Are software developers the football stars of the tech world?

Galactico superteams or super rich football clubs offer high salaries to secure the top talent to play for their teams and win the leagues. In a similar fashion, big corporate companies are pushing up the price for software developers by offering top salaries to secure this increasingly scarce talent. This problem derives from the skills gap where companies are faced with taking on talent which is under invested in, requiring training and development in order for them to grow. Instead they find a quick fix, fill their immediate vacancies and complete their projects by paying premium price for a ready made developer to come in and do the job. We have found that many companies would rather recruit talent which has already been trained up by somebody else than invest in the long term development of talent. The problem with pinching talent from one another is that very often it is the company who offers the highest salary that tends to win the battle. Large corporate companies who can offer large salaries and benefits packages to candidates can easily promote their team as the most beneficial to their career. Not to mention bigger budgets to market their recruitment process and attract candidates. But is the biggest always the best? Does it necessarily guarantee success or career satisfaction? For Footballers and for developers – is moving for money always going to be all its cracked up to be? My question is, if you're a talented developer are you content to be a well-paid bit-part player – making appearances from the bench, or do you want to be the team's star player? How do you find a balance of which team to play for? Similarly, once you've 'signed', where do you go from there? Will working for the biggest and most well known company mean that your individual contributions and talents are going to be celebrated and recognised? Or will these be swallowed up and underappreciated? Working for the larger companies is like playing for the superstar team, meaning that you may not necessarily get to be the 'star' player and have your winning contribution recognised. On the flip side to this, developers who have the opportunity to join small start up teams can benefit the same way football players would joining a smaller team. I can't necessarily speak for footballers but for developers what we have found is that it isn't money that drives them to seek out new challenges, but the opportunity to continue learning and developing their career. The opportunity to widen their experience and the excitement of create something wonderful with code is what really motivates them. Companies who want this talent try to buy it by offering the highest salary but this isn't going to feed their curiosity or keep developers around for long. They must offer much more, and this is where start ups are unrivalled. The opportunity for growth, focussed training and development and the chance to shine can be much greater in the smaller, agile and innovative start ups. It is here that career progression can be achieved, learning opportunities are much greater and your contributions can really make a difference. In many larger firms, we have seen management struggle to reward and encourage their employees. If they have already paid them so much to begin with, a pay rise is not going to seem very significant. They must offer other tangible benefits of working at their company to entice developers and reinforce employee growth and development in the same way starts up can. Are you a developer in today's competitive industry? How do you achieve a balance of finding the right team to play for? We'd love to hear your thoughts on what matters most to you when you're looking for a new role, or what would tempt you. Is it all about money? Or is training, career progression, and the quality of a project more important? Anndeep Sandhu is a marketing executive with Enigma People Solutions.