Sorry you had to go through such obviously bad management. Just to give some context about how these guidelines are supposed to work at Google: being managed ou

Sorry you had to go through such obviously bad management. Just to give some context about how these guidelines are supposed to work at Google: being managed out for staying at Meets Expectations is something that's supposed to be only applicable to entry-level roles. (when I was there, this applied to the new grad T3 rank, as well as T4, I think this may have changed since I left to be just T3). But at an entry-level rank, it is possible to get good ratings and even get promoted if your product hasn't shipped to customers yet (and I would do this with my directs routinely), as long as you are delivering milestones. Part of the definition of T3 is that you cannot yet independently work on a project, ie you need help from senior devs to get things done, and IMO if you stay at this level for more than 1.5 years (3 reviews), and there are no other extenuating circumstances, it's appropriate to consider if the company is a fit. At more senior levels, you have to show business/customer impact to get promoted, but there is also no notion of being managed out for meeting expectations. Of course, these guidelines aren't always implemented or communicated equally across the company, to say nothing of other companies that copy only parts of the process.