The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures • Hacker News Board

Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

#231

Post by majormajor » Wed, May 04, 2022, 6:08 PM UTC

lliamander wrote: post #218

xoofoog wrote: post #43

Former Googler here. This person has correctly identified that a key reason why google sucks is that people very often... > choose between doing what’s best for users or what’s best for their career But the root cause isn't that people want to get promoted. It's that Google promotes people for the wrong reasons. Put very simply, the problem is that Google promotes people for "solving hard problems" not for solving US…

> Put very simply, the problem is that Google promotes people for "solving hard problems" not for solving USEFUL problems. Playing the devil's advocate here, but shouldn't one position in the technical career ladder be correlated with technical expertise? Furthermore, technical ability is something that the employee has some control over: whereas impact to the business has more external factors. The incentive problem…

Going off the description of "bugs being too easy" vs "building new things" - is "shipping a product without bugs" a worthwhile technical ability to cultivate?

I would argue that attention to detail and polish are important technical abilities, and that focusing your technical advancement path solely on less tangible-to-the-user abilities will cause you, as a company, to make less compelling products.

Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

#232

Post by ShamelessC » Wed, May 04, 2022, 6:09 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #205

tuckerman wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen or even heard of anyone throwing their OKRs to avoid the appearance that they were too easy. In fact, you rarely hear about another team's grading of OKRs at all. Plenty of teams inside Google also set OKRs expecting/hoping to hit 1.0 so it wouldn't be at all surprising to see lots of 1's/near 1's on teams.

Well this was told to me by xooglers who were now working for other companies, so either they were the ones doing it and that's why they left, or they made it up to make Google sound worse. So I guess take it with a grain of salt?

Here here! We don't have to believe everything internet strangers say. The presupposition that an unvetted internet comment will somehow become "vetted" by the probing of _another_ internet stranger doesn't make any sense.

Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

#233

Post by autokad » Wed, May 04, 2022, 6:09 PM UTC

xoofoog wrote: post #43

Former Googler here. This person has correctly identified that a key reason why google sucks is that people very often... > choose between doing what’s best for users or what’s best for their career But the root cause isn't that people want to get promoted. It's that Google promotes people for the wrong reasons. Put very simply, the problem is that Google promotes people for "solving hard problems" not for solving US…

Tech Management wants to -not- promote people, so they try to make promotion difficult which inadvertently creates promotion driven culture.

For instance, if they promoted people for working hard, then everyone would work hard and we (high level management at tech companies) cant just promote everyone. so they make it arbitrarily hard, such as at Google "only promote people who solve hard problems". I think most tech companies will have some flavor of that, like at Amazon "work on projects that have cross team company impact".

Its all about trying to -not- promote people fokes, which ironically creates this promotion driven culture. After all, we are mostly college grads, and a lot of us are from the top schools (not even the majority, just a lot).

Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

#234

Post by titzer » Wed, May 04, 2022, 6:10 PM UTC

xoofoog wrote: post #43

Former Googler here. This person has correctly identified that a key reason why google sucks is that people very often... > choose between doing what’s best for users or what’s best for their career But the root cause isn't that people want to get promoted. It's that Google promotes people for the wrong reasons. Put very simply, the problem is that Google promotes people for "solving hard problems" not for solving US…

> Put very simply, the problem is that Google promotes people for "solving hard problems" not for solving USEFUL problems.

It's partly that, but Google's counter has always been this refrain of "we are a data-driven company". I guess that is better than completely subjective metrics, in some respects, but it introduces another bias, which is focusing on things that can be measured.

I saw a lot of successful promo cases that were based on pushing metrics. That just rewards quantifiable things, and disadvantages unquantifiable things. Worse, it makes people introduce bullshit measures and game them. It's pretty much impossible to measure long term impact, but nevertheless, impact[1] was one of the main three drivers.

[1] Leadership, difficulty, impact are the three main components of a succesful packet, especially at L6 and above.

Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

#235

Post by dvirsky » Wed, May 04, 2022, 6:11 PM UTC

One thing that could make this less problematic - make levels hidden.

