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Google Engineering Management Mistakes

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Re: Google Engineering Management Mistakes

#61

Post by bmj »

illumin8 wrote: post #57
ora600 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I left my job at BigCo because I was part of a 8 person team where the manager was supposed to create a normal distribution out of scores from 1-5. I was one of two employees recognized for doing an excellent job, but my manager could rate just one of us as "excellent". During a performance review, my manager talked for an hour about how much I'm contributing and what an amazing job I do. Then he ranked me as average…

This is actually how almost every large company works. Scale is 1 to 5, average is a 3, 2 is exceeds expectations, "Nobody ever gets a 1." The problem is that the grading is done on a curve, so that for every 2 given out, someone else must get a 4. If you get a 4, you are considered below expectations, and must be put on a "personal improvement plan," or managed out of the team. Because of this pressure, nobody wants…

Even smaller companies can work this way. During last year's review, my manager (who is also a lead developer--heck, even the VP of engineering writes code on a weekly basis) told me that he wanted to score me higher, but some people frowned on such things because "people really can't be that good."

It doesn't bother me much because our department is fairly sane in how they deal with reviews, and management in general.

Re: Google Engineering Management Mistakes

#62

Post by kscaldef »

kenjackson wrote: post #21
plinkplonk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Curious, why does he end the presentation saying that a tech ladder is bad?" From the blog post which provides some context to the presentation ( http://piaw.blogspot.com/2010/10/facebook-and-google.html ), "Many consider Google's #1 mistake to be having a tech ladder in the first place. I covered that topic in my post on Promotion Systems ( http://piaw.blogspot.com/2010/04/promotion-systems.html ) , so did not feel…

Interesting, as historically the problem has been quite the opposite. If you go back not that far most devs simply had a flat position in the org. There were no Distiguished Engineers or even Architect titles. You were a programmer. Of course people started to get upset because the only way they could advance in the company was to go into management. A corporate VP can make $250k/year but a programmer never could. Ma…

> "This is where you're at today. To get to the next level, this is what you need to do. With your help we've put together this plan for your next 3-6 months. You'll finish up A, make sure B gets deployed. C gets checked-in with QA sign off. Do this w/o ticking anyone off or being a general jerk and that looks like Level XYZ"

"Sorry, corporate priorities changed. A and B were cancelled and C was put on indefinite hold. Sure, you did great work on D and E, but those weren't part of your stated goals for this year. Oh, and by the way, there was a re-org and the manager who promised you a promotion isn't your manager any more."

Not saying you personally do that; it sounds like you're a pretty good manager. But I've seen this pattern many times, and know a lot of other people who have experienced it.

Re: Google Engineering Management Mistakes

#63

Post by kscaldef »

_cbsz wrote: post #59
shadowmatter wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can give a peer bonus of $200 to any individual with their manager's approval (which is very easy to get). They encourage giving peer bonuses for when someone goes the extra mile on something, but very few engineers initiate giving a peer bonus. After tax, it's about $100, hence the "I can poop $100" bit.

Is "close to 50%" the going marginal tax rate in general? I calculate ~30% federal + ~10% California + possibly ~6% social security & Medicare to get that number; did I miss anything? (current grad student with a marginal rate a lot closer to 20%, haven't had the joy of full-on taxes yet)

Closer to 8% for SS & Medicare. Also, you'll typically have deductions taken out of bonuses for your 401(k) and ESPP contributions (maybe another 20-25%). Technically, those are still your money; and ESPP will come back to you before too long, but the psychological impact of opening up your paycheck and only seeing 30-40% of the gross you were told was your bonus is pretty frustrating.

Re: Google Engineering Management Mistakes

#64

Post by kenjackson »

kscaldef wrote: post #62
kenjackson wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, as historically the problem has been quite the opposite. If you go back not that far most devs simply had a flat position in the org. There were no Distiguished Engineers or even Architect titles. You were a programmer. Of course people started to get upset because the only way they could advance in the company was to go into management. A corporate VP can make $250k/year but a programmer never could. Ma…

> "This is where you're at today. To get to the next level, this is what you need to do. With your help we've put together this plan for your next 3-6 months. You'll finish up A, make sure B gets deployed. C gets checked-in with QA sign off. Do this w/o ticking anyone off or being a general jerk and that looks like Level XYZ" "Sorry, corporate priorities changed. A and B were cancelled and C was put on indefinite hol…

That does happen, and when it does you adjust. It's not like your report is about to checkin everythign all at once, he's about to click Commit, and then new marching orders come down just before he presses the button.

Presumably when A gets cancelled, he comes by and says, "A just got cancelled" (or you tell him, depending on how news flows). "This was part of my plan for this cycle, how can we adjust the plan?" And then you discuss giving him proper credit for work on A until it was canceled, and then break down what his new priorities look like.

Or, "I just started work on D, how does this fit in the plan?" "Currently it doesn't, but lets get it in there".

There should be very few things that happen that would be so important that they'd be worth discussion in a promotion that you don't communicate about within a day or two of it first appearing on the radar (if not hours).

The last issue of a reorg is the one that is toughest to deal with. I would talk to their new manager, layout their plans, etc..., but there's no guarantee that the new manager will have the same philosophy.

Being a manager is hard work. And frankly, I'm largely done with people management. It's the hardest job I've ever had, bar none. But its important, and I think some of the problems noted in this article are things good management training can deal with.

