[morbicer]

Similar experience as the sibling reply. I have plenty of colleagues that care about quality and details. Engineers are expected to fill the gaps on specs. Only few of them are 4x+ and we are all cheap because we live in central Europe.

The key is to have good company culture and pay above average (in local rates so 3x and more cheaper than USA). This give you great retention. People are loyal and aren't switching jobs every 2 years. Many of us are with the same company for 5+ years.

Which creates a sense of ownership. Give engineers freedom to make decisions [1], give them challenges. Not deadline challenges that lead to burnout. Foster collaboration and reward seniors teaching juniors. Maintain lean processes.

But truth to be told the dream starts to crumble. Our small to mid size company got acquired by a bigger one and the process bullshit and top down decisions start to creep up. I won't probably last long here but I am worried if I can find a company with a mindset we used to have.

[1] Perhaps controversial hot take: discard architects. Teams should own the technical design. If it's a huge project spanning multiple teams, host in-person designathon for a week. You should have staff engineers on board steering it, but involve seniors or even lower ranks. The people designing should be the same people who are going to implement it. Again, sense if ownership, lower communication overhead. If you are worried teams would stray in different ways, have guilds around core tech/architecture areas. Designs can be reviewed cross team. Let people join other teams for quarter or so to cross-pollinate ideas and best practices.