It's insightful that managers must defend their teams' ratings among their peers and seniors above them. All too often, we only see the end result and may second-guess ourselves.
"perf", as my friends call it, is stupid. I've been doing this software thing for about 9 years now and have gotten variously and in no particular order: "[x] is my right-hand man", "meets", "exceeds", been promoted, gotten "partially meets" (which is typically a death sentence, though I managed to contravene fate in that instance...), etc.
I've never, ever felt like my performance designation actually matched reality, and this has spanned three companies so far.
When I got promoted, it was because I cut my hair (the owner was a very stodgy boomer-type person). When I got "partially meets", it was because I had been put on an impossible project and my pleas of "this is literally impossible in the time given, it will minimally take X+3mo" were apparently not communicated upwards and the project missing was taken personally by my manager-of-manager-of-managers who apparently ensured I was given that designation. I've gotten "exceeds" when I've known I was slow (because I had a 2-month-old and the US gives far too little parental leave), and gotten "meets" when I smashed things out of the park.
All of this extends to my peers I've known well. One of the best engineers I've known was managed out of the company outside of a performance cycle because he was a bit of a grumpy-type person (but not in a way that I minded at all, I found him pretty endearing).
I don't really know how to fix the system, especially since as an IC I'm kept blind to most of its inner workings and even my EMs have not had the full story.
The most I've managed to synthesize is:
- I like it best when my direct manager has >80% of the control over my final designation. They know my work best, and when there is little meddling from above (there is ALWAYS meddling from above, of course), this seems to work out best.
- Even with above, perf is mostly bullshit politics. It hardly matters what your actual work is like - if people like you, as long as you're marginally useful, you're probably going to be retained; if people don't like you, you're going to be hard-pressed to get promoted or not be the first one canned if things turn down slightly. Reality is highly malleable and people will craft whatever narratives they need to to get the things they want done.
The second bullet is also a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people like you, you'll get more work and the work you get will be more impactful. If people don't like you, people won't mind setting you to the annoying thankless tasks.
I think I want my next job to be a very small team. I've worked at 10k people orgs and 50-100 person orgs, but never one with <10 engineers. I wonder what it would be like to be in an org where everyone ~knows how everyone else's perf is going. I can typically identify when someone's going to be in hot water, but only if I'm close enough to their work.
I agree the processes are almost random. There’s really very little correlation between a rating and value produced.
I’m increasingly convinced the best systems are those that spend the least amount of everyone’s time. If they’re going to be dysfunctional, they might as well not waste precious time or prolong the agony.
It's often worse than random because it favors the political in-group mafia focused on climbing the ladder through any means necessary, instead of rewarding people doing good work or with actual leadership skills.
Most people in the West think they live in democracy. But a lot of our lives are at work and at work, almost all corporations decided to implement Communism, which is just Mafia, like any other dictatorship. That's why if they like you, it's all good, if not, not so much. It's not a democracy and definitely not Meritocracy.
Perhaps not at state-level (in anything broadly recognised as a state), but it exists in ..communes.
I think 'communism-as-implemented' is a confusing intended meaning that isn't conveyed if you're only going to say 'communism'. There are other words for it.
The country is (or at least claims to be) a democracy. That doesn't mean everything inside the country is also a democracy. Families aren't. Sports clubs aren't. Churches aren't. Companies aren't. Democracy exists to give every person an equal chance to speak, in a process called voting, to help avoid despotism and push towards a future the majority of the country would like.
There's a problem in tech where people will work on stupid things a lot. Not just individuals, but literally entire teams will work on projects that are non-deliverable for years at a time, they'll deliver projects but they won't affect any metric of note, they'll do tech for the sake of tech, and sometimes they'll just simply not bother working.
This will happen even in a small org if your leadership isn't essentially driven motivated, and willing to take action.
At scale, this only becomes more difficult to manage, and the reality appears to be that almost nobody in leadership can actually keep up well enough to stop perf devolving into politics.
Reading this article brought back all the things I disliked about being manager. My anxiety shot up as I was reading it. I’m glad I prematurely ran out of text at the subscribe to keep reading button at the bottom.
A system designed to grow people in their careers and lovingly curate their best qualities in a team has none of these issues. Modern management theory is toxic and needs to die in a fire. It has
Nothing to do with getting the best out of your teams, and more to do with looking good to your boss’s boss.
Well the problem is that we all want to grow and prosper but companies don’t have role/career room for our infinite growth or the finances for it. So buearacracy settles it. And usually in favour of the “in” crowd or the squeaky wheel.
In my experience unless you’re exceptional, and plan it all out yourself, there is really no assistance with growing your career.
Do 2 years, assess if there’s long term opportunity, and leave if not. Always be prepared to leave, the worst thing you can do is sit somewhere for decades afraid of leaving.
