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The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

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

#361

Post by grog454 »

bostik wrote: post #175
digitalgangsta wrote: post #151

What often happens when an employee doesnt get promoted? they leave and usually are able to get that next level role in another company. Why is that?? Why does the current company require employees to show a track record and data points to be promoted, while they hire externally for the same position and often only look at resumes, interview and maybe an assessment. Why isnt it the same bar for internal vs external.…

I think promotions to the next level should just be considered a new job (in the same company), and you don't 'win it' or get promoted - instead you apply for it and go through an interview process. That sounds like a recipe for an incredibly toxic environment. Not only are you hired for a specific pigeonhole, you are expressly forbidden from progressing through it : at least in some sane companies promotion is prece…

The other posts in this thread make it sound like internal promotion has higher barriers than an external apply/interview/offer process. Bizarre when you think about it, but it does seem to be the norm. The person you're replying to is suggesting that employees should be encouraged to apply to other positions within their current company as if they were an external hire.

I've worked at a company that did both (internal promotion and internal re-hire) and IME people that actively applied to new positions had faster "career progression".

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

#362

Post by dolni »

elefanten wrote: post #335
pavlov wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why exactly does it seem worse? Last year I switched from a FAANG to a Series B startup that does experience-based levels, and in my observation it's just better in every way. Here's a blog post explaining their approach: https://www.daily.co/blog/rethinking-levels-promotions-and-s... Maybe it's not possible to switch from a cutthroat promotion-oriented environment to this, but it's worth thinking about for anyone bu…

“ We have around 50 people on staff, and for the past couple of years, we have leveled new employees based on years of relevant experience. We had three levels, each with a single, non-negotiable salary that was the same across locations, and everybody was assigned to one of those levels. We've always been completely remote” I guess the main question that comes to mind is “why would a strong-performing, early-in-care…

Normalizing pay to years experience is a bad move in general, IMO.

You are going to have a distribution of high and low performers at all levels of experience. If you pay all the senior people the same, you have less money to pay your high performers. And maybe they go get that pay from elsewhere.

There's a difference between having 20 years of experience and one year of experience 20 times.

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

#363

Post by cjsplat »

shadowgovt wrote: post #27
burnoutgal wrote: post #20

Seriously, why do people care about being promoted beyond senior/staff? Even at a smaller company you're making 200k/year, you probably have a good handle on your job, why not just coast? There's a big discontinuity in comp if you can make it to the director level, but being a manager or senior staff seems like a ton of work for no benefit. I work like 20 hours a week at my job, I almost quit because it's extremely b…

At Google specifically, even being promoted to staff is a huge undertaking. And until recently, there was an expectation of forward career trajectory built into the lower ranks, i.e. every engineer was functionally multi-year probationary. If you found something valuable to do but you weren't progressing your career (because, say, the work was necessary but boring, like micro-optimizations, feature polish on a mature…

I don't know because the change was decided way above my pay grade, but I always assumed that the reason was HR legal.

It is hard to look at people who are objectively doing as well as each other, and rate some lower only because they have been at that job grade "too long".

The fig leaf was always that the ladders encourages keeping up with technology and the company, which meant people couldn't tread water at the lower grades.

But if the "new technology" isn't necessary for the job duties, labor lawyers can have a field day.

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

#364

Post by Hermitian909 »

geodel wrote: post #48
Hermitian909 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off the top of my head: 1. More money means less time till I hit FU money and can choose work without any consideration of pay 2. 200k/yr is not as much as it seems if you're in the bay area and have kids 3. Bigger title -> more input on core design decisions. Hate some idea coming from the higher ups? You're in a position to do something about it. 4. Bigger title -> more control in picking interesting problems to wo…

In general I agree. It's just that I don't know if salaried job lead to FU money. The only person I had or will be able to say FU is to myself sitting alone in living room.

Depends on who you are and what your growth potential is. I know SWEs getting offers in the 7-8 figure range. That's not in any way typical but if you're smart enough, hardworking, and get the right breaks hitting a 7 figure income isn't something I'd consider weird and is definitely FU money.

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

#365

Post by bern4444 »

jldugger wrote: post #182
bern4444 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Apple continues to innovate in new product categories. Apple Watch AirPods M1 Chip Services (Apple TV+, Apple Pay, Music, Fitness, iCloud etc). I include iCloud for services likeHide My Email and Private Relay. They do this all while maintaining a consistent release cycle of upgraded versions of their hardware (new iphones, macs etc). Also, everything in the list above has been developed under Tim Cook which…

You realize that's his point right? Each of those is trying to be the Cool New Thing, and part of what distracts the company while it ships butterfly keyboards, touchbars without escape keys, AntennaGate, whatever plagued HomePod so much they quietly discontinued it. Polish and Attention To Detail is outsourced to execs, who are increasingly spread thin.

