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When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

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Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#131

Post by sleepydog »

Traster wrote: post #120
jedberg wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I loved about working at Netflix. We didn't have performance reviews. It was assumed that your performance was good to excellent, otherwise you wouldn't be working there anymore. You had a constant feedback loop with your manager on performance, but nothing was ever formal. Raises were completely divorced from any performance assessment. You were paid whatever they thought the max was for your skillset,…

I think this culture is often the difference between a company that's in exponential growth mode - where you care more about velocity than costs. When a company becomes a stable giant, the engineering department is no longer necessarily creating value in the same way it was before and often slowly becomes bloated.

I agree, but in the specific case of Netflix, people are let go all the time, and managers have a lot of authority to make the decision to fire someone. Tenure doesn't matter, either -- you could work there for 6 years and end up getting fired when you get a new manager or the existing one decides you're phoning it in.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#132

Post by jonpurdy »

biswaroop wrote: post #37
ar_lan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans have proven time and time again that we are very good at optimizing for specific metrics, and apparently generally very poor at choosing the right metrics to target. School is a prime example, in my opinion - there is so much I "learned" in school that I'll never remember, because I didn't take a proper approach to learning - I just optimized for grades. I had a 4.7 GPA and could hardly tell you a thing about…

> Humans have proven time and time again that we are very good at optimizing for specific metrics, and apparently generally very poor at choosing the right metrics to target. Maybe it's Goodhart's Law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

As another example: Agile dev team measuring velocity (story points per sprint) to predict how much work they can do in the future.

If velocity gets turned into a target, corners will be cut (less testing, poor code quality) in order to get those story points for that sprint. Code quality suffers and tech debt accumulates, reducing output down the road.

On the flip side, as time goes on teams could just progressively estimate a greater number of points to stories of similar difficulty during the planning process. So velocity goes up but actual deliverable features goes down or stays the same.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#134

Post by KKKKkkkk1 »

jedberg wrote: post #107
ping_pong wrote: post #17

This is the biggest problem with stack ranking software engineers, the practice I had to endure while at a well known software company. All it does is create a zero-sum game, so I have no incentive to compliment anyone else. I needed to make sure that my rank was as high as I could make it, which really sucked during performance time. It was very stressful, even though I was a high performer, because it didn't foster…

This is what I loved about working at Netflix. We didn't have performance reviews. It was assumed that your performance was good to excellent, otherwise you wouldn't be working there anymore. You had a constant feedback loop with your manager on performance, but nothing was ever formal. Raises were completely divorced from any performance assessment. You were paid whatever they thought the max was for your skillset,…

I'm curious about the 360 reviews. Where I work, peer feedback is solicited by your manager. So your manager can choose the people writing your feedback based on whether the manager wants to reward you or to screw you over. As a byproduct, your peers do not fear any repercussions for bad behavior if they have confidence that their manager has their back. So, for example, people have no qualms about sabotaging the work of other teams. Do the 360 reviews help with this problem?

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#135

Post by fbanon9876 »

ping_pong wrote: post #17

This is the biggest problem with stack ranking software engineers, the practice I had to endure while at a well known software company. All it does is create a zero-sum game, so I have no incentive to compliment anyone else. I needed to make sure that my rank was as high as I could make it, which really sucked during performance time. It was very stressful, even though I was a high performer, because it didn't foster…

I work at FB. Can't speak for other teams, but this does not match the culture I've seen in 3+ years. There is a tool to send thanks, but there are no expectations -- it's just a nice thing to see coworkers appreciate you. I've done reviews and never heard anyone mention the number of "thanks" their report has received.

The PSC cycle (bi-annual review) is stressful, which I think is where the "craziness" stems. OTOH, there's not much day to day oversight - employees have an insane amount of freedom - so these 2x / year reviews are the tradeoff. ICs have tons of freedom, then twice a year, have to stand account for how they spent the last 6 months, compared to what other people in the same role and at the same level have done. (It's not stack ranking, it's more like grading on a curve across very different exam questions.)

There are mechanisms to provide feedback more frequently than every 6 months. It's agreed that the manager failed at their job if an IC is surprised by how a review ends up.

(FB also has 360 reviews every 6 months, offset from PSC by 3 months. These are usually upward reviews, and they are taken very seriously. Results from these determine manager career progression, so it's a chance for ICs to have their voices really well heard.)

