Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech • Hacker News Board

Re: Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech

#101

Post by badpun » Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 12:40 PM UTC

jupp0r wrote: post #39

rramadass wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original archetype was a completely overblown caricature (based on some outliers) and wasn't true mostly. It was just an image pushed by the industry so that "Engineers" can be kept out of "Business Decision-Making" and thus Controlled/Managed easily. But now as you say, self promotion is everything and has been taken so far that one cannot call oneself "A Programmer" but a "Rockstar/Ninja/10x/whatever Programmer…

> are not allowed to admit/work on them publicly since that might "out" oneself as "not good enough"; we have to become "posers/fakers" if we want to "play the game" and get ahead. I don't think that is true in the places I've worked at. Whether in interviews or in daily work, people only pretending to know things are not rewarded (unless nobody notices, but that means that nobody in the room is knowledgeable, which…

Knowledge is easy. In most places, the pretenders don’t pretend to have knowledge, but pretend to have a much larger impact that they actually have. This is how you get a promo, or don’t get fired if your actual output is miniscule.

Re: Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech

#102

Post by mlrtime » Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 12:50 PM UTC

supriyo-biswas wrote: post #23

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #2

I'd guess a lot of people would have their own special stories to tell. However, do not underestimate the fact that some of these stories might not be easily disclosed. A "friend of mine", let's call it Bob, decided to leave one of the big tech companies (call it "A"), and join another big tech company (call it "B"), which offers him exactly double the salary. Due to a very unlucky combination, a former colleague at…

I know of a similar case, the employee in question had to go through a similar process of questioning and audits just because they switched from FAANG A to B and somehow their manager came to know about it. After that incident, many members left the team for other companies; they’ve been careful to not update their LinkedIn page with the actual company that they’re working for. When asked, they often said that they w…

I'm a bit surprised to learn this isn't common knowledge. Don't say anything when you're leaving. Don't say where you're going, do NOT do the exit interview (Or do it but give the most generic positive answers only). Give 2 weeks and comply with all the work requests your manager gives you to exit clean.

You might think it is sad it has to be this way, but this is business. You aren't breaking up with a romantic partner. There is only risk but disclosing more than needed.

Finance people have known this for a very long time.

Re: Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech

#103

Post by mlrtime » Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 12:53 PM UTC

azmodeus wrote: post #94

felsokning wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That kind of provision is usually unenforcable if not illegal. I can emphatically tell you that I have a mutual non-disparagement clause with [REDACTED]; _and_ that these clauses seem to be routine enough to be included with most "resolution contracts", at least in Europe ( results seem to indicate that these clauses are very popular in Europe). Most people don't have the equivalent resources (that business have) to…

One of the good reasons to be part of a union is to pool legal resources for such a scenario

Perhaps, but I doubt any of this [and the article] happens in Union jobs. This is usually only for very competitive high skilled jobs which unions don't attract [in the US].

So I'm afraid Unions would not be any help here.

Re: Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech

#104

Post by mlrtime » Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 1:00 PM UTC

bern4444 wrote: post #14

The 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…

This isn't targeted at you directly however I have been on the other side of this. I've sometimes been too open with actionable feedback. What has bit me is that people say they want actionable feedback, but then get defensive or sometimes mildly hostile at any conceived criticism.

This led me to be much more careful with feedback and only give it if I know they can take it. If you think you are one of these people and you receive feedback, just ask questions.. don't dig in and defend yourself.

Re: Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech

#105

Post by RugnirViking » Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 1:04 PM UTC

paulddraper wrote: post #36

photochemsyn wrote: post #18

This article reminds me a bit of a 'ethics' issue in one of the top-name journals, Science or Nature, some years ago. Every article was about the ethics of sharing credit, granting tenure, awarding prizes, etc. Not a word about anything like the ethics of designing AI systems for the military to use in autonomous kill vehicles, reckless gain-of-function research with pathogenic microorganisms, etc. So, here we have a…

> what the goals are these days Maximize shareholder value

in my experience its a little more like "maximise how much the largest shareholders' representatives will give me a big grin and tell me about their summer vacation plans and act all friendly with me"

occasionally with a more cynical view towards getting them to pay me personally more money.

