Shameless self plug, but my GitHub handle is hellisotherpeople. I like to imagine a coding Sartre would have said “hell is other people’s code”
Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech
51–60 of 135 posts
Re: Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech
#52The flip side to these performance cycles is all the time in between in which often very little actionable feedback is provided to engineers which makes the mid year and end of year reviews so difficult. Across 3 companies and 8 managers, I have yet to receive feedback that was productive in helping me understand what skills or track record is lacking and what is necessary to move up. Managers are (often) bad at prov…
Yeah, it's too bad there isn't a metric for creative endeavors.
As soon as creativity is measurable, it becomes bland and repetitive but highly profitable.
Re: Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech
#53About halfway through this article I got to thinking: what if we measured reward as not just pay, but also responsibility. But no, I don’t mean “give this person more agency over others.” I mean “give this person more ability to execute on their own terms within the company.” Let’s say I’m an employee at company X. And I notice employee Anna is not just good at her work but also seems to have a keen understanding of…
How do you scale that?
Re: Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech
#54There is no reliable method for evaluating developer performance, and involving a committee doesn't change that. Bearing that in mind it is important to cynically evaluate what these tools are for - a form of soft power for managers, so they have carrots and sticks to use when enforcing some sort of team discipline.
There probably is some sort of objective "performance" that we can't measure directly. Some programmers are beasts and obvious pillars of a company. Others are disasters that need to be sacked. Most are in a grey area where they aren't obviously on an extreme. Any system can pick up this distinction and make the necessary decisions.
But all the theatre isn't a tool for performance, it is a tool for discipline. No system can rank people over an unmeasureable metric.
Re: Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not a good analogy as professional sports is much easier to assess performance and also much much more ruthless in terms of being cut.
It's also not a good analogy because it compares across positions. Someone in marketing would not be compared against an engineer.
Marketing is a different job function, on a different team - in both engineering and in soccer. You are thinking members of the same team (soccer/engineering) vs members of different teams (marketing)
Re: Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech
#56> " ...as well as a handful of unlucky folks who deliver solid results but lack social grace and self-promotion skills. " Ironic that what was once the character archetype for geeky programmers have now become pariahs in the industry they pioneered. Now we all toot our own horns as loudly as we can, hoping to drown out our fellows, in search of the next bonus or job hop and devil take the hindmost. Introverted, have…
That's not really new is it? Do you think Steve Wosniak's career would have been different if he had had those promotional soft skills?
Yes. He would have become Steve Jobs.
Re: Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech
#57My company didn’t believe in peer feedback, but only manager’s.
My manager used to absent-minded in almost all the places. So much, that he himself wasn’t aware of requirements.
But someone had to take the blame. And it was turned on me. I protested and got fired.
In the end, the article somehow protects individuals giving out review but I totally blame them for unfair review. As a manager it’s their responsibility to take notes and remain aware of things. This will allow them to see throw shallow goals one of them being “delivery”.
Re: Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech
#58The whole "fitting on a curve" thing is so awful and so stupid, tech companies engaging in it should be ashamed. It's like asking to rank every player on a soccer team. Gotta get rid of the goalkeeper because we decided to stack rank every one on goals - disregarding that everyone plays a different role on the team and the team can only win together.
Look into "wins above replacement" value calculations. It can be done.
Re: Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech
#59Another big issue with performance reviews is how heavily biased they are to recency. People know not to rock the boat when performance reviews are coming up because a bad review will be used against you when layoffs start.
Like the author says, performance reviews between co-workers can be unanimously positive because everybody who gets how the game works knows that any negative thing can be construed as a black mark.
Co-workers are the only ones who actually know whether or not somebody is doing their job, doubly so if the employees have overlapping responsibilities. Day shift knows when night shift hasn't cleaned or prepped, and visa versa. A better approach than reviews would be a system of communication between night shift and day shift about what responsibilities are expected before handing off the shift. It's key that both sides feel like the responsibilities are fairly distributed. Disagreements may happen and some people may dig their heels in, so mediation can be helpful.
What about performance evaluation? That's a made up corporate phrase to justify layoffs.
We all went to school. In every group project there was one, or maybe more people that did no work. How does a teacher know which student did the work, and which ones didn't? Answer: They don't. Everybody has experienced this. The freeloaders get off scott free, because the teacher is not in a good vantage point to see the effort. Asking students to rank each other is also unhelpful because the freeloaders could outnumber the ones who actually do work.
There is one foolproof method to spot freeloaders from those who actually do the work. The ones that are capable of doing the work can do most, if not all of the work themselves. After all, they had to since they were surrounded by freeloaders.
Re: Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech
#60The whole "fitting on a curve" thing is so awful and so stupid, tech companies engaging in it should be ashamed. It's like asking to rank every player on a soccer team. Gotta get rid of the goalkeeper because we decided to stack rank every one on goals - disregarding that everyone plays a different role on the team and the team can only win together.
Unfortunately, I think it's the only way to do it. Corporate incentives are weird. Firing people is tough. If you don't force it, people find a way to just go along with the status quo. If you let them, managers all report that their teams are just super high functioning . And that path leads to mediocrity. Just like how the peer rating system devolved into bland platitudes. From an executive's standpoint, where you…
I hear you from an executive's perspective. Executives are too far removed.
But this is why even with a smaller scale of soccer teams (25 first team+25 reserve players), soccer teams don't force a stack rank instituted by the executive. They let the manager do hiring and firing decisions BUT, the manager is going to be on the chopping block for not achieving the team's goals - not the players.
This leads to two benefits
1. The people closest to the game make hiring/firing decisions based on team dynamics, team goals, age group mix, tactics, and budget. A distant executive doesn't make these choices and doesn't force a stack rank just because...
2. And, the manager is always held responsible for successes and failures. That is the job and what the big bucks are for. Every level of manager is responsible for a job function and will be on the chopping block first the higher they go.