After my last blog concerning unintentional issues in hiring practices, I felt the need to cover a more intentional issue. As a product owner and Agile consultant, I have been approached by many recruiters and hiring managers to discuss open positions in the organizations they represent. One consistency that has emerged over the last few years is that companies mask software development positions as product owner or scrum master positions.
Companies do this in an effort to save money. A software developer in the U.S. during mid-career makes an average of $92,815 per year. 1 During mid career, a product owner in the U.S. makes an average of $85,392. 2 This means that overall, a product owner is “cheaper” to maintain than a developer.
I have taught myself a little coding. I picked up HTML and CSS really easily. Both languages are very intuitive and were simple to learn. Since Javascript is supposed to work with HTML and CSS, I thought I would teach myself that, too, but it’s not as intuitive. I have learned a bit of Java, which has started to put some of the Javascript into perspective, but I am certainly no expert.
The reason I went into my coding knowledge is that recruiters have access to the fact that I can code a little. Like I said earlier in this post, I am approached quite often about open positions. More often than not, after looking at the requirements for a “product owner” position, I’ll find that the duties are strictly coding. In other words, it isn’t a product owner position at all, it’s a developer position. The fact that I have a little bit of coding in my background makes the company think I am qualified to be a developer.
I understand that hiring qualified people can seem expensive at first, but in the long run, it is far more cost effective to get the right people for the right job. I may have rudimentary coding skills, but I am not a software developer. Advertising a development position to me or others like me will only devalue the end product. By paying a little more up front for the talent necessary for quality products, companies can see a higher return on their investment and higher overall revenue. Deceitful hiring practices don’t just hurt the potential candidates, they hurt everyone involved, including the company as a whole.
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