7 ms·

As a developer who has worked at several billion-dollar (non FAANG) companies, the only thing I get out of performance reviews are one of two things: 1. You're

As a developer who has worked at several billion-dollar (non FAANG) companies, the only thing I get out of performance reviews are one of two things: 1. You're doing a great job. Keep at it. 2. You're doing terribly. We are going to start a paper trail to fire you (aka performance improvement plan). The only reason performance reviews exist at companies is so they have an established way of firing people. Even if I do a great job, top marks across the board, I only receive a 2-4% increase in salary. On the rare occasion I might get a bonus. So there's zero incentive to go "above and beyond" or otherwise improve in a way that benefits the company I am currently employed for. Now, I continue to improve every day by learning new skills. But these new skills rarely relate to what the current company needs - these are simply things I am curious about. However, these skills will never end up in a "core competency plan" because those plans, by nature, only list skills that benefit the company. Because the target / competency plan only benefits the company, the performance review (which is based off the comp plan) feels very one-sided / binary. So instead of focusing intently on those competencies, I do the minimum necessary to fulfill them (less than 2 hours of work) and spend the rest of my "self improvement time" learning things I'm genuinely curious about. Then, when I have a marketable understanding of these new tools / tech, I jump ship, usually for a higher compensation package. If you want performance reviews to actually matter, allow people to set goals that do not always benefit the company. Understand your employees have many different interests and give them space to explore those interests.

