Stupid ways to compensate programmers: I've seen every single one of these. They backfire and make working for your company a living hell. Pay your developers by the number of bugs they close. After a week, they will start committing bugs on purpose so they can fix them a day later. Pay your developers by the number of features they deliver. After a week, nobody will want to work on anything that takes more than a few minutes to complete. Pay your developers by the number of lines of code they write. After a week, you'll get triple spaces between every line of code. Pay your developers by the number of commits they make. After a week, your repository will become more useless than a screen door on a submarine. Pay your developers based on the reviews from their peers. After a week, you'll have a hostile environment, backstabbing, and politics. During the British rule in India, the government wanted to reduce the cobra population. They offered a reward for every dead cobra. Some people saw this as an opportunity to profit. They started breeding cobras to kill them and collect the reward. The British government had to stop the program. With no reward to collect, farmers set the snakes free, making the infestation much worse. Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.