GullyHR
Industries · IT and Software

HR Management Solutions for IT and Software Companies

Build people systems for knowledge work — where the cost is salaries, the risk is notice periods, and the asset walks out every evening.

A software company's largest cost is people and its largest risk is losing them. Developers, QA, DevOps, product, design, project managers and client-facing teams all work in ways that make attendance a poor measure and output a hard one.

  1. Plan
  2. Hire
  3. Onboard
  4. Manage
  5. Develop
  6. Perform
  7. Engage
  8. Retain
  9. Exit
  10. Improve

When HR processes are weak, you may see

  • High attrition in critical roles
  • Counter-offers and notice-period drop-offs
  • Unclear career levels
  • Appraisals that surprise people
  • Bench and utilisation blind spots
  • Remote and hybrid policy confusion
  • Offer-to-joining no-shows
  • Manager capability gaps
  • Poor onboarding for remote joiners
  • Compensation inconsistency across the same level
  • No skills view across the company

We help software companies build career ladders, performance systems and HR operations that scale past the point where the founder knew everybody.

Who we work with

Adapted to headcount, delivery model — product, services or hybrid — and how distributed the teams are.

  • Software Companies
  • SaaS Companies
  • IT Services
  • IT Consulting
  • Product Companies
  • Technology Startups
  • Mobile App Companies
  • Web Development Companies
  • Cloud Services Companies
  • Cybersecurity Companies
  • AI Companies
  • Data Analytics Companies
  • BPO Companies
  • KPO Companies
  • Call Centres

What the HR system covers

Most businesses take a few of these at a time, in an order decided by what is costing them most. Open any area to see what it includes.

Organisation and Team Structure

Squads, functions and who actually does the review.

What this covers

Technology organisations often run a delivery structure and a reporting structure at once. Problems start when nobody has said which one owns the appraisal.

  • Organisation structure
  • Function vs project reporting
  • Squad and pod structure
  • Engineering management layer
  • Individual contributor track
  • People manager track
  • Span of control
  • Approval matrix
  • Role ownership

Career Levels and Competency Ladder

What separates an engineer from a senior engineer, in writing.

What this covers

The single most common request from engineers is not money. It is to know what the next level requires.

  • Level definitions
  • Engineering ladder
  • IC and manager tracks
  • Competency per level
  • Technical depth expectations
  • Scope and autonomy expectations
  • Promotion criteria
  • Promotion readiness review
  • Level-to-band mapping
  1. Level
  2. Expected competency
  3. Current assessment
  4. Gap
  5. Development plan
  6. Promotion readiness

Technical Recruitment

Structured hiring that does not depend on who interviewed.

What this covers

Engineering and product

  • Software Engineers
  • Senior Engineers
  • Tech Leads
  • Architects
  • QA Engineers
  • Automation Engineers
  • DevOps
  • SRE
  • Data Engineers
  • Product Managers
  • Designers

Delivery and support

  • Project Managers
  • Scrum Masters
  • Business Analysts
  • Support Engineers
  • Implementation
  • Pre-sales
  • Client Servicing
  • HR
  • Finance
  • Admin
  • Manpower requisition
  • Hiring approval and budget
  • Structured interview stages
  • Technical evaluation rubric
  • Interview scorecards
  • Panel calibration
  • Compensation bands at offer
  • Offer approval
  • Notice-period and counter-offer tracking
  • Joining follow-up

Offer to Joining

The silent notice period is where offers are lost.

What this covers

Most no-shows are decided mid-notice, not on joining morning. A contact plan with named owners closes the gap.

  • Offer acceptance confirmation
  • Appointment letter within 24 hours
  • Manager contact in week one
  • Counter-offer check mid-notice
  • Document collection
  • Pre-joining communication
  • Logistics confirmation
  • Day-minus-two contact
  • Acceptance-to-joining tracking

Remote and Hybrid Working

Written rules, so it is not decided per manager.

What this covers
  • Work-from-office expectation
  • Hybrid pattern
  • Remote eligibility by role
  • Core hours
  • Time-zone overlap for client work
  • Attendance definition for remote staff
  • Equipment and asset issue
  • Information-security expectations
  • Home-office reimbursement
  • Remote onboarding

Bench, Utilisation and Allocation

Knowing who is on what, before the month ends.

What this covers

Services businesses lose margin in the gap between a person rolling off and being allocated again. That gap is an HR data problem as much as a delivery one.

  • Allocation record
  • Billable vs non-billable
  • Bench list and ageing
  • Skill-based allocation
  • Project roll-off notice
  • Redeployment process
  • Utilisation reporting
  • Capacity vs pipeline

Performance and Appraisal

Feedback through the year, so the appraisal contains no surprises.

What this covers
  • Goal setting
  • OKRs or KRAs
  • Quarterly check-ins
  • Continuous feedback
  • Manager one-to-ones
  • Peer input where used
  • Calibration across teams
  • Ratings
  • Performance improvement plans
  • Promotion and increment recommendations

Compensation and Bands

Two people at the same level, paid for the same reasons.

