Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

#151

Post by andrewflnr » Tue, Nov 12, 2013, 5:44 AM UTC

nevster wrote: post #118

forkandwait wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am currently reading a bunch of the Toyota Way books, Deming, etc. and sometimes I wonder if one of the most basic assumptions in the West is that the individual is the root and the system is a derived thing. This assumption starts, maybe, with Christianity which tells us that we stand alone before God judged on our individual character, not on our wealth or social position. Buddhism, on the other hand, tells us th…

Minor point... I'd say Christianity goes along with the original poster's idea of everyone getting the same reward - ie grace - nothing you do can merit it - it's a gift. The parable of the vineyard workers explains it - it doesn't matter how late in the day the workers start working - they all get the same reward.

Also, if Jesus was interested in "roasting" people, he wouldn't have bothered coming here.

Re: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

#152

Post by cpeterso » Tue, Nov 12, 2013, 6:16 AM UTC

xtracto wrote: post #110

brown9-2 wrote: post #6

The evil, destructive, part of stack ranking is when you need to apply the 20%/70%/10% breakdowns to all teams equally, meaning that even a team of 5 people needs to have one and only one "exceeds expectation" person and one person who "needs improvement", regardless of overall team level. It's not clear from this writeup that Amazon and Facebook are applying curves at such a micro level.

I think the following anecdote may illustrate the silliness of the ranking systems: My wife works in a big manufacturing company (which is just slightly related to IT). She started to work in a just-opened position for some department. As the position is new, they are not sure about her obligations. After one year, she had a end-of-year review, where her immediate boss rates her performance. Because she completed eve…

When I bought a car recently, the sales person said the company would send me a survey about his service. On a scale of 1 to 10, he claimed (and I did believe him) that the company treats a 10 as a 10 and a 1-9 as a 0 when determining employee bonuses.

Re: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

#153

Post by kybernetikos » Tue, Nov 12, 2013, 6:41 AM UTC

kansface wrote: post #121

kybernetikos wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wanted to experiment with a system where all employees have a currency that they can pay other developers who help them or that they think are doing really well. As well as the credits that all employees have, there are also large numbers of credits distributed to the product owners of products in proportion to how much money they make. Come bonus time, the bonuses are paid in proportion to how many credits…

I could easily imagine gaming this system just like the others via kickbacks or other quid pro quos.

There are things you could do to make it harder and potentially more dangerous to game, but to be honest, all systems can be gamed, but honest people are less likely to do so if they are in an environment where they are trusted and treated like adults.

Re: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

#154

Post by takluyver » Tue, Nov 12, 2013, 7:28 AM UTC

walshemj wrote: post #102

calinet6 wrote: post #87

Here's a question to which most people experience revulsion, but must be thought of and answered honestly: Why not give everyone the same bonus based on company performance? Make it collective good. You'll probably think of reasons, like "good people should be rewarded," or "people who do things wrong need to have consequences," but you must realize the alternative is this vile demotivational anti-pattern with even w…

Works for John Lewis in the UK

To expand on this: John Lewis is a chain of department stores and supermarkets (Waitrose), which is owned by its employees. Each year, a sizable fraction of its profits go to a bonus distributed in proportion to salary (17% on top of each salary last year, according to Wikipedia).

Re: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

#155

Post by nbm » Tue, Nov 12, 2013, 8:20 AM UTC

progn wrote: post #78

Eh. I'm in Facebook bootcamp now. Between this article about the ranking system, a truly uninspiring (to me --- YMMV) choice of teams to work on, and the press Facebook has been getting lately, I'm seriously considering parting ways and going somewhere else. Nobody can beat Facebook's pay or food, but what good is it if I feel like I lack direction and purpose? How much would it damage my career to say I tried FB boo…

As a complement to dr's offer above, if you want to talk to someone who has been at FB for a while and worked with a bunch of infrastructure (traffic, core systems, &c.) and product (graph search, site integrity, &c.) teams, hit me up. My unixname is neil (and my non-work contact details are in the HN profile).

I'd like to help you and dr find you a good match - FB has been a great opportunity for me, but I stumbled a bit so I know how important finding the right thing to work on is. I can also offer you my frank impression of the performance review system here, which I've been through a few times as an IC and as a manager.

Re: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

#156

Post by mtrimpe » Tue, Nov 12, 2013, 8:29 AM UTC

xal wrote: post #39

mtrimpe wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each employee receives a single unit of value. Let's call it a 'credit.' Each employee then has to distribute all of his 'credit' to other employees. Each employee then gives away any credit received according to the same original distribution. Each employee continues doing so until the credit received and distributed reaches an equilibrium. Each employee is then ranked by the total amount of 'credit' they've accumul…

So the funny thing is that this system is called Unicorn and has been in effect for many years at Shopify: http://www.fastcompany.com/1770955/using-social-media-improv... It's useful, but no replacement for performance reviews.

I was going to ask how you knew that since I couldn't get that from the FastCompany article. Good thing I checked your profile first. Loved seeing you at MicroConf and keep up the good work ;)

I'm not surprised that performance reviews are still needed since just a ranking wouldn't give employees a direction or focus to improve.