When people talk about hating corporate America, the perf system is what they hate the most.
This system is dystopian. Here are a few reasons why:
- Every productive member is rated every few months by people who don't have a clue about the actual work
- Your success as an IC depends on how well your manager defends you, not on what you did
- You might abruptly get ejected from a company just because the manager of managers decided to implement a stack rank and you fall in the bottom - once again, unrelated to the actual work you did
- You are working in a "team" but apparently competing against them because you don't want to fall at the bottom of the ratings system. If someone asks you to design a system where team members sabotage each other, what would you design?
- Collaboration is actively discouraged. No force multiplication, no mentorship except the fake "mentor" system established by corporate.
- The work you do doesn't matter. All that matters is performance ratings. Which means all that matters is bootlicking the right manager. You can NEVER have differences from a manager even if they are falling off a cliff.
And this is why the average tenure in tech companies is 18 months. Most people get tired of the management song and dance, dancing to ratings pretty quick. It's not that people are lazy. It's that the place of employment is actively hostile. People suffer through mental issues when working in a place that treats its own employees like enemies.
This can't help but leak into peoples' personal lives. People who have to put up with this develop intense resentments of family members who don't.
It also has to infect politics. The desperate struggle to enter a protected class is clearly motivated by this management fuckery. People are trying frantically to protect themselves.
I read an article in The New Yorker, years ago, that casually mentioned in passing that executives would do quarterly or annual performance reviews of their wives. Can you imagine?
Why does a performance system need to exist? Another option is we all work like contractors, where we show up to do a job and it’s on us to justify our career progression. If we’re worth more, we make the case to the people paying the salary. Enough with this Victorian schoolgirl routine where you have to figure out who to schmooze and gossip to in order to get what you want
Performance review feels broken. Big tech companies nearly stop all the work for two months.
People whose value for the company is not for the next level get promoted due to luck or their ability to hack the system. Those who perform for the next level are not promoted.
The system feels broken. But! It is the best working process in big tech. And, on average, this bureaucracy helps to limit politics.
Basically perf review process feels horrible, till you work in a company that does not have it.
Limitations discussed in the text like manager could not explain why XXX exceeds on her role feels strange.
In every big company there is a career path document that shows what types of tasks person is expected to do at each level. You perform well on your level - (ME) meets expectations, you perform on the higher level - (EE) exceeds or strongly exceeds (SE).
You perform for 1 year+ on the higher level (typically EE + SE) + apply for promo => you get promo.
It is more or less standard across big tech.
Again, the system could be hacked, but on average it works.
P.S. Part about "you deserve" in the title and across the text talks about unhealthy entitlement. I would imagine that if engineer come to me and instead of showing evidence of how they consistently perform for the next level will talk about what they deserve it would not end with a promotion.
P.P.S. Read the text only till "This post is for paying subscribers only"
The career path document is to try and make the process look objective and save the company from lawsuits. In reality it encourages bsing overly complicated solutions, and promotions are limited by things like budget rather than some objective criteria. The whole notion of this career ladder is pure nonsense, but like a religion to many people.
No doubt that career ladder could be easily gamed.
But, it is the best that we have and on average it works.
Rephrasing Churchill:
"No one pretends that career ladder is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that career ladder is the worst form of building hierarchy in the company except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…"
What are other, presumably better, ways to build a hierarchy in the company that has 1000+ people?
On an individual level: So what? I stopped giving a f. I'd rather do what I believe is right than earn another $100k a year at a certain point. If it gets to the point of being laid off, hey, maybe it's the nudge you needed to find a better place anyway. Meanwhile, you could play the game all you want and still have your entire business unit shuffled away next year.
I'm not going to drive off a cliff just because the OKR tells me there's actually a road there but I wonder about some people...
28 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 66.5 ms ] thread(Beyond that, it's for paying subscribers only.)
I've never, ever felt like my performance designation actually matched reality, and this has spanned three companies so far.
When I got promoted, it was because I cut my hair (the owner was a very stodgy boomer-type person). When I got "partially meets", it was because I had been put on an impossible project and my pleas of "this is literally impossible in the time given, it will minimally take X+3mo" were apparently not communicated upwards and the project missing was taken personally by my manager-of-manager-of-managers who apparently ensured I was given that designation. I've gotten "exceeds" when I've known I was slow (because I had a 2-month-old and the US gives far too little parental leave), and gotten "meets" when I smashed things out of the park.
All of this extends to my peers I've known well. One of the best engineers I've known was managed out of the company outside of a performance cycle because he was a bit of a grumpy-type person (but not in a way that I minded at all, I found him pretty endearing).