What this covers

Salary structures in growing software companies are built one negotiation at a time, until two engineers at the same level are paid very differently and the only honest explanation is who asked harder.

  • Level-to-band mapping
  • Band ranges
  • Position in range
  • Increment cycle
  • Performance-linked increments
  • Promotion increments
  • Counter-offer policy
  • Variable pay
  • ESOP administration support
  • Compensation review cycle

Manager Capability

The best engineer is now running the team.

What this covers
  • First-time manager development
  • Delegation
  • Feedback and difficult conversations
  • Running one-to-ones
  • Goal setting for teams
  • Performance conversations
  • Hiring and interviewing skills
  • Retention conversations
  • Team development

Attrition and Retention

In knowledge work, attrition is the whole risk.

What this covers

Understand the pattern before designing a response:

  • Attrition by level and skill
  • Attrition by manager
  • First-year attrition
  • Regretted vs non-regretted
  • Exit reasons
  • Notice-period withdrawals
  • Critical-role exposure

Then act:

  • Stay interviews
  • Critical-talent identification
  • Named backups for key roles
  • Manager interventions
  • Career-path conversations
  • Compensation corrections
  • Knowledge-transfer requirements

Learning and Skills

A skills view of the company, not a training calendar.

What this covers
  • Skill inventory
  • Technology skill matrix
  • Certification tracking
  • Training needs from appraisals
  • Technical training
  • Behavioural training
  • Manager development
  • Learning budget
  • Internal knowledge sharing
  • Effectiveness measurement

Onboarding for Technical Teams

Productive in week one, not month two.

What this covers
  • Pre-joining communication
  • Document collection
  • Asset and access provisioning
  • Repository and tooling access
  • Buddy assignment
  • Team and product induction
  • Security and confidentiality briefing
  • 30/60/90-day plan
  • Probation review
  • Confirmation

Exit and Knowledge Transfer

What leaves with a developer is not just the developer.

What this covers
  • Resignation and acceptance
  • Notice-period management
  • Retention conversation
  • Client and project transition
  • Code and documentation handover
  • Knowledge-transfer checklist
  • Access revocation
  • Asset return
  • Exit interview
  • Full-and-final settlement
  • Relieving and experience letters
  • Alumni and rehire eligibility

HR Technology and Automation

HR that does not run on spreadsheets and chat.

What this covers
  • Employee database
  • Recruitment and ATS
  • Onboarding workflows
  • Leave and attendance
  • Payroll inputs
  • Performance cycles
  • Goal tracking
  • Training records
  • Employee self-service
  • Manager self-service
  • HR dashboards
  • System integrations

People Dashboard

What leadership should see monthly.

What this covers
  • Headcount by function and level
  • Open positions and ageing
  • Time to hire
  • Offer-to-joining rate
  • New joiners
  • Attrition overall and regretted
  • Attrition by manager
  • Bench and utilisation
  • Employee cost
  • Salary cost as share of revenue
  • Promotion counts
  • Training completion
  • Engagement signals

IT and Software HR maturity assessment

Each area is scored on the same five-level scale, so management can see where HR stands today and what to improve first.

Request an HR audit
  1. 1

    No defined process

    Activities happen differently each time.

  2. 2

    Informal, person dependent

    Processes exist but depend heavily on individual employees.

  3. 3

    Documented

    Processes and responsibilities are written down.

  4. 4

    Implemented and measured

    Processes are followed and performance is measured.

  5. 5

    Automated and continuously improved

    Technology-enabled, measured and improved deliberately.

What you receive

Depending on the engagement. Scope and sequence are agreed after the audit.

  • HR Audit
  • HR Gap Analysis
  • HR Improvement Roadmap
  • Organisation Structure
  • Manpower Plan
  • Job Descriptions
  • KRA and KPI Framework
  • Competency Framework
  • Recruitment Process
  • Onboarding Framework
  • Attendance and Leave Process
  • Performance Management System
  • Training Framework
  • Employee Engagement Framework
  • Retention Plan
  • HR Policy Manual
  • Employee Handbook
  • HR SOPs
  • HR Forms
  • HR Templates
  • HR Calendar
  • HR Dashboard
  • HR MIS
  • HR Automation Roadmap
  • HRMS Implementation Framework

Our HR transformation approach

  1. 1

    Assess

    Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.

  2. 2

    Identify gaps

    Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.

  3. 3

    Design

    Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.

  4. 4

    Implement

    Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.

  5. 5

    Automate

    Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.

  6. 6

    Measure

    Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.

  7. 7

    Improve

    Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.

Build a people function that scales with the product

A strong HR function in a software company helps the business:

  • Hire predictably
  • Convert more offers into joiners
  • Give engineers a visible career path
  • Make appraisals defensible
  • Reduce regretted attrition
  • Protect critical roles
  • Develop first-time managers
  • Pay consistently at each level
  • See bench and utilisation clearly
  • Reduce HR dependency on individuals
  • Scale past founder-led people decisions

Build a better people system for your technology company

Whether you are a growing product team or a services business scaling delivery, we can help build career levels, performance systems and HR operations that hold at size.

Request an HR auditTalk to us about your people systems

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