(where "me" here means specifically the CEO and to a lesser extent the C-Suite. Variations and echoes of this incentive echo downwards where these people then take on the role of the important shareholders)

This correlates somewhat with actually maximising shareholder value, but not that exactly. For example, short term profits are good, losses can be fine if you have a good story about why its good that key shareholders believe, etc.

Re: Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech

#106

Post by mlrtime » Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 1:14 PM UTC

rramadass wrote: post #30

mil22 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The employee is rather judged by something like their peer's perception of how competent the employee is, their knowledge of the work the employee did, and their own belief of how important that work was, all filtered through their various cognitive biases about what work is important to the company and what a competent employee looks like. There are so many of these biases. As just one example, studies have…

I think the entire field/practice of "Performance Management" as it stands today needs to be thrown out and reinvented from ground-up by Behavioural Psychologists/Biologists on a proper scientific base. The current practice is basically ad-hoc management with some so-called scientific methods/metrics thrown in based on the current fad. As an example; here is a long list of Cognitive Biases from wikipedia to ponder ov…

Think of "Performance Management" like Capatalism , nobody likes it but it's the "best" that we have found [for sufficiently large orgs]"

I'm sure you could think of a hypothetical system that is better than what we have. But there are probably good reasons why they haven't been used and I doubt worker fairness is one of them. This is a hard problem to solve.

Re: Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech

#107

Post by loughnane » Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 1:21 PM UTC

ram_rar wrote: post #43

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #2

I'd guess a lot of people would have their own special stories to tell. However, do not underestimate the fact that some of these stories might not be easily disclosed. A "friend of mine", let's call it Bob, decided to leave one of the big tech companies (call it "A"), and join another big tech company (call it "B"), which offers him exactly double the salary. Due to a very unlucky combination, a former colleague at…

I've observed this scenario occur frequently. The lesson I've learned is to remain silent until your new job in the new company stabilizes, and then, after some time, share the news with the world. This gives you 2 things 1. Time to acclimate to a new company. If things don't go as planned, there's always mostly the option to boomerang. 2. The likelihood of your previous employer imparting a 'lesson' significantly de…

Virtually anyone who writes about living life——from lil Wayne to Plutarch——agrees.

Being taciturn by default is a wise way to live life.

Re: Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech

#108

Post by mlrtime » Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 1:23 PM UTC

steveBK123 wrote: post #98

happytiger wrote: post #91

There is a very large canyon between “good manager “ and “good leader,” especially in big tech. Many definitely do not cross pollinate. Let’s not fool ourselves: the answer is obvious. The skills that make you a manager are not usually authentic leadership skills in a large corporation. That actual leader is a very special person with usually a very special set of circumstances inside a big company. Most simply optim…

And don't forget the canyon between "average manager". I've had about 15-20 managers in my career. 3 were bad enough I'd never work for them again. ~5 of them I'd enthusiastically work for again. 1 of them is truly a good leader that I've seen move mountains. The rest are forgettably average.

Your numbers sound like a normal distribution which makes sense. Would we expect all 20 to be in the 'move mountains' category? That wouldn't make sense.

Re: Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech

#109

Post by aeonik » Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 1:48 PM UTC

anttiharju wrote: post #53

dclowd9901 wrote: post #47

About 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?

1. Vertically, with training, drills, cybernetic implants, or performance enhancing drugs.

2. Horizontally, by finding more Anna's, or cloning her (more of a long term strategy).

3. Recursively, Anna identifies other Anna's and imbues them with the same power.

Re: Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech

#110

Post by bluejellybean » Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 2:20 PM UTC

dclowd9901 wrote: post #47

About 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…

woah woah woah, let's be careful about these cowboys now - We NEED that bureaucracy in place for reasons!