harimau777 7y ago
Did you mean to post this a second time?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- cuddlybacon 7y ago
  It is posted by a different username.
- rileymat2 7y ago
  It is a completely different user. Based on history, the other one seems to be regurgitating comments.
  - dang 7y ago
    Those spammers must be at it again. Edit: if you guys notice accounts doing this, please let us know at hn@ycombinator.com. Flagging them doesn't really help since the comments themselves are innocuous, it's the spammy duplication that's bad.
- moretai 7y ago
  exposed!
  - __blockcipher__ 7y ago
    The GGP appears to be the “real” poster of the comment. The other one was posted after.
- SamuelAdams 7y ago
  No, AFAIK I only posted this once.
  - __blockcipher__ 7y ago
    If confused on why you were asked, another user stole your comment in this same thread.
WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
This is crap, and one of the reasons the Technical Leads (me included) are a part of the review process. Managers deal with the non-technical stuff but our job is to help people get the skills they want to derive from their Professional Development Plan and have their process contrasted as part of their review.
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't post duplicate comments, even if someone else did. It just makes it harder to get the thread in order. Better is to let us know at hn@ycombinator.com so we can fix the situation more quickly.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
This is crap (the current outcomes of performance reviews), and one of the reasons the Technical Leads (me included) are a part of the review process. Managers deal with the non-technical stuff but our job is to help people get the skills they want to derive from their Professional Development Plan and have their process contrasted as part of their review.
- LandR 7y ago
  I worked at a place where we had peer reviews. You had to select three people to rate you out of five in a number of areas. One review I got a few fives. They got scrubbed. So I averaged out at three ish. I was told its basically impossible to get a five, so all fives just get discarded. That fours are best you can hope for but even then you have to be exceptional. So most we're expecter to average was a three. Only if yoy were under three was it a problem. However, the annual pay rise was linked to your score! And when complaining about measly two percent, you are told to get a higher raise you need to average a four.... It was just exhausting and absurd.
  - sjg007 7y ago
    Catch-22
  - commandlinefan 7y ago
    > its basically impossible to get a five, so all fives just get discarded. Did they also say that there's a "talent shortage" and they just can't seem to find developers no matter how hard they try?
  - krapsna 7y ago
    I had the exact same experience, except that I had to do a self-review. Preface: In November of that year the org REALLY needed some important work done in a language that I didn't develop in. It was a super large update to a legacy PERL app that had NO TESTS WHATSOEVER. If it wasn't done by a deadline they would have lost their largest contract and very likely have been out of business. Did I mention that this org was part of a fortune 500 company? Since I was the ONLY developer left at the company who had any idea how things worked they pleaded with me to help them. Sensing opportunity, I rose to the occasion for a month of 60 to 80 hour weeks. I pulled off the release that would have been the nail in their coffin had it failed. A couple of months later we had to do self-reviews. It was my first one because for an unknown reason I hadn't received one the year prior. I was really proud that I'd pulled off the impossible so I gave myself a couple of fives in areas like "works hard" and "teamwork" or something. Then I had my official review with the C level exec of development, since they still hadn't replaced the director who was my former manager. He told me that we had to change the fives, because even though they existed the company felt you had to do something reeeeally awesome to get a five. Then he said fours were not impossible to get, but almost impossible to get, and since he was too busy running the company to really give me a review he'd give me the benefit of a doubt and reset the fives to threes. Next he knocked a couple of other stats down to twos, saying that I had too many threes. Then, he said unfortunately my average score was pretty much dead on the company average and that I only qualified for an average 2% raise. Aaaaand at that moment I realized that performance reviews were nothing more than a dog an pony show for HR to justify giving you a minimum raise, or documenting why you should be fired. I also realized that there was absolutely no reason to break my neck for them again, and the only way I was gong to improve my situation was to find another job. Which I did. Securing myself a 40% raise doing 1/2 the work in 25% of the knowledge domain.
CarelessExpert 7y ago
> If you want performance reviews to actually matter, allow people to set goals that do not always benefit the company. Understand your employees have many different interests and give them space to explore those interests. I gotta confess, I'm very deeply confused by this. The company's goal is to develop their staff in ways that benefit the business the company is engaging in, because the purpose of the company is to be successful in that business. If I'm operating a company that produces bread, no, I'm not going to help you develop your skills in woodworking. Why would I? If you really want to learn professional woodworking, develop those skills on your own time and then go get a job as a woodworker. Or, accept you work for a company that needs people with skills related to baking bread, and develop your skills accordingly. Or, alternatively, convince me why your becoming a skilled woodworker is good for my bakery business. That said: If the company wants skilled bread bakers, they should be providing the time, space, and resources to allow their staff to develop those skills during their time at work. They should not expect people to continue to develop those skills outside of work. That's your time to use as you see fit, including picking up those woodworking skills if that's what's really important to you.
- blowski 7y ago
  Both you and OP have made excellent points. I guess the challenge in software is understanding when bread is not bread. For example, I manage a team of devs. Our stack is React, and one of the devs asks for a course on Vue. Is that relevant? What about Bash, AWS, security, networking, user experience? All these things are relevant and could feasibly help the company. I think the OP was suggesting we allow people to set goals like this, as opposed to setting goals like “finish project x by April”.
  - CarelessExpert 7y ago
    Yup, totally agreed! And that's where a) as a professional, you need the ability to advocate for the development of skills if you think the business will see benefit, even if the benefit isn't immediately obvious, and b) as a manager, you should be actively encouraging staff to think this way, and you should have an open mind when a they bring these kinds of ideas to the table. Personally, I desperately wish my staff were more aggressive about thinking proactively about professional development. Most of the time I have to nag them just to take an hour out of their work week to read a book or something...
chickenpotpie 7y ago
"CFO: What happens if we train them and they leave? CEO: What happens if we don’t and they stay?"
dunkelheit 7y ago
You forgot 3. You are doing a great job. Push harder and maybe you'll get that promotion next time. (earlier at a budget meeting: no budget for promotions this quarter).
novok 7y ago
Perf review history is also used by other managers if they want to approve a transfer into their team and used as part of promotion packet considerations. So does matter beyond that too.
crazygringo 7y ago
> The only reason performance reviews exist at companies is so they have an established way of firing people. No. At most companies, the main reason is to have an established way of promoting people. Are people merely performing "at" their level (no promotion) or are they showing clear evidence "above" their level (promotion-worthy)? In my experience, firing is pretty rare, while a promotion every ~2 yrs to a new level and pay grade is pretty common. (Granted you could often make more by jumping companies.) Of course there are some companies (especially smaller ones) that tend to hire rather than promote, as they expand. In which case you "promote" yourself by jumping to a new company. But I wouldn't say that's necessarily the norm.
- chefandy 7y ago
  Maybe this should be changed to "the only reason performance improvement plans exist."
- seangrogg 7y ago
  > Are people merely performing "at" their level (no promotion) or are they showing clear evidence "above" their level (promotion-worthy)? Or are they showing clear evidence "above" their level but the manager has not generated enough career capital to put them up as a promotion candidate because promotions are about politics not merit (praise-no-promo)?
  - Aeolun 7y ago
    Possibly, but I don’t think I would necessarily blame my manager for that. It was the case at my previous two companies until I finally found one where it appears promotion is actually feasible.
irrational 7y ago
Wow, I agree with all of your points. I have had the exact same experiences and thoughts. I had to check the username to make sure I didn't write this.
ycombonator 7y ago
Ditto
rb808 7y ago
Agreed, I once had a team which I gave all good PRs, but was told that we had to fit a curve and these 2 people will start PIP before being let go 3m later.
jandrese 7y ago
I read through Brian Kernighan's Unix memoir and it had an interesting anecdote about performance reviews. Turns out that Brian was a department head for quite a long time at Bell Labs and at first performance reviews were all "You're doing great work, keep it up!" but eventually someone at corporate added a "areas to improve" section. So for a couple of years he got away with "nothing, great job", but then the upper management came back with "nobody is perfect, you need to fill in that field." And he's like "What would you put down for Dennis Ritchie?"
grep_name 7y ago
> 1. You're doing a great job. Keep at it. >2. You're doing terribly. We are going to start a paper trail to fire you (aka performance improvement plan). This is exactly why I only rate myself 4 or 5 out of 5 on any review I ever have. Normally I'm a quiet, humble person and maybe a little self-effacing. But in performance reviews, I'm always a stellar employee. I learned a long time ago that an honest, uncompromising self evaluation is little more than a signed admission of guilt. If I could remain silent I would, but if I have to document myself with the disadvantage of not knowing the context it's being sent into, I'm not going to give any other party leverage against me. And putting every employee in that position habitually is a recipe for a dehumanizing and demoralizing interaction
sporkland 7y ago
Either your HR/People team sucks or you're just meeting expectations. If you are exceeding to greatly exceeding expectations and they don't drive your comp either via equity or salary increase faster than that then something is off.

