341–350 of 378 posts
I hate the fact that in my current role, I am expected to give my colleagues ‘constructive feedback’. It seems like a minefield , when I am trying to focus on my own role, that I have to negotiate the feelings of a colleague as I leave feedback on them. I’d prefer to leave only positive feedback, but what my boss wants is that I need to find an improvement that my colleague has to make. I don’t like it.
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If the company's unofficial policy is that if someone gets a high rating on the team, then someone else must be given a low rating to balance that out, even if they don't deserve it.
> someone else must be given a low rating to balance that out, even if they don't deserve it I wonder how this kind of thinking starts. Is there any rationale for this?
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If you don't like the industry you're in, programming culture, or the software stack you're used to, one way to break out of it is to get a low level office job in the sort of place you want to work and figure out how to solve problems with technology among people who don't normally have developers at their beck and call. This is also, I think, how you find a job that is very stable and secure - focusing first and fo…
Thanks! I've sort of considered moving into a business role and becoming a business analyst. Seems like a huge pay cut (that I can't afford) and years of wasted effort. I actually have a business administration minor and trade options and equities, so I have a better understanding of finance and the business than most people I work with in IT. I work for a large financial company and my previous team was amazed that…
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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…
Privileging my own ego over the quality of my client's defense would be unethical, in my opinion.
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I've been working at Facebook for a while now, and I think the environment is competitive, and you do need to shine in front of endless talent, but doing so doesn't mean numbers. Sadly, many people who don't do well take their feedback to mean that they need more code commits or comments. Some of them might even succeed at gaming the system for a short while due to a bad manager. The truth from my experience is that…
By meaningful impact, do you mean how many users you convinced into clicking ads? Or perhaps it was meaningful to create a tool that was used to monitor and manipulate millions of people to vote In a particular way?
Google has a culture of internal peer bonuses and kudos, which in some ways is great and meant to help with this kind of thing... except that it also leads to an internal culture of "congrats!" and "thank you for your amazing work!" centi-threads which often overlook other contributors on a project, or are used strategically by overly political managers to boost their own reports and projects and gain corporate visib…
I mean that on the macro and the micro level. Does it also lead to bad abstract ideas developing because nobody is willing to be critical, especially of broad approaches? I'm thinking along the lines of: "there are serious and fundamental flaws with the way you guys are approaching this."
I hate the fact that in my current role, I am expected to give my colleagues ‘constructive feedback’. It seems like a minefield , when I am trying to focus on my own role, that I have to negotiate the feelings of a colleague as I leave feedback on them. I’d prefer to leave only positive feedback, but what my boss wants is that I need to find an improvement that my colleague has to make. I don’t like it.
I don't want to be scared to make mistakes, I want to be scared to ship mistakes.
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I felt similarly, earlier in my career. Until a manager explained it this way: "Suppose you make the greatest thing in the world, but nobody knows about it. Wouldn't it be better to have spent 95% of the effort on making a slightly inferior product, and 5% to actually get people to use it? Isn't it more impactful to make something people use? Well, in order to get people to use anything, you have to talk about it."
Thats a cop out by a lazy or self-centered manager. The difference is that it's the manager's job to evaluate you vs marketing a product to an unknown buyer. A good manager would actively work with their employees to know what is going on. Most managers I've seen care about their own performance and hitting target metrica. If you're not good a marketing a product, you should still spend 100% of your effort on making…
Focusing on your own silo and blaming others for the team's failure results in dysfunction, not success. Instead, take ownership of your job and (shared) ownership of the other jobs that interact with it.
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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,…
How does FB handle people that are strict 9-5'ers? I read a lot of conflicting things on teamblind or glassdoor about a poor WLB. It's hard to tell if this was someone in their early 20s out of school struggling to work with a large company or someone mid 30s that burned out. If you just do your obligations does it look bad? I mean not everyone can be a top performer, especially if there is a curve. Some companies wi…
I personally do 9-6, take my coffee breaks really seriously, sometimes to later work like reply to messages if I'm in the mood, and never (save for very very rare shitstorms) work on the weekend.
Teams vary, I've seen plenty of 9-5ers that make it work (some of them on my team). As you already pointed out, I also think younger people tend to overwork, and people with kids tend to reprioritize and go for a 9-5 schedule.
Since one gets to choose the team they join in Facebook (in contrast to being offered a job in a specific team) you get to choose a team that will fit your personality. This means you should pick a team not only based on their project, but also based on the people and the team's culture, and if you pick wrong, you can rather easily switch.
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I'm sorry, but you're j"I worked at Reddit and Netflix"edberg. I am a schmoe who works in a small town where there are fewer than 10 good companies that I would want to work for, and you haven't heard of any of them. From the average perspective, I have found the parent's commenter's advice to be far more accurate. I don't think you have a good idea of how terrible and vindictive the average mid-level paper pusher in…
That is a completely fair and relevant assessment. I don't know what it is like to work in small town with few job prospects. I would hope I would act the same in that situation, trying to make things better for everyone, but honestly I don't know. Hopefully the rise of remote work will fix some of this, giving you more prospects outside of your small town, and more flexibility. > So, in summary – hopefully this does…
Thanks! I hope so too. :)