Why software employees leave and how to understand why
Engineers and product staff leave for many reasons beyond salary. How to run an exit conversation in a software company, read the pattern and act on it.
6 min readRead articleA low-code agency builds apps for clients on visual platforms rather than writing everything by hand. Here is how to manage builders, consultants and trainers in a field where platform skills change fast and clients expect speed.

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Share your requirementsA low-code or no-code agency builds business apps, workflows and websites using visual platforms, with some custom code where needed. Clients choose it for speed and lower cost, and projects often finish in weeks. Staff include platform builders, business analysts, a few traditional developers, trainers who teach the client's team and support staff. Many builders come from non-engineering backgrounds, so ladders and pay are unclear. Skills are tied to specific platforms, which change often and may lose favour. Clients may later try to maintain the app themselves, so handover and training are part of the job. Deadlines are short and the pace is fast, which tempts teams to skip documentation. See also HR for IT and software.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in low-code and no-code agencies. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
Platform builders are not quite developers or analysts, and promotion rules are vague.
Tools change fast, and a skill that earned a premium last year may matter less now.
Clients expect apps in weeks, and testing and documentation get cut.
Traditional developers dismiss platform work, and the two groups collaborate poorly.
Client staff are given an app they cannot maintain, and the agency gets blamed later.
Staff with certificates demand more, others feel overlooked, and certificates attract poachers.
They gather requirements, test, train and hold hands, all in the same week.
Clients learn to build for themselves, shrinking work and pressuring the agency to prove its value.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Career and Succession Management; Learning and Development; Organisation Design. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for information technology and software, not in general.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a low-code and no-code agencies business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Levels from junior builder to solution architect, with what each level owns.
Levels from junior builder to solution architect, with what each level owns. Use compensation benchmarking to place pay in the market.
Time and budget for certification and platform updates, set out in the learning and development process.
Time and budget for certification and platform updates, set out in the learning and development process.
A project is not complete without a short design note, test record and handover guide, stored in line with the HR documentation process.
A project is not complete without a short design note, test record and handover guide, stored in line with the HR documentation process.
Joint design reviews so each side understands when a visual flow ends and code is needed.
Joint design reviews so each side understands when a visual flow ends and code is needed.
A training plan, a support period and a checklist so client staff can take over safely.
A training plan, a support period and a checklist so client staff can take over safely.
Clear limits on what an analyst owns, with test and training tasks shared or moved to others.
Clear limits on what an analyst owns, with test and training tasks shared or moved to others.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
A fair pay structure for builders, analysts and architects that does not rely on certificates alone.
Time and funding for platform skills, with a plan that follows the tools you rely on.
Design notes and handover guides as part of each project's closure.
Goals for speed and quality, so quick delivery is not the only thing rewarded.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in information technology and software, and one on each of the topics this page points to.

Engineers and product staff leave for many reasons beyond salary. How to run an exit conversation in a software company, read the pattern and act on it.
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6 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Define levels from junior builder to architect with clear skills at each. Include business understanding and client skills, not only platform knowledge. Share it so people can plan.
It helps show skill and win clients, but it can distort pay and make poaching easier. Pair certificate allowances with project performance, and have service terms checked by a qualified professional.
Define minimum steps for every project and show clients what is lost if they are cut. Leaders should back the team when a date threatens basic testing.
Hold joint design reviews and give shared goals. Make clear that visual and coded work each have a place, and avoid status labels.
Plan training, supply documentation, offer a short support period and agree who owns changes. A rushed handover is the usual reason for later disputes.
We would ask about builder ladders, platform learning, documentation and client handover. A sensible first project is a role ladder with a handover checklist. Scope goes into writing before you decide.
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