harimau777 7y ago

Did you mean to post this a second time?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
cuddlybacon 7y ago
It is posted by a different username.
rileymat2 7y ago
It is a completely different user. Based on history, the other one seems to be regurgitating comments.
- dang 7y ago
  Those spammers must be at it again. Edit: if you guys notice accounts doing this, please let us know at hn@ycombinator.com. Flagging them doesn't really help since the comments themselves are innocuous, it's the spammy duplication that's bad.
moretai 7y ago
exposed!
- __blockcipher__ 7y ago
  The GGP appears to be the “real” poster of the comment. The other one was posted after.
SamuelAdams 7y ago
No, AFAIK I only posted this once.
- __blockcipher__ 7y ago
  If confused on why you were asked, another user stole your comment in this same thread.

WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago

This is crap, and one of the reasons the Technical Leads (me included) are a part of the review process. Managers deal with the non-technical stuff but our job is to help people get the skills they want to derive from their Professional Development Plan and have their process contrasted as part of their review.

dang 7y ago
Please don't post duplicate comments, even if someone else did. It just makes it harder to get the thread in order. Better is to let us know at hn@ycombinator.com so we can fix the situation more quickly.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago

This is crap (the current outcomes of performance reviews), and one of the reasons the Technical Leads (me included) are a part of the review process. Managers deal with the non-technical stuff but our job is to help people get the skills they want to derive from their Professional Development Plan and have their process contrasted as part of their review.

LandR 7y ago
I worked at a place where we had peer reviews. You had to select three people to rate you out of five in a number of areas. One review I got a few fives. They got scrubbed. So I averaged out at three ish. I was told its basically impossible to get a five, so all fives just get discarded. That fours are best you can hope for but even then you have to be exceptional. So most we're expecter to average was a three. Only if yoy were under three was it a problem. However, the annual pay rise was linked to your score! And when complaining about measly two percent, you are told to get a higher raise you need to average a four.... It was just exhausting and absurd.
- sjg007 7y ago
  Catch-22
- commandlinefan 7y ago
  > its basically impossible to get a five, so all fives just get discarded. Did they also say that there's a "talent shortage" and they just can't seem to find developers no matter how hard they try?
- krapsna 7y ago
  I had the exact same experience, except that I had to do a self-review. Preface: In November of that year the org REALLY needed some important work done in a language that I didn't develop in. It was a super large update to a legacy PERL app that had NO TESTS WHATSOEVER. If it wasn't done by a deadline they would have lost their largest contract and very likely have been out of business. Did I mention that this org was part of a fortune 500 company? Since I was the ONLY developer left at the company who had any idea how things worked they pleaded with me to help them. Sensing opportunity, I rose to the occasion for a month of 60 to 80 hour weeks. I pulled off the release that would have been the nail in their coffin had it failed. A couple of months later we had to do self-reviews. It was my first one because for an unknown reason I hadn't received one the year prior. I was really proud that I'd pulled off the impossible so I gave myself a couple of fives in areas like "works hard" and "teamwork" or something. Then I had my official review with the C level exec of development, since they still hadn't replaced the director who was my former manager. He told me that we had to change the fives, because even though they existed the company felt you had to do something reeeeally awesome to get a five. Then he said fours were not impossible to get, but almost impossible to get, and since he was too busy running the company to really give me a review he'd give me the benefit of a doubt and reset the fives to threes. Next he knocked a couple of other stats down to twos, saying that I had too many threes. Then, he said unfortunately my average score was pretty much dead on the company average and that I only qualified for an average 2% raise. Aaaaand at that moment I realized that performance reviews were nothing more than a dog an pony show for HR to justify giving you a minimum raise, or documenting why you should be fired. I also realized that there was absolutely no reason to break my neck for them again, and the only way I was gong to improve my situation was to find another job. Which I did. Securing myself a 40% raise doing 1/2 the work in 25% of the knowledge domain.

