Google's system is promotion-by-committee. It ends up having the same pros and cons as any committee-based system. On one hand, it avoids the kind of egregious mistakes and crimes that occur when too much power (i.e. to promote others) is vested in individual people (e.g. managers). On the other hand, committees are risk-adverse and will shy away from controversial actions. People who do good work following expected patterns get promoted. People who do controversial work, or who don't fit into an obvious mold, will have a tougher time, as a committee that can't come to agreement will default to no action.
The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions
11–20 of 80 posts
Re: The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions
#12You guys seriously have levels? I've never heard of that before. It sounds awful.
Re: The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions
#13>If you want to get promoted, just start acting like someone at the next level up.
This is the most ridiculous thing companies make u do
I start acting and working like a CEO will I become one ?
Re: The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions
#14"If you want to get promoted, just start acting like someone at the next level up. Eventually they'll realize you're not being paid enough and will promote you." --This sounds really bad. Like a slave trying to move more bricks to show slave-owner that he is not being paid enough.
When this was explained to me by a friend that works there recently, my immediate thought was "Oh. I guess that takes care of the Peter Principle." What incentive does a company have to move you from a position you are competent and useful in to a potion you are incompetent and useless in?
Re: The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions
#15"If you want to get promoted, just start acting like someone at the next level up. Eventually they'll realize you're not being paid enough and will promote you." --This sounds really bad. Like a slave trying to move more bricks to show slave-owner that he is not being paid enough.
Can you think of a better argument to give your boss for why you should be promoted than, "I am already doing the work of one grade above me"?
"I am already doing the work of one grade above me... at Facebook."
I'm joking, but not by much.
Re: The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions
#16No wonder Google lets many services languish. With a system of promotion based on launches of new products/services/features there is no personal incentive to make things work long term. It seems like the person who redesigns the gmail categories for the nth time would get a promotion, but someone who followed up on bug reports, maintenance and stability patches years later wouldn't. Support is just as important as i…
Is there any company where churning through a list of bugs and maintenance projects will get you further in the long term than launching new things? Hacker News generally praises "ship it" culture, where experimentation and measurement is prioritized as the way to succeed. This is considered a good thing in most places and the incentives are not unique to Google.
Re: The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions
#17You guys seriously have levels? I've never heard of that before. It sounds awful.
Pretty much all companies have levels. Even if it's not something as set in stone as Google's 1-11, or Microsoft's 59+, there's almost always some sort of differentiator, from something as small as "Senior" or "Junior" to denote experience.
Re: The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you think of a better argument to give your boss for why you should be promoted than, "I am already doing the work of one grade above me"?
"I am already doing the work of one grade above me... at Facebook." I'm joking, but not by much.
For a while, this was a really good way to become a millionaire. Then Facebook IPO'd and we had to settle for "I'm already doing Larry's job...for a startup."
Re: The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions
#19You guys seriously have levels? I've never heard of that before. It sounds awful.
Pretty much all companies have levels. Even if it's not something as set in stone as Google's 1-11, or Microsoft's 59+, there's almost always some sort of differentiator, from something as small as "Senior" or "Junior" to denote experience.
But that can kill all innovations. Especially, when junior can't report or discuss ideas with the manager, who can make decisions
Re: The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Speaking from experience, I see everyone from the team leader to the interns tackling bugs on my team at Google. Furthermore, the engineer with the highest level on my team has done a tremendous amount of refactoring and maintenance work over the course of the past year. Clearly this is just anecdotal, but from what I've seen an engineer who took the initiative to improve performance/stability or significantly refact…
Former employee here. I had a very opposite experience. New features were key for promotion. Performance/stability tweaks or bug fixes would only add to your promotion chances if they had a demonstrably large impact. I wasn't at that level but this was super true for L5-L6ish engineers or above. Yes they had to tackle bugs, but they weren't getting to L6 unless they led an effort for a big feature within a project, o…
I'm a PM and feel this is the case as well. I've seen massive migrations as one type of 'maintenance' wrapped as a launch that led to promotions, but generally the best way to go about it was join a rapidly growing project (G+) with user-facing impact.
The same issues you flag are similar for PMs.