There are severe issues with meeting deadlines because the engineer decides to go AWOL and then comes back with reasons that are downright ridiculous. Things that were supposed to be done 2 months ago are still in backlog for example.
We have few other people on the team who are working great! But the lead engineer is a roadblock right now for lot of tasks. We are concerned about letting the engineer go because of the 'brain drain' that would occur as a result.
How do we rectify the situation?
What does that look like? Some examples:
- Company wants to be acquired, so employee is promised X% of equity and a timetable of acquisition that aligns with the product's development. In other words, when they finish the product they know they get a chunk of money and can move on.
- Company wants to grow existing product, employee wants to grow their career, so company agrees to promote employee (to management, to another position, whatever they want) after they build the next release or reach some product milestone.
- Company wants to develop their MVP, employee likes new challenges but has no plans to be promoted. So employee is guaranteed a generous severance bonus for completing the MVP and help transitioning to a new company.
- Employee really wants to work at a gaming company, but you're a finance company. So when a product milestone is reached you help employee get a job at the gaming company and he helps company hire a replacement.
If you help every employee develop a plan to exit or advance, you'll see them happier and more productive as they feel a sense of purpose and clarity around their role at the organization. But it takes empathetic communication, an open mind, and an attitude of helping your employees.
And be proactive and patient, because you'll find most employees have not thought about their personal goals and need help developing them.
But make it clear that they're on a performance improvement plan, and if they don't meet the expectations after giving them some time, then they will be removed from their position or let go. It's not fair to the rest of the team to answer to someone who isn't behaving properly and it will hurt their morale and performance after a while.
Be up-front about what you need from them and why. Be clear about what accommodations you do and do not have the ability to make.
If it turns out that they're dealing with something temporary, or if they can continue being worth employing in general, consider shifting the bottlenecked responsibilities to someone else.
Seriously though, how much of a mess is the product from a technical viewpoint?
I pretty demotivated some days (not lead, but senior enough), because our product is a big mess of technical debt that only our lead understands (he built it all). I want to make it nice, but he wants to add more features.
Other days I just accept its a big pile of shit and try to get on with what needs done.
It can be pretty demotivating when you see just a pile of unmaintainable tech debt in front of you. Could that be the problem? Is he allowed to refactor it and make it better? Is he capable of that? (Assuming a he).
I suppose, though, the question is whether the brain is just gone temporarily, or permanently. If you think there's decent odds that it's only temporary, you might not want do anything hasty. But if it's permanent, you've already lost them. Cut your losses.