This guy has some interesting points, and does seem to be addressing the problem. I was one of those 20-something techies who quit after a year (not at his company, though).
Legacy code base, of course is not as much fun. Dual ownership of projects is a really good idea. At my old job, I was thrown into the code base with no support, and told to figure it out. I did, but it's not much fun scratching your head for a month and then writing 100 lines of code. Especially after a few rounds of this, with no feedback.
The 9-5 thing is interesting, but I don't think I could do a 9-5 shop. That might be great if you are established, have a family, and are working on a known problem, but for me, I find that I'm either 100% in, or 0% in, and there's not much in between. I think I'd get bored in an environment like that pretty quick (that's not to say that they're wrong, just that it's not for me).
As for working from home, not sure that it's too important. I mean, hopefully if you have a package or a doctor's appointment you can VPN in for the day, but as a whole, don't really care.
Ultimately though, money is a big part. At my old job, I got a stellar performance review, and a 2% raise for the year. They also bumped the baseline for new collage hires to more than it was when I joined (so I was now making less than the new college hires). I said that this was unacceptable, that my rent had gone up more than that, and that I wanted 5%. They said no, but that next year I'd be in for a promotion. I said goodbye, and they offered me $20,000 to stay. That's just broken. I left.
Legacy code base, of course is not as much fun. Dual ownership of projects is a really good idea. At my old job, I was thrown into the code base with no support, and told to figure it out. I did, but it's not much fun scratching your head for a month and then writing 100 lines of code. Especially after a few rounds of this, with no feedback.
The 9-5 thing is interesting, but I don't think I could do a 9-5 shop. That might be great if you are established, have a family, and are working on a known problem, but for me, I find that I'm either 100% in, or 0% in, and there's not much in between. I think I'd get bored in an environment like that pretty quick (that's not to say that they're wrong, just that it's not for me).
As for working from home, not sure that it's too important. I mean, hopefully if you have a package or a doctor's appointment you can VPN in for the day, but as a whole, don't really care.
Ultimately though, money is a big part. At my old job, I got a stellar performance review, and a 2% raise for the year. They also bumped the baseline for new collage hires to more than it was when I joined (so I was now making less than the new college hires). I said that this was unacceptable, that my rent had gone up more than that, and that I wanted 5%. They said no, but that next year I'd be in for a promotion. I said goodbye, and they offered me $20,000 to stay. That's just broken. I left.