Very good post over at Software by Rob. It’s about the important things that developers need to work happily at your company.
He places everything in two parts. Hygiene and Motivation. This is actually very similar to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs something that is always again turning out to be true. Maslow put motivation into a hierarchy.
* Physical Needs: working conditions, wage, housing, catering,…
* Safety: health insurance, pension provision, safety, security in job
* Social: sports, clubs, parties, outings, open communications, …
* Esteem: Regular positive feedback, prestigious job titles, promotions
* Self-actualisation: challenging, encouraging, can structure own work
The idea is that you need the first parts like with a pyramid. If the base is not there, it is futile to add the others. In bad working conditions, no amount of challenge will lead to motivation.
The same thing is true for hygiene. You need it to start with. Or at least a good amount of it. Maslow is actually a bit clearer that you need the base as a must have.
So let’s put this more into perspective for developers.
1. Being Set Up to Succeed
The idea is that you really want to build something, something that doesn’t put unnecessary road blocks in your way, that is maintainable. It needs to be a quality product. It’s craftsmanship. You don’t tell a craftsman to build a crappy table. I am happy to be able to put a check here.
2. Having Excellent Management
You need to take bullets for your team, no micro-managing, give them free the freedom to think themselves. This is really too early to tell. This really takes time to build up. The verdict is still out.
3. Learning New Things
It seems that if your job gets more variety, and you get to acquire new skills, you will forgo a 20% raise. A really good developer needs to learn. Of course they have to want to, which is kind of a circle. Good developers do. This is a kind of test. I am making damn sure they have the option.
4. Exercising Creativity and Solving the Right Kind of Problems
I think I have to try one suggestion he has: drop a Sudoku in the middle of the developers to see them attack it. Might be a good trick when hiring somebody new. 
I agree that developers love challenge in general, so a big job is to make sure that the problem at hand is a difficult one. And remember, easy problems can be difficult if put in the right light and made into a challenge.
5. Having a Voice
When a developer speaks, somebody has to listen. Simple. That’s actually true for all people I’d say.
6. Being Recognized for Hard Work
Peer pressure. Something Google uses as a management style. Hard to make right and not backfire.
7. Building Something that Matters
Building something that somehow has more reason than making money. I think we score big there at Ormigo, because we give local merchants an option to compete in the global advertising market.
8. Building Software without an Act of Congress
Let them build it. Don’t talk about building it, but build it.
9. Having Few Legacy Constraints
This is really a cry for refactoring and putting that into your development model, making time for it. The thing is that you don’t want anything in your app to hold you back. But as you are learning along the way, the stuff holding you back will appear again and again.
I actually have to say that we are doing pretty well at Ormigo. A lot of this can be read out of simple management practices from an MBA if you look at it from the right angle.
