Historically, Paylocity has been able to attract talent. For a while, they were able to retain it. Unfortunately for the past few years, the trend has been spiraling.
First, talent acquisition. Paylocity has repeatedly lowered hiring standards. Historically the motto was "we only hire senior developers," since the company operated with the intent to trust front line delivery with the philosophy of a "collection of startups." When restructuring for titles and career progression, they started hiring mid level engineers. Then they started hiring Associate level. They now have the NCG program, standing for New College Graduates. I would not be surprised if this was the largest source of new hires now.
Now, accepting junior talent is actually fine, and a positive thing but only if you have strong guidance and mentorship in place. That's where we get to retention. The company has almost nothing to offer talented developers. They want to feel empowered to solve hard problems, but when you keep hiring green developers to the point you're forming entire teams around brand new employees, you simply can't operate on a model of trust and empowerment. So Paylocity has shifted to a point where frontline developers have practically no significant freedoms.
And talented individuals are the ones leaving Paylocity (which takes a lot of courage or competence to leave behind such high TC and benefits). Those with potential that do stay are trending away from competence and towards complacency... just do the minimum to collect RSUs, and enjoy the work/life balance. They're voluntarily stagnating. This culture is not only incapable of training junior developers properly, it's likely ruining their expectations of what a healthy development organization should even be. Even the talented junior developers now have no chance because their guides are hollowed.
If you want to feel empowered, challenged, and engaged, run. This is not your employer.
If you don't care about career growth, are okay blindly doing what other people tell you to (through RFC, LADR, Tech Practice, etc), and just want great pay and benefits, welcome to Paylocity!