Gaming the stats does exist, just as it exists everywhere. I think this is probably the only part that I don't strongly disagree with. It's also a hard problem to solve, with significant tradeoffs for different approaches. (And might be the most interesting piece)

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#136

Post by treis »

jpadkins wrote: post #115
leetcrew wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, what if you just don't? at my company, raises have more to do with the financial situation of the company than subjective reviews (although we do have these, they just don't factor into compensation that much). if the company is doing well, everyone gets a nice raise. everyone gets the same percentage bonus every year which is calculated based on the entire company's performance. maybe this makes us unattract…

the theory is that high productivity people will not want to work there, as everyone else benefits from their excellence. If companies that retain these high productivity people perform better than companies that don't, evolutionary pressure will force these egalitarian companies out. I think this theory may be true in some fields like hedge funds or heavy sales performance based businesses. In software, I am not sur…

> high productivity people care about this issue, as long as their compensation is high enough.

That circles back to the original problem of how do you identify the high productivity people to give them high compensation. It works when the person spending the money is close enough to evaluate employee performance. But when it's some middle manager spending Zuckerburg's money you run into the agent/principle problem. The managers will do what's best for them (raises for everyone!) and not the enterprise.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#137

Post by indymike »

giantg2 wrote: post #67
humanlion87 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I am also stupid in another way - I can't boast of my "incredible" accomplishments by sending out huge and beautiful emails to prove my "impact". With that kind of combination, I am looking forward to stagnation at my current level.

That's me. I don't like visibility. I like to do a good job for the sake of the job without bragging.

That's why having a culture where people share their gratitude for your being helpful, competent and otherwise awesome really matters. The self-promoters always look good, but the best people - and those that make the best leaders - often don't self-promote.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#138

Post by treis »

TheSoftwareGuy wrote: post #124
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we don't have metrics, how are we to fairly and objectively compare one worker's performance to another?

I've been thinking about this recently, what if we're doing it all wrong? what if, instead of your manager giving their reports a review, and then also giving raises based on that we go with a more market-based approach. Hear me out: Every year, and once a year, all the managers in the company submit bids to the employees that they want to work under them. Employees then select their favorite bid, and that becomes th…

There's a company that does this and more:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20252759

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#139

Post by jlokier »

jpadkins wrote: post #115
leetcrew wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, what if you just don't? at my company, raises have more to do with the financial situation of the company than subjective reviews (although we do have these, they just don't factor into compensation that much). if the company is doing well, everyone gets a nice raise. everyone gets the same percentage bonus every year which is calculated based on the entire company's performance. maybe this makes us unattract…

the theory is that high productivity people will not want to work there, as everyone else benefits from their excellence. If companies that retain these high productivity people perform better than companies that don't, evolutionary pressure will force these egalitarian companies out. I think this theory may be true in some fields like hedge funds or heavy sales performance based businesses. In software, I am not sur…

I think high productivity people by definition cause everyone* else to benefit from their excellence.

So high productivity people who don't want everyone else to benefit are a bit of an oxymoron.

(* or at least most others)

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#140

Post by ViViDboarder »

beefield wrote: post #116
opportune wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Constructive feedback and most other negative feedback is really aspirational at the company level. It sounds good for HR to try to say it’s a company “value” and to encode it in reviews. In reality it’s never ever worth it to give constructive feedback to peers or upward (downward is OK). It’s bad for social dynamics, cohesion, and morale, especially when it’s formalized as part of some review process. It’s essentia…

Is there a company that consists of people that actually are willing and interested in getting "constructive feedback"? Basically I think that it would mean that the people are so intereted in the quality of the work they are doing that anything that might make their work better is interesting even if it turns out they have done something "wrong" earlier. If there is , I might considering applying at some point. I as…

I’m now a manager at my company and engineers often ask directly for constructive feedback. Either from me (I’m a former tech lead from the same team) or they’ll ask who can help them learn about specific topics. Feedback on the form you wrote would generally be well received by folks on my team (with the exception of “less stupid”). Either in person or on a code review.

I’m at Yelp, so we’re considered a large tech company, but far smaller than FAANG. Also, this is how it is on my team. The culture can vary a bit team by team however most teams share similar cultures. If folks reading this are at Yelp and their team isn’t like this and considering leaving because of it, you should look into a transfer.

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