Your most talented engineers aren't leaving for better opportunities. They're being pushed out by frustrating tools.
This distinction matters if you're trying to understand why retention has become such a challenge in IT and security roles. While exit interviews might cite "career growth" or "new challenges," the real story is often simpler: your best people are spending their days fighting their tools instead of solving interesting problems.
Most people don't enter IT careers to become dashboard operators. They come for the problem-solving, the innovation, and the satisfaction of building systems that actually work.
Yet research shows that 79% of IT professionals have seriously considered quitting due to work-related stress. What's driving this?
In too many organizations, passionate technologists find themselves transformed into "glorified button pushers"—switching between poorly integrated tools, writing scripts to connect systems that should communicate automatically, and addressing issues that proper tooling could prevent entirely.
When engineers leave, they take institutional knowledge that's impossible to replace - years of insight into systems, workarounds, relationships, and historical decisions.
But the costs go beyond recruitment:
The pattern I see in successful IT teams is simple: they've stopped accepting over-engineered solutions. They prioritize tools that:
This piece was inspired by a discussion on our podcast, Patch Me If You Can™ with guest Aaron Morin, exploring how modern IT teams are navigating the challenges of tool complexity and engineer retention.
What's your experience? Have you seen talented engineers leave over tooling frustrations? Reply and let me know - I read every response.
Cheers,
Weldon
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