CarelessExpert 7y ago

> If you want performance reviews to actually matter, allow people to set goals that do not always benefit the company. Understand your employees have many different interests and give them space to explore those interests. I gotta confess, I'm very deeply confused by this. The company's goal is to develop their staff in ways that benefit the business the company is engaging in, because the purpose of the company is to be successful in that business. If I'm operating a company that produces bread, no, I'm not going to help you develop your skills in woodworking. Why would I? If you really want to learn professional woodworking, develop those skills on your own time and then go get a job as a woodworker. Or, accept you work for a company that needs people with skills related to baking bread, and develop your skills accordingly. Or, alternatively, convince me why your becoming a skilled woodworker is good for my bakery business. That said: If the company wants skilled bread bakers, they should be providing the time, space, and resources to allow their staff to develop those skills during their time at work. They should not expect people to continue to develop those skills outside of work. That's your time to use as you see fit, including picking up those woodworking skills if that's what's really important to you.

blowski 7y ago
Both you and OP have made excellent points. I guess the challenge in software is understanding when bread is not bread. For example, I manage a team of devs. Our stack is React, and one of the devs asks for a course on Vue. Is that relevant? What about Bash, AWS, security, networking, user experience? All these things are relevant and could feasibly help the company. I think the OP was suggesting we allow people to set goals like this, as opposed to setting goals like “finish project x by April”.
- CarelessExpert 7y ago
  Yup, totally agreed! And that's where a) as a professional, you need the ability to advocate for the development of skills if you think the business will see benefit, even if the benefit isn't immediately obvious, and b) as a manager, you should be actively encouraging staff to think this way, and you should have an open mind when a they bring these kinds of ideas to the table. Personally, I desperately wish my staff were more aggressive about thinking proactively about professional development. Most of the time I have to nag them just to take an hour out of their work week to read a book or something...

chickenpotpie 7y ago

"CFO: What happens if we train them and they leave? CEO: What happens if we don’t and they stay?"

dunkelheit 7y ago

You forgot 3. You are doing a great job. Push harder and maybe you'll get that promotion next time. (earlier at a budget meeting: no budget for promotions this quarter).

novok 7y ago

Perf review history is also used by other managers if they want to approve a transfer into their team and used as part of promotion packet considerations. So does matter beyond that too.

crazygringo 7y ago

> The only reason performance reviews exist at companies is so they have an established way of firing people. No. At most companies, the main reason is to have an established way of promoting people. Are people merely performing "at" their level (no promotion) or are they showing clear evidence "above" their level (promotion-worthy)? In my experience, firing is pretty rare, while a promotion every ~2 yrs to a new level and pay grade is pretty common. (Granted you could often make more by jumping companies.) Of course there are some companies (especially smaller ones) that tend to hire rather than promote, as they expand. In which case you "promote" yourself by jumping to a new company. But I wouldn't say that's necessarily the norm.

chefandy 7y ago
Maybe this should be changed to "the only reason performance improvement plans exist."
seangrogg 7y ago
> Are people merely performing "at" their level (no promotion) or are they showing clear evidence "above" their level (promotion-worthy)? Or are they showing clear evidence "above" their level but the manager has not generated enough career capital to put them up as a promotion candidate because promotions are about politics not merit (praise-no-promo)?
- Aeolun 7y ago
  Possibly, but I don’t think I would necessarily blame my manager for that. It was the case at my previous two companies until I finally found one where it appears promotion is actually feasible.

irrational 7y ago

Wow, I agree with all of your points. I have had the exact same experiences and thoughts. I had to check the username to make sure I didn't write this.

ycombonator 7y ago

Ditto

rb808 7y ago

Agreed, I once had a team which I gave all good PRs, but was told that we had to fit a curve and these 2 people will start PIP before being let go 3m later.

jandrese 7y ago

I read through Brian