But it hasn't distracted the company. Each of those things I listed are massive successes in their own right.

Not everything Apple does is a success, but they have gotten it more right far more often than wrong. The M1 chip affects also their entire existing computer line. AirPods work beautifully across iphones, macs, and ipads. Apple watch integrates flawlessly with my iphone (answer calls, play pause etc). These are accessory products that reinforce the main ones which they continue to upgrade beautifully every year.

They are able to balance both (Cool New Thing and upgrade cycles) and through it all, keep their product list to a relatively small number of items/skus. Compared to google who offers so many additional services and applications.

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

#366

Post by tokamak-teapot »

lisper wrote: post #303
mrtranscendence wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I somewhat disagree? To be honest, the current UI look-and-feel hasn't bothered me at all. I can't recall ever being confused by it (with one exception: iPad multitasking). Perhaps I've simply internalized it to such a degree that I accept it, warts and all, without thinking about it critically. But it's difficult for me to be too upset by a UI that really has "just worked" for me. As long as my customized keyboard s…

I think this is a topic about which people can reasonably disagree :-) I'll just add that my complaint about inability to upgrade does not just apply to laptops. It's the whole product line (other than the Pro) including the Mini and the iMac. If I have an iMac and I need more RAM, I have to throw out a perfectly good SSD, processor, and display . There is just no excuse for that. I have a NUC that is essentially a h…

But you don’t have to throw those things away. Just sell it, for a decent percent of what you bought it for - because they have good resale value - and buy one with more RAM.

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

#367

Post by lliamander »

scarface74 wrote: post #332
lliamander wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it doesn't impact the bottom line then business folks need to do a better job of capturing the value you could provide.

Unfortunately, Google is a very much technology focused and not business focused. That’s why after 20+ years almost all of its revenue still comes from advertising. All of the other major tech companies have multiple billion dollar profitable revenue streams. It even came out during the Oracle trial that Google only made about $26 billion in profit from the inception of Android to 2016. Apple makes more from Google i…

> Unfortunately, Google is a very much technology focused and not business focused. That’s why after 20+ years almost all of its revenue still comes from advertising. All of the other major tech companies have multiple billion dollar profitable revenue streams.

Is that true of other ad-tech driven companies as well? Companies like Meta and Twitter.

Companies like Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft are used to charging users directly for some good or service. It may be that they are just better positioned to establish those other revenue streams.

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

#368

Post by xmprt »

nine_zeros wrote: post #150
xmprt wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Missing OKRs always seemed a little weird to me. It strikes me as a lack of vision and makes the numbers and goals chosen seem very arbitrary.

Missing OKRs means that the team cannot set achievable goals. It is a signal that the team has terrible foresight. I know the argument is that by being more ambitious and achieving 70%, you are setting ambitious goals. But then the goals are never met. The work doesn't finish. The projects falter. The users are unhappy. Engineers leave.

In my experience, people make 10 goals during planning and then later decide on the 7 that they're going to hit. I wouldn't mind if the goals were ambitious but efforts were made to achieve 70% of them. However, in practice it seems like there's no vision during planning and instead they change course midway through the half. What's the point of planning if you can't stick to the plan.

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

#369

Post by lisper »

tokamak-teapot wrote: post #366
lisper wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a topic about which people can reasonably disagree :-) I'll just add that my complaint about inability to upgrade does not just apply to laptops. It's the whole product line (other than the Pro) including the Mini and the iMac. If I have an iMac and I need more RAM, I have to throw out a perfectly good SSD, processor, and display . There is just no excuse for that. I have a NUC that is essentially a h…

But you don’t have to throw those things away. Just sell it, for a decent percent of what you bought it for - because they have good resale value - and buy one with more RAM.

Then I have to transfer all my data. That's time consuming even when it goes well, and not once has that process ever gone flawlessly for me. Something always gets lost. Passwords. License keys. Settings. It has been a colossal PITA every single time.

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

#370

Post by ffggvv »

oceanplexian wrote: post #352
fatnoah wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What's the point behind putting all this effort into it when at the end of the day it means almost nothing? At a company like Facebook, the difference between L4 and L6 is over $100k in salary, and $80k in stock (difference in 4 year refresh grant of $325k). $180k a year difference isn't almost nothing.

Not if the L4 started 3-4 years before the L6. Their original RSU grant might have been substantially more than they are handing out due to price appreciation, and thus their TC is much higher. This happened to hilarious effect at Amazon, where I had some coworkers that were receiving insane comp and were Sr, but not PE level. Originally they got a grant that was worth 500-600k that went up 5x.

price hasnt appreciated at meta lol
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