The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures • Hacker News Board

Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

#181

Post by bern4444 » Wed, May 04, 2022, 5:36 PM UTC

I've begun developing a philosophy under the idea that I have less interest in touting my accomplishments and successes in the aim of getting a promotion and instead expect my lead/manager to notice and actively reward that either through promos, raise, new equity grant etc.

If a company, or speaking more locally, my manager doesn't do that, I'd rather just leave and try somewhere else. Some may view this as childish, picking up and leaving just cause I don't get what I want. I view it as exercising my market power and refusing to be pigeon holed into a system that exists just because that's the way it's always been.

This philosophy certainly benefits from the current job market and this makes me feel more empowered knowing I can just pick up and leave and get a better raise, promotion, new equity round etc.

A good signal for identifying these types of companies where this approach can work IMO is

- Smaller companies

- Ask and look into engineers seeing if there are lots of internal promotions

- Learn what the promotion process is at a company before joining.

Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

#182

Post by jldugger » Wed, May 04, 2022, 5:36 PM UTC

bern4444 wrote: post #164

lisper wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another former Googler here (from waaaaaaayyyy back -- I was employee #104). The reason Google is the way it is, and many organizations are the way they are, is that they are trying to reproduce the circumstances that led to their initial success. Google initially succeeded by solving what was at the time a Really Hard Problem, and so the people at the top want to reproduce that by encouraging people to solve more Re…

I think Apple continues to innovate in new product categories. Apple Watch AirPods M1 Chip Services (Apple TV+, Apple Pay, Music, Fitness, iCloud etc). I include iCloud for services likeHide My Email and Private Relay. They do this all while maintaining a consistent release cycle of upgraded versions of their hardware (new iphones, macs etc). Also, everything in the list above has been developed under Tim Cook which…

You realize that's his point right? Each of those is trying to be the Cool New Thing, and part of what distracts the company while it ships butterfly keyboards, touchbars without escape keys, AntennaGate, whatever plagued HomePod so much they quietly discontinued it. Polish and Attention To Detail is outsourced to execs, who are increasingly spread thin.

Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

#183

Post by suketk » Wed, May 04, 2022, 5:37 PM UTC

A fantastic blog post that dives into the same problem: https://mtlynch.io/why-i-quit-google

It inspired me to quit years later and write my own version: https://suketk.com/why-i-quit-google

Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

#184

Post by kps » Wed, May 04, 2022, 5:37 PM UTC

baby wrote: post #2

The other perverse incentive is that you will end up with engineers trying to extract as much value from other engineers as possible, because it becomes part of leveling up: how much you make other people deliver. Even as an IC. The other problem is that it becomes this game where nobody dares giving bad feedback to one another, because you know they could retaliate which could damage your chances to get a promotion.…

> The other problem is that it becomes this game where nobody dares giving bad feedback to one another, because you know they could retaliate which could damage your chances to get a promotion.

It's good to have people who understand the difference between the prisoners' dilemma and the iterated prisoners' dilemma.

Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

#185

Post by strikelaserclaw » Wed, May 04, 2022, 5:38 PM UTC

xoofoog wrote: post #107

klipt wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems pretty sexist to associate solving hard problems with masculinity. Women at Google also work on hard problems.

The sexist part is not the "hard problems" but the competitiveness. I don't think sexism is intrinsic to solving hard problems - certainly gender-inclusive companies work on hard problems successfully. But in my experience those companies tend to be more collaborative. Google needs to celebrate heroes. Like Jeff Dean. Or Sanjay Ghemawat. Those are Great Men. They are "Living Gods" because they solved Really Hard Prob…

People who joined early on will always have much much more opportunity to become heroes.

Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

#186

Post by kmeisthax » Wed, May 04, 2022, 5:39 PM UTC

zarkov99 wrote: post #110

xoofoog wrote: post #82

Quoted post unavailable.

Quoted post unavailable.

If the parent poster thought males were irredeemably evil, they wouldn't have used the adjective "toxic".

Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

#187

Post by zeroonetwothree » Wed, May 04, 2022, 5:40 PM UTC

digitalgangsta wrote: post #151

What often happens when an employee doesnt get promoted? they leave and usually are able to get that next level role in another company. Why is that?? Why does the current company require employees to show a track record and data points to be promoted, while they hire externally for the same position and often only look at resumes, interview and maybe an assessment. Why isnt it the same bar for internal vs external.…

That just gives you a huge incentive to apply externally, which most employers don’t want.

Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

#188

Post by somethoughts » Wed, May 04, 2022, 5:41 PM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #160

somethoughts wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in my own small company - I'm hoping to promote the concept of the T shaped technical leader ladder. You're rewarded/measured on two metrics - breadth and depth - a depth metric - leadership in your own specific project team where you add features. - a breadth metric - you've demonstrably shown that you've gotten other teams outside your own to contribute to your project effectively. Additionally and perhaps…

You should reward only based on customer satiesfaction and adoption.

Agree - one feature that is missed w.r.t. long term customer satisfaction and adoption is long term support for previously delivered features. This is exacerbated when product managers/SW teams are mostly measured on new feature delivery metrics.

The full feature lifecycle and reducing bus-factor across the entire existing product feature set is rarely considered as its not generally captured in OKR metrics.

Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

#189

Post by lumost » Wed, May 04, 2022, 5:42 PM UTC

brokencode wrote: post #149

lisper wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another former Googler here (from waaaaaaayyyy back -- I was employee #104). The reason Google is the way it is, and many organizations are the way they are, is that they are trying to reproduce the circumstances that led to their initial success. Google initially succeeded by solving what was at the time a Really Hard Problem, and so the people at the top want to reproduce that by encouraging people to solve more Re…

I think Apple has done a fantastic job of incremental improvements on their products rather than chasing the next cool thing. Can you name a company that has actually been doing this better? For instance, they often resist new technologies like high refresh rate or OLED screens, 5G, etc., until they feel the technology is developed sufficiently and won’t impact battery life. There are other brands that compete by mak…

I haven't worked at apple, but I suspect that this is the result of only having Some companies like to spam new products, others like to perfect what they have.

Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures

#190

Post by zeroonetwothree » Wed, May 04, 2022, 5:43 PM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #172

I wonder if any company has successfully eliminated promo-culture. One possible option (in tech context) is to have same base for everyone (like Amazon used to have) with a $0 to $1billion stock range for everyone. Then you select actual stock amount in proportion to increased customer satisfaction, product impact and adoption. No promos ever. All the mess of titles "Staff", "Principal" etc are gone too. No one talks…

A lot of work is hard to evaluate in terms of those metrics. Especially comparing people across different areas of the stack.

Also it encourages a cutthroat competitive culture of stealing credit. At least with levels higher level people don’t need to steal credit from lower level people and aren’t directly evaluated against them.