hardBehaviouralScenarioStaffLead
One of your strongest engineers tells you they are thinking about leaving. What do you do?
6 min readUpdated 2026-08-15
Answer
Short answer
Separate the conversation about why from any conversation about money, find out whether the cause is something you can genuinely change, be honest that a counter-offer rarely fixes a non-financial reason, and treat the knowledge and morale consequences as work that starts the same week.
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Likely follow-ups
- They have a signed offer at 30% more money. Does your answer change?
- What do you tell the rest of the team, and when?
- You keep them with a promotion promise and calibration does not support it in six months. What then?
- How would you know a quarter earlier that this was coming?
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