Ex-googler here. I hated the promotion process with a passion. 20 pages of "evidence" which is usually just links to green/blue docs, CLs, and just flowery puff language to argue your case. My org skipped the promo committee process at the start of the pandemic when I was up for it. When we had teammate that changed teams join us for a virtual meet up to tell us _he_ got promo in his org. I quit the next week.
The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
341–350 of 613 posts
Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
#342Based on my Google manger time and prior experience, the problem isn't necessarily the promo orientation - it was the emphasis on tech heroics to justify the promotion.
Rumor I heard was that pre-IPO the only was to get a stock option/grant boost was to be prompted. I believe the first actual annual refresh was in '06. For several years after that it was 100% managed at the SVP level, so you needed to be known at the top of your management chain to get a refresh beyond the algorithmic minimum.
Also there was top level compression because Google didn't have L8, 9, or 10s for a long time - if Jeff Dean is a L8, a new hire previous "Director level" engineer lands at 7 if they are lucky.
Given that Google frequently hired at one or two job grades below typical Si Valley, promo was a MAJOR motivator, and you needed to seem as though you fit in at the next level up. Google's approach to the Peter Principle was that if you got promoted and then didn't meet expectations, they would manage you out.
The question was always "Is that project really L6, L7, L8, L9 work?" I saw someone who changed the way a longstanding internet protocol was seen and replaced it based on their research stuck in the "only L6 level work" category.
And of course the promo committees were filled with people who got promoted under these regimes.
Corporate culture gets set and maintained in strange and interesting ways.
Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 sho…
> 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. Actually I think you should be rewarded, just with money rather than a title.
Why? Should you be penalized if the project fails?
Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another former Googler here (from waaaaaaayyyy back -- I was employee #104). The reason Google is the way it is, and many organizations are the way they are, is that they are trying to reproduce the circumstances that led to their initial success. Google initially succeeded by solving what was at the time a Really Hard Problem, and so the people at the top want to reproduce that by encouraging people to solve more Re…
I think Apple has done a fantastic job of incremental improvements on their products rather than chasing the next cool thing. Can you name a company that has actually been doing this better? For instance, they often resist new technologies like high refresh rate or OLED screens, 5G, etc., until they feel the technology is developed sufficiently and won’t impact battery life. There are other brands that compete by mak…
I can't really think of anyone who has done it well but I don't think Apple has either. They have released plenty of half baked products. The original apple watch is a good example, it was retroactively made the Gen0 and quickly killed. They had similar problem with the first Intel macs too and the original M1s weren't 100% either. I think sometimes they over estimate how ready a product is. The iPhone was amazing at launch but in retrospect it was missing almost everything.
Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
#345I spent over 9 years at Google. Got promoted 3 times. Was a manager. Google is absolutely bonkers when it comes to promotions. At every opportunity to provide feedback towards upper management, I had one consistent refrain: Everyone needs to chill the f### out. The stakes (seem) too high. The amount of time invested is too high. The amount of discussion, rehashing, tinkering, rejiggering, and calibration is just too…
What is a packet?
A promo packet is a document explaining why you should be promoted. Includes link to the evidence, your design docs, your check-ins, and anything else you think might help.
Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
#346I spent over 9 years at Google. Got promoted 3 times. Was a manager. Google is absolutely bonkers when it comes to promotions. At every opportunity to provide feedback towards upper management, I had one consistent refrain: Everyone needs to chill the f### out. The stakes (seem) too high. The amount of time invested is too high. The amount of discussion, rehashing, tinkering, rejiggering, and calibration is just too…
What is a packet?
It's a precis of what an IC has achieved over the last performance cycle. Can't speak for Google, but where I am it's focussed on the impact you've achieved in various axes.
Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
#347Earlier 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.
No post body was provided.
Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are correct to say there is no excuse for the lack of upgradability, but not for the reasons you believe. There is no excuse because “excuses” are not germane to making trade offs. Apple chose to not make devices easily upgradable because it enabled them to be amazing in other dimensions (sturdiness, manufacturing efficiency, design, aesthetics, plus most users don’t give a flying fuck about upgrading) Why would…
But this is exactly my point. Apple is optimizing the wrong things (for me) because it's trying to build Cool New Things rather than things that are actually useful. My NUC looks perfectly fine, and it sits under my desk so no one ever sees it anyway. It is superior to a Mac Mini in every conceivable way. It's smaller and it costs less for the same tech specs. The only thing that a NUC doesn't do that a Mini does is…
> It is superior to a Mac Mini in every conceivable way
Based on the dimensions you feel are important and are visible to you. That is only one perspective on the elephant.
If you built that machine, and you made decisions that were not necessary tradeoffs AND these decisions went against your values, you would need an excuse. Apple is not you, and they do not need any excuses - they have a different set of values and built to those values.
Those values are what the market, aka other people, care about.
Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what happens when you promote someone for maintaining the same system for years? When do you stop promoting them? There's a person on my team who is happy to maintain what he works on. He has worked on fundamentally the same project for over a decade. He's a senior level engineer, and as far as I know doesn't have aspirations beyond that, which is perfectly fine. Assuming he keeps doing that work, and no more, doe…
>You're asking for title inflation You're asking for feature bloat. If the only way of winning is getting new stuff done, new stuff will be done regardless of the benefit or cost to the company. That does sound like Google alright, though.
Yes, it is in fact the case that getting new stuff done is the only way to benefit the company. But new stuff != feature bloat. There's lots of new stuff that can be totally invisible to end users, and is deeply valuable.
Treading water should not get you promoted. That doesn't make sense.
Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be great if promo wasnt such a big deal. But when I look at the comp for an L3 software engineer, and the comp for an L5 software engineer, I have a hard time seeing how you could make people pay less attention to promo. I guess you could switch the process to "promo after N years of not being fired at your current level" but that seems even worse.
> I guess you could switch the process to "promo after N years of not being fired at your current level" but that seems even worse. Ex googler here, and when I was there 4 years ago this was true of L3 and L4. My entire team was L3's and L4's. We spent literally all of our time on projects with no meaningful impact on the company, but that made for promo packets. 6 engineers focused on rewriting the form to input cre…
Sometimes I don't think I could make it at a FAANG, and then I read stuff like this and I don't think I could make it at a FAANG, but for different reasons.