I am curious what you did find the ranking information to be useful for though?

Re: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

#157

Post by smsm42 » Tue, Nov 12, 2013, 9:55 AM UTC

jellicle wrote: post #48

bowlofpetunias wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about approaching managers in the same way we always like companies to approach developers, i.e., hire good ones and empower them do their job in the best way they know how? Using a system that is enforced from the top down is a perfect way to guarantee you'll only get the kind of below mediocre managers we love to bitch about. All of these systems are based on the assumption that companies can't trust the people…

Managers have a bias to like and want to keep "their" employees, because they know them, because they are friends with them. Even if Steve is objectively a poor performer, you know him; you met his wife; you saw pictures of his kids. He's a nice guy. If you fire him, you either don't get a replacement (bad) or you have to interview 20 people to find a replacement (also bad). It's hard to hire - what if you choose poo…

If Steve is a poor performer, you either are not meeting your performance goals as a team or have too many people on the team from the start. Usually it's the former. And a good manager notices that and knows who exactly is routinely not pulling his weight. In this case manager that decided to keep Steve is the manager that should be let go, as he is not doing what he was hired for - managing.

Re: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

#158

Post by nl » Tue, Nov 12, 2013, 9:58 AM UTC

nevster wrote: post #118

forkandwait wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am currently reading a bunch of the Toyota Way books, Deming, etc. and sometimes I wonder if one of the most basic assumptions in the West is that the individual is the root and the system is a derived thing. This assumption starts, maybe, with Christianity which tells us that we stand alone before God judged on our individual character, not on our wealth or social position. Buddhism, on the other hand, tells us th…

Minor point... I'd say Christianity goes along with the original poster's idea of everyone getting the same reward - ie grace - nothing you do can merit it - it's a gift. The parable of the vineyard workers explains it - it doesn't matter how late in the day the workers start working - they all get the same reward.

That may be true, but it doesn't take into account the Protestant work ethic[1]. I think Wikipedia has a good explanation:

the notion developed that it might be possible to discern that a person was elect (predestined) by observing their way of life. Hard work and frugality, as well as social success and wealth, were thought to be two important consequences of being one of the elect; thus, Protestants were thus attracted to these qualities and supposed to strive for reaching them

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic

Re: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

#159

Post by w0rd-driven » Tue, Nov 12, 2013, 10:14 AM UTC

aaronetz wrote: post #113

calinet6 wrote: post #87

Here's a question to which most people experience revulsion, but must be thought of and answered honestly: Why not give everyone the same bonus based on company performance? Make it collective good. You'll probably think of reasons, like "good people should be rewarded," or "people who do things wrong need to have consequences," but you must realize the alternative is this vile demotivational anti-pattern with even w…

I agree. Having worked in the military, where there were no bonuses whatsoever, and salaries were based on a standard scale, I found that what made the good employees good was that they were proud of / enjoyed their work, and not money (a different problem was that people could not be easily fired (to say the least), which did lead to some slacking). I personally believe that people whose main motivation is the bonus…

I think this only works in a situation like the military, where the "industry standard" as it were, states there are no bonuses. The introduction of bonuses are a perk, but in our culture of software development its also par the course at most places. From the company perspective, this can be seen as a somewhat salary cap. Instead of requiring I pay all workers x + 5%, I can get them to gladiator it out for that bit of money I don't really want to pay them. I can also correlate this to our US tip culture where its expected to pay people abysmal hourly rates and let the stack ranking of good tippers make up the difference.

I do think the military system would be preferable but it requires a huge industry shift and divorcing the idea that x gets a bonus so company y is more attractive, which seems near impossible. I'm also for abolishing our tip culture to replace it with Euro's but there would be some in that culture that make good money and would balk because their employer would never make up the difference in a million years. Its definitely hard not to see either as a form of extortion but some play the game really well in spite of it all. You can still enjoy the work you do and play the game though, but it just becomes that much more difficult due to outside pressure.

Re: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

#160

Post by nl » Tue, Nov 12, 2013, 10:17 AM UTC

calinet6 wrote: post #116

abraxasz wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did experience revulsion, but I think that you're right, it's an important concept to think about. I perused the link you provided, and here are some random thoughts: - The article lists as a deadly sin: "Evaluation by performance, merit rating, or annual review of performance" But then the question remains: how do you make sure your best employees don't get poached by other companies who are willing to acknowledge…

It's more about producing a quality culture in order to produce a quality product. You can still recognize people for performance, but not by an unverifiable and arbitrary rating scale. You can still promote people, but do it in the open by agreed upon skills, merits, and experience. Your goal shouldn't be to demotivate people by negating all forms of reward, but to motivate them by rewarding in the clear based on ag…

I agree with you, but I think one thing is worth mentioning: You can still get rid of bad players.

The "bad player" problem is a real one. I'm not talking about people who underperform compared to others, but to those who disrupt the work environment by various means.

People like that are poison to a productive working environment, and there is nothing in anything that has been said which means you shouldn't get rid of them.