Another more radical approach - get rid of levels completely. Increase pay significantly, similar to a promo if someone is doing good consistently, don't if they're just okay, fire them if they suck, but make levels implicit.

Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

#236

Post by lliamander » Wed, May 04, 2022, 6:11 PM UTC

ctvo wrote: post #133

cvhashim wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should have just said toxic humanistic traits

Toxic masculinity accurately represents what the OP describes and is clear here. There's nothing to be offended about. It's revealing the angst that sprang up from this community of mostly men.

Classic Bulverism on display. Don't defend your position, just assume you're right and offer an armchair pyscho-analysis for why people who disagree with you are wrong.

Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

#237

Post by ALittleLight » Wed, May 04, 2022, 6:14 PM UTC

lliamander wrote: post #218

xoofoog wrote: post #43

Former Googler here. This person has correctly identified that a key reason why google sucks is that people very often... > choose between doing what’s best for users or what’s best for their career But the root cause isn't that people want to get promoted. It's that Google promotes people for the wrong reasons. Put very simply, the problem is that Google promotes people for "solving hard problems" not for solving US…

> Put very simply, the problem is that Google promotes people for "solving hard problems" not for solving USEFUL problems. Playing the devil's advocate here, but shouldn't one position in the technical career ladder be correlated with technical expertise? Furthermore, technical ability is something that the employee has some control over: whereas impact to the business has more external factors. The incentive problem…

If you are a developer who just implements what the PMs tell you to (more or less) then I agree that you shouldn't get extra credit when the project is a massive success. If the product earns a billion or loses millions you didn't have anything to do with that - you just implemented the designs of other people.

If you significantly contribute to the design of a successful project - that's different. But then, you should be making the case that you solved the hard problem of improving the design, not just that you were a good developer on a successful project.

Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

#238

Post by JJMcJ » Wed, May 04, 2022, 6:15 PM UTC

oofbey wrote: post #72

xoofoog wrote: post #43

Former Googler here. This person has correctly identified that a key reason why google sucks is that people very often... > choose between doing what’s best for users or what’s best for their career But the root cause isn't that people want to get promoted. It's that Google promotes people for the wrong reasons. Put very simply, the problem is that Google promotes people for "solving hard problems" not for solving US…

Another example of this is their OKR system. If you meet all your quarterly goals at Google, that's not a success. In fact, you're frowned upon for not setting your goals high enough. Their whole management process encourages people to chase after impossible goals, and literally discourages people from getting things done.

Had to look it up. Objectives and key results (OKR, alternatively OKRs). More at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OKR.

Hmm. If you are supposed to not meet all your OKRs, then that guarantees you will have a record of unmeet OKRs, which can be used as ammunition to deny promotion or even fire someone.

So that encourages a sort of favoritism, where the people you want to promote anyway have their missed OKRs overlooked, while the rest of the pack aren't meeting their OKRs.

Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

#239

Post by dudeman13 » Wed, May 04, 2022, 6:16 PM UTC

uoaei wrote: post #136

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a culture of toxic masculinity Hyper competitiveness. There is nothing "male" in nature about pushing people to compete in a giant free for all.

But there is a masculine (in the sense of gender roles that a person assumes for themselves) way to do it, and that is what is typically expressed in these settings. And it is typically more harmful for more people on average than the feminine expressions of same.

>typically more harmful for more people on average than the feminine expressions of same

The equivalent feminine expression of the same kind of dominance is a reputation war.

Reputation wars can destroy lives and relationships. If I have to choose one, I for one much prefer to deal with people winning at how awesome they are (and how lame I am) than a reputation war.

Civilized places have cracked down on violence, so male dominance contests almost never end up with a face punched anymore. Toning down the violence made them much safer.

Female dominance contests are still as deadly as they have always been.

Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

#240

Post by aix1 » Wed, May 04, 2022, 6:16 PM UTC

JJMcJ wrote: post #229

Is Google an up or out company? That is, if you don't get a promotion in a certain number of years, you will be encouraged to leave? That would encourage making projects more complex than they need to be, to get that promotion.

For software engineers, the expectation is to get to L4 eventually (new grads get hired at L3). I've not seen any concrete guidance on what "eventually" means in this context.

This used to be L5 until a few years back.