I don't know what to read or interpret from this. This is very very generic and almost same in any Big Tech companies
There is likely some reason why they all look the same and also happen to be some of the best performing companies there are.
Dropbox Engineering Career Framework
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Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework
#12While these are often useful for setting some internal guidelines for promotions, I've found such an approach to usually end up creating a giant inverse bell, where one side of the curve is constrained by the framework while the other side gamifies it. In the middle, there is a few folks that actually pass the bar organically, and those usually end up being the best hires. Why? Well, one side is often constrained by…
Additionally, to build up on your example, even though one might be quite confortable with techonology XYZ, if it isn't part of those last 6 months assignments, you might even see lesser skilled people acquire additional levels on those stacks, while the unlucky dev will have its capabilities not acknowledged and thus lose the opportunities that might arise in that XYZ technology.
Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework
#13I don't know what to read or interpret from this. This is very very generic and almost same in any Big Tech companies
If I remember correctly, Dropbox was one of the first big tech companies to publish its career framework openly, a lot of organizations (especially smaller ones) based their careers on the Dropbox’s one
Dropbox has 2,693 employees. 37signals has ~80.
I can't see Dropbox having a product/sales that is ~30 times as complex. However, I can easily see an organization that has become overly political.
Dropbox should be run as a small company and not run it as "big tech".
What are all these people doing besides political games?
Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework
#14In all of "career frameworks" I've seen, people who actually build things are labelled as "juniors" and "middles" while those who navigate office politics and ass-kissing are "seniors" and above.
Something something work smart not hard.
Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework
#15I don't know what to read or interpret from this. This is very very generic and almost same in any Big Tech companies
There is likely some reason why they all look the same and also happen to be some of the best performing companies there are.
There was also likely a reason why everyone used to believe Earth was center of Universe. What exactly is your point?
Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework
#16At the end of the day the decision is made on personal level. “I like you” or “I don’t like you”. Such frameworks are just the limits how a manager can show liking/disliking someone. The thing is, that measuring someone’s performance is very hard. It’s not standardized multiple choice written exam. And maybe the company does not need more than quick&dirty, but easy to explain solution.
I don't think it's true. It's in the company's interest that people are evaluated fairly, especially if they are going to give big bonus or agressively fire low performers (like some of these tech companies do). Don't know about Dropbox in particular, but I know other tech companies who take evaluation very seriously. The manager doesn't have the final word and there's a calibration committee that ranks employee base…
So you're defending the standard company evaluation metrics in theory, yet in your closing paragraph you state from your own personal experience that the outcome aligns with the above commentor's statement (which you disagree with).
Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I remember correctly, Dropbox was one of the first big tech companies to publish its career framework openly, a lot of organizations (especially smaller ones) based their careers on the Dropbox’s one
Dropbox has 2,693 employees. 37signals has ~80. I can't see Dropbox having a product/sales that is ~30 times as complex. However, I can easily see an organization that has become overly political. Dropbox should be run as a small company and not run it as "big tech". What are all these people doing besides political games?
When your product is basically a wrapper around s3 (figuratively - I believe they migrated), you bet there’s a lot of politics in their engineering org
Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework
#18In all of "career frameworks" I've seen, people who actually build things are labelled as "juniors" and "middles" while those who navigate office politics and ass-kissing are "seniors" and above.
The Gervais principle is one deep rabbithole on this topic: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework
#19In all of "career frameworks" I've seen, people who actually build things are labelled as "juniors" and "middles" while those who navigate office politics and ass-kissing are "seniors" and above.
Do you think that's a bad thing?
writing code != building things.
In my org, seniors spend a lot less time building things: writing components, etc. They do spend a lot of time navigating office politics. But they are engineering specific office politics: how does system A interact with system B? What are the architectural implications? Ownership of long term data and technical and business strategies?
The "art" of negotiation can be ass-kissing but quite often genuinely with the goal to advance the projects they own and the enablement of the "people who actually build things", which at some point also involves the seniors. You need to build raport and relationships to negotiate seriously.
Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework
#20Every senior role is always very arbitrary while the junior ones are very practical. I feel that this is why big companies fail because you can never actually tell if the senior employees fulfill their expectations because it comes down to personal preference.
Stuff like this only shows that it's not worth making too much of an effort since it's not really recognized anyway. The only time effort and monetary benefits go hand in hand is when you are the owner of the company you make your efforts for.