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The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions

matt-welsh.blogspot.com

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Re: The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions

#31

Post by nostrademons »

dsplatonov wrote: post #19
mynameisvlad wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The levels don't work like that, as the blog post describes. They basically count for paygrade and job title, and that's it.

At Google you were basically expected to make all the decisions you had good information on, and you had access to a lot more information than people did at most companies. I launched the [blink tag] easter egg by socializing my ideas around a few peers who said "Cool idea, go for it", implementing it in my spare time, getting a code review, and then e-mailing PR, legal, and Amit saying "Hey, I'm planning to launch this easter egg in a couple weeks, any objections?" I had approval powers for putting stuff up on google.com myself, so in theory I could've launched it with just one other person's code review, but if you launch without approval and things blow up you (and your peers) will never ever be able to do cool stuff again, so it's a nice courtesy to keep the execs in the loop. (Although this rule has been bent before - [do a barrel roll] was launched without any execs' knowledge.)

Re: The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions

#32

Post by jmspring »

typpo wrote: post #16
Afforess wrote: post #2

No 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.

Consulting. Not a longterm in the company thing, but there is money in coming in and cleaning up others messes and get them on a path that can be maintained.

For myself - I've got projects I've helped as above. I'm not a maintenance/sustaining kind of guy, but many companies gamble on a "make it work now" scenario and then need help after the fact to bring it back to reality for long term support.

It's not sexy, I don't do it often, but if someone has an interesting challenge to get from X to sustaining, I'm happy to hear and maybe work something out biz wise.

Re: The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions

#33

Post by 10098 »

dsplatonov wrote: post #19
mynameisvlad wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> Especially, when junior can't report or discuss ideas with the manager, who can make decisions

Why do you think having levels prevents junior people from discussing ideas with their managers? Everybody has the chance to discuss anything with their manager at the weekly one-on-one meetings which are being held with people of all levels. Also, like the post says, your level determines your compensation, but not the potential impact you may have on a project. Nobody's going to actively prevent you from working on something because you're "not senior enough".

Re: The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions

#34

Post by dsplatonov »

nostrademons wrote: post #31
dsplatonov wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that can kill all innovations. Especially, when junior can't report or discuss ideas with the manager, who can make decisions

The levels don't work like that, as the blog post describes. They basically count for paygrade and job title, and that's it. At Google you were basically expected to make all the decisions you had good information on, and you had access to a lot more information than people did at most companies. I launched the [blink tag] easter egg by socializing my ideas around a few peers who said "Cool idea, go for it", implemen…

ok, agree, but thats doesn't covered in the article, which can lead to misunderstanding

Re: The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions

#35

Post by xiaoma »

The most interesting part of this piece for me was that the peer feedback isn't anonymous. I can see this leading to some uncomfortable situations, but I can also seeing it be a net positive. Getting honest feedback (unrelated to performance review) from one of my senior peers at Groupon was a very beneficial for me.

Re: The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions

#36

Post by groby_b »

JSno wrote: post #8

"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.

Given the pay rate at any established company in the valley, I don't think being an underpaid "slave" is a concern.

Re: The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions

#37

Post by [deleted] »

xiaoma wrote: post #35

The most interesting part of this piece for me was that the peer feedback isn't anonymous. I can see this leading to some uncomfortable situations, but I can also seeing it be a net positive. Getting honest feedback (unrelated to performance review) from one of my senior peers at Groupon was a very beneficial for me.

[deleted]

Re: The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions

#38

Post by sid- »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #25
sid- wrote: post #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 ?

No I didn't down vote you, but in my experience that is exactly correct. If you start acting like the CEO you will eventually become the CEO. The tricky bit though is that often times people don't really know why the CEO acts as they do. And that is partly because there is information available to the CEO that isn't available to just anyone, and partly because the CEO is often balancing problems and opportunities tha…

U live in a more idealistic world than I do There is no point climbing someone else"s organized corporate ladder with 10 levels when u can do ur own experiments :) Don't want to be an old man filled with regret on level 3 or 6

Re: The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions

#39

Post by kentonv »

yid wrote: post #30
kentonv wrote: post #11

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…

> or who don't fit into an obvious mold, Genuine question: is that why you went in a completely different direction with Capn'proto than protobufs?

Hmm, not sure I exactly understand the question. But I think the answer is probably "no". Cap'n Proto's design came mostly out of someone asking me one day whether two processes could share a protobuf object via shared memory, without serializing and parsing. I found the question interesting enough that I kept thinking about it and that eventually evolved into a design. My reasons for leaving Google had nothing to do with any of this, but gave me a well-timed opportunity to work on it.

I actually primarily quit to do sandstorm.io, and did Cap'n Proto more on a lark, although it turns out to be really useful infrastructure on which to build Sandstorm.

Re: The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions

#40

Post by watwut »

Afforess wrote: post #2

No 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…

It is general problem, many companies do the same mistake. Programmer willing to do those needed useful maintenance things is penalized by a.) having less exciting buzzwords on cv, b.) having lower salary, c.) having less interesting work.

Surprise surprise, everyone avoids maintenance.

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