Re: Google Engineering Management Mistakes

#65

Post by maukdaddy »

ora600 wrote: post #18
plinkplonk wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Stack ranking means that if you have a group of 20 people, during each performance review cycle the group manager is expected to rank them from 1 to 20, and the company distributes bonuses and promotions accordingly. That just seems completely asinine." Worse, there is often an associated ideal distribution ("the curve") with fixed ratios for "exceeds expectations", "below expectations" and so on and managers are un…

I left my job at BigCo because I was part of a 8 person team where the manager was supposed to create a normal distribution out of scores from 1-5. I was one of two employees recognized for doing an excellent job, but my manager could rate just one of us as "excellent". During a performance review, my manager talked for an hour about how much I'm contributing and what an amazing job I do. Then he ranked me as average…

I left a BigCo job for the same reason.

Interestingly enough, I learned in my HR class just last night that stacked systems are disastrous. Any modern HR dept. should not be using them.

Re: Google Engineering Management Mistakes

#66

Post by oconnor0 »

gruseom wrote: post #51
LiveTheDream wrote: post #42

"The sum of money just appeared in my bank account, but was so insulting low that I felt devalued. If a manager had just talked to me about how much my work was appreciated, it would have been better than money." This is true at a certain threshold. Appreciation is immeasurably better than an demoralizing, insultingly-sized bonus. However on the other end, if you go above and beyond normal expectations and save or ea…

I would challenge this. Let's replace your trivializing phrase "a 'thank you' from your boss on the company newsletter" with just recognition , which obviously can take many forms. We have evidence, cited in this thread, that recognition is generally more satisfying and motivating than financial rewards are (at least those produced by formal incentive plans). What evidence do you have that this effect only holds "at…

I think part of it is that if you've just saved your company a million dollars getting a bonus of a few thousand seems unfair & like your company's being greedy. Yes, I absolutely want to be recognized for the good work I do, but it would also be nice to get monetary incentives commensurate with the work I've done.

Re: Google Engineering Management Mistakes

#67

Post by bmalicoat »

clr wrote: post #26
dpritchett wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Career ladders are wishful thinking and an easy way to undervalue contributions. They imply that professional development largely occurs along a single axis rather than multiple ones. Who's worth more, Peter Norvig or Marissa Mayer? What about an overachieving SWE I vs an mailing-it-in SWE III?

The worst part about career ladders at Microsoft was that it put people who were great engineers but terrible, terrible managers in positions of authority, because there was only one advancement path. When I left,they were just starting to create a career ladder for individual achievers, because they had finally realized this. I don't know if it actually ever happened.

Dunno when you left, but you can go up many levels as an IC currently.

Re: Google Engineering Management Mistakes

#68

Post by pyrhho »

rhizome wrote: post #49
pyrhho wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, poorly structured career ladders can to lead to "Promotion Until Incompetence", where people are repeatedly promoted until they are unable to warrant another promotion. Thus, everyone is stuck at a level of mild incompetence.

AKA "The Peter Principle."

Thanks! I could NOT remember of the name for it!

Re: Google Engineering Management Mistakes

#69

Post by LiveTheDream »

gruseom wrote: post #51
LiveTheDream wrote: post #42

"The sum of money just appeared in my bank account, but was so insulting low that I felt devalued. If a manager had just talked to me about how much my work was appreciated, it would have been better than money." This is true at a certain threshold. Appreciation is immeasurably better than an demoralizing, insultingly-sized bonus. However on the other end, if you go above and beyond normal expectations and save or ea…

I would challenge this. Let's replace your trivializing phrase "a 'thank you' from your boss on the company newsletter" with just recognition , which obviously can take many forms. We have evidence, cited in this thread, that recognition is generally more satisfying and motivating than financial rewards are (at least those produced by formal incentive plans). What evidence do you have that this effect only holds "at…

I left "a certain threshold" undefined on purpose, because it varies from person to person. The point is that the reward must be meaningful to the person being rewarded, otherwise it is much worse than no reward; the person will become cynical, demoralized, and unmotivated.

The main problem is conflicting valuations of the work in question, which holds true whether the the payment is money or recognition. Who is to define how much recognition is satisfactory? Take the Microsoft "ship it" award[1] as an example of a formal recognition plan, which failed.

My evidence, like the evidence in this thread and the presentation, is just personal experience.

[1] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000070.html

Re: Google Engineering Management Mistakes

#70

Post by archangel_one »

bmj wrote: post #61
illumin8 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually how almost every large company works. Scale is 1 to 5, average is a 3, 2 is exceeds expectations, "Nobody ever gets a 1." The problem is that the grading is done on a curve, so that for every 2 given out, someone else must get a 4. If you get a 4, you are considered below expectations, and must be put on a "personal improvement plan," or managed out of the team. Because of this pressure, nobody wants…

Even smaller companies can work this way. During last year's review, my manager (who is also a lead developer--heck, even the VP of engineering writes code on a weekly basis) told me that he wanted to score me higher, but some people frowned on such things because "people really can't be that good." It doesn't bother me much because our department is fairly sane in how they deal with reviews, and management in genera…

Agree. I work for a small company who occasionally like to act like a big company; we have a similar system which used to be hooked up to bonuses, but they eventually removed those. The explanation was pretty obtuse, but reading between the lines there were some employees getting bonuses even though they should objectively have been 4s or 5s on that scale - because of course everyone got 2 or 3 regardless.
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