Gartner Insights Abstract

How to Attract and Retain Legacy Environment Software Engineers

Published: 23 January 2024

Summary

As organizations modernize applications, they still need to support mission-critical legacy technologies and systems. Finding people for this task is increasingly difficult. Software engineering leaders must get more creative to attract and retain developers for their legacy environments.

Included in Full Research

Overview

Key Findings
  • Software engineers are naturally drawn to opportunities to work with the “latest and greatest” technologies, methods and tools. They see little to no upside in working with cumbersome legacy technologies. As a result, software engineering leaders struggle to attract and retain people to support mission-critical legacy environments.

  • In most organizations, legacy technologies will power mission-critical applications for an extended period of time. Software engineering leaders cannot afford to lose developers who have the expertise required to sustain operations or extend the legacy application life span into the future.

Recommendations

Software engineering leaders must:

  • Attract the right talent by clarifying the desired

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Analysts:

Howard Dodd Stefan Van Der Zijden

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