really human, which means not going full async, ever. Besides, you must empower your leaders by equipping them with the tools and skills needed to shield your dev team from irrelevant and unnecessary interruptions, care for them on a personal level, and set the tone for that connection culture you’re building in-house, going full circle.
However, we can’t not mention the power of making great hiring decisions when it comes to IT talent retention. When you hire the right developers for your team, your chances of them quitting are actually much lower. And that’s where we come in: with our expert recruiters and headhunters and our access to a global talent pool, you’ll have your pick of only the best engineers who not only match your culture and have the skills you need, but who will actually want to stick around.
Contact us today for more information on how we can help your business grow.
