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Ask HN: How does your company do performance reviews?

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Re: Ask HN: How does your company do performance reviews?

#31

My company uses quarterly reviews. Here are the metrics my company uses to review each developer: 1. We have an in-house developed tool that tracks git and mercurial commits and calculates the test coverage and code quality for each individual developer. 2. We use jira to track the number of points each developer burns (points are shared between developer, reviewer and QA). We also track the number of bugs each devel…

May I ask the company name?

Would like to know also as I would never wish to work there.

Re: Ask HN: How does your company do performance reviews?

#32
post #9

My company uses quarterly reviews. Here are the metrics my company uses to review each developer: 1. We have an in-house developed tool that tracks git and mercurial commits and calculates the test coverage and code quality for each individual developer. 2. We use jira to track the number of points each developer burns (points are shared between developer, reviewer and QA). We also track the number of bugs each devel…

"one of my colleagues and friend was "forced" to quit the company because he scored really low on the jira burn rate metric" This sounds totally insane. I Cannot believe this happens in real world.

"successfully escaped" is probably more accurate than "forced to quit"

Re: Ask HN: How does your company do performance reviews?

#33

My company uses quarterly reviews. Here are the metrics my company uses to review each developer: 1. We have an in-house developed tool that tracks git and mercurial commits and calculates the test coverage and code quality for each individual developer. 2. We use jira to track the number of points each developer burns (points are shared between developer, reviewer and QA). We also track the number of bugs each devel…

That last part happened to me at one point. Thankfully me and another colleague it happened to fought against it consistently until it managers stopped using it openly as a metric.

Re: Ask HN: How does your company do performance reviews?

#34
We are a remote team, so metrics are very important for judging performance. Some of the most important metrics are: time online (huge one), PRs opened, PRs reviewed. There is a formal review process to give employees time to improve performance before an action is taken.

I find that even with all these formalities, actions tend to be totally up to the subjective judgment of management, just like any other company. Companies are not legally bound to abide by the rules of their own HR department -- HR is mainly there to provide an illusion of objectivity. In a conflict between leadership and rank-and-file workers, HR will always side with leadership. "Whose food I eat, his song I sing."

Re: Ask HN: How does your company do performance reviews?

#36

My company uses quarterly reviews. Here are the metrics my company uses to review each developer: 1. We have an in-house developed tool that tracks git and mercurial commits and calculates the test coverage and code quality for each individual developer. 2. We use jira to track the number of points each developer burns (points are shared between developer, reviewer and QA). We also track the number of bugs each devel…

Is there an absolute minimum score, below which employees can assume to be under consideration for termination? Or is it purely a comparative measure?

Re: Ask HN: How does your company do performance reviews?

#37

My company uses quarterly reviews. Here are the metrics my company uses to review each developer: 1. We have an in-house developed tool that tracks git and mercurial commits and calculates the test coverage and code quality for each individual developer. 2. We use jira to track the number of points each developer burns (points are shared between developer, reviewer and QA). We also track the number of bugs each devel…

"He was given a tremendously huge task which nobody cared to properly estimate and break into smaller tasks."

This is why the person doing the work must be involved in the estimation process, that way they have ownership of the estimate and are personally accountable for it.

Re: Ask HN: How does your company do performance reviews?

#38
We do a 1-5 point based system bi-yearly, but I'm actually wondering how people respond to under performing coworkers. I feel weighed down a bit because a review is coming up and I can't imagine giving said person more than a 2, but he is also a nice guy and tries very hard while simultaneously making a mess of most things.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. We're typically asked to discuss negative feedback with managers beforehand and it's important to note that these reviews are not anonymous.

Re: Ask HN: How does your company do performance reviews?

#39
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"one of my colleagues and friend was "forced" to quit the company because he scored really low on the jira burn rate metric" This sounds totally insane. I Cannot believe this happens in real world.

It sounds like justification for a decision made for less quantitative reasons. Managers don't say, "So let's see who's the worst performer... it's Tom! Weird, he seems to be one of my best developers. Oh, well! The metrics say he's the worst. Off to fire Tom!"

You don't know many people who worked for Microsoft? They would let go the bottom 10% of their staff every year.

"Best to Worst Ranking" is the most toxic and destructive environments.

Manu Cornet famous organization chart is the best example of this. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/%22Org_c...

Re: Ask HN: How does your company do performance reviews?

#40
Have had two since I started at the place I'm at now. It's basically very nebulous "you're doing ok/you're not doing well in x" type reviews that they get from the departments you're contracted out too. Recommendations are usually "keep doing what you're doing/do more work/do work faster". You provide feedback forms for how you feel youre doing in various areas, but they're effectively useless as its the managers rebuttal that holds all the weight. There's rumours of career planning being integrated into the mix, but that's apparently been on the table for years with no change.

Had an associate of mine at the same company two weeks ago get a performance review (more of a contract since he had to sign it), that said he had to improve performance in a month or he'd be fired. The reasons? Too slow/too low quality, but no specific measurable metrics to meet that he'd be able to use to keep his job when re-evaluation comes up in a month.

Needless to say, performance evaluations aren't given a lot of thought here. Wish they were.

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