I don't really know how to fix the system, especially since as an IC I'm kept blind to most of its inner workings and even my EMs have not had the full story.
The most I've managed to synthesize is:
- I like it best when my direct manager has >80% of the control over my final designation. They know my work best, and when there is little meddling from above (there is ALWAYS meddling from above, of course), this seems to work out best.
- Even with above, perf is mostly bullshit politics. It hardly matters what your actual work is like - if people like you, as long as you're marginally useful, you're probably going to be retained; if people don't like you, you're going to be hard-pressed to get promoted or not be the first one canned if things turn down slightly. Reality is highly malleable and people will craft whatever narratives they need to to get the things they want done.
The second bullet is also a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people like you, you'll get more work and the work you get will be more impactful. If people don't like you, people won't mind setting you to the annoying thankless tasks.
I think I want my next job to be a very small team. I've worked at 10k people orgs and 50-100 person orgs, but never one with <10 engineers. I wonder what it would be like to be in an org where everyone ~knows how everyone else's perf is going. I can typically identify when someone's going to be in hot water, but only if I'm close enough to their work.
I’m increasingly convinced the best systems are those that spend the least amount of everyone’s time. If they’re going to be dysfunctional, they might as well not waste precious time or prolong the agony.
Since when is anyone equal or paid the same? It’s definitely not communism. Maybe dictatorship or so
I think 'communism-as-implemented' is a confusing intended meaning that isn't conveyed if you're only going to say 'communism'. There are other words for it.
This will happen even in a small org if your leadership isn't essentially driven motivated, and willing to take action.
At scale, this only becomes more difficult to manage, and the reality appears to be that almost nobody in leadership can actually keep up well enough to stop perf devolving into politics.
In my experience unless you’re exceptional, and plan it all out yourself, there is really no assistance with growing your career.
Do 2 years, assess if there’s long term opportunity, and leave if not. Always be prepared to leave, the worst thing you can do is sit somewhere for decades afraid of leaving.
Bullshit politics.
From another poster in this thread:
"Reality is highly malleable and people will craft whatever narratives they need to to get the things they want done"
This system is dystopian. Here are a few reasons why:
- Every productive member is rated every few months by people who don't have a clue about the actual work
- Your success as an IC depends on how well your manager defends you, not on what you did
- You might abruptly get ejected from a company just because the manager of managers decided to implement a stack rank and you fall in the bottom - once again, unrelated to the actual work you did
- You are working in a "team" but apparently competing against them because you don't want to fall at the bottom of the ratings system. If someone asks you to design a system where team members sabotage each other, what would you design?
- Collaboration is actively discouraged. No force multiplication, no mentorship except the fake "mentor" system established by corporate.
- The work you do doesn't matter. All that matters is performance ratings. Which means all that matters is bootlicking the right manager. You can NEVER have differences from a manager even if they are falling off a cliff.
And this is why the average tenure in tech companies is 18 months. Most people get tired of the management song and dance, dancing to ratings pretty quick. It's not that people are lazy. It's that the place of employment is actively hostile. People suffer through mental issues when working in a place that treats its own employees like enemies.
It also has to infect politics. The desperate struggle to enter a protected class is clearly motivated by this management fuckery. People are trying frantically to protect themselves.
I read an article in The New Yorker, years ago, that casually mentioned in passing that executives would do quarterly or annual performance reviews of their wives. Can you imagine?
People whose value for the company is not for the next level get promoted due to luck or their ability to hack the system. Those who perform for the next level are not promoted.
The system feels broken. But! It is the best working process in big tech. And, on average, this bureaucracy helps to limit politics.
Basically perf review process feels horrible, till you work in a company that does not have it.
Limitations discussed in the text like manager could not explain why XXX exceeds on her role feels strange.
In every big company there is a career path document that shows what types of tasks person is expected to do at each level. You perform well on your level - (ME) meets expectations, you perform on the higher level - (EE) exceeds or strongly exceeds (SE).
You perform for 1 year+ on the higher level (typically EE + SE) + apply for promo => you get promo.
It is more or less standard across big tech.
Again, the system could be hacked, but on average it works.
P.S. Part about "you deserve" in the title and across the text talks about unhealthy entitlement. I would imagine that if engineer come to me and instead of showing evidence of how they consistently perform for the next level will talk about what they deserve it would not end with a promotion.
P.P.S. Read the text only till "This post is for paying subscribers only"
But, it is the best that we have and on average it works.
Rephrasing Churchill:
"No one pretends that career ladder is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that career ladder is the worst form of building hierarchy in the company except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…"
What are other, presumably better, ways to build a hierarchy in the company that has 1000+ people?
I'm not going to drive off a cliff just because the OKR tells me there's actually a road there but I wonder about some people...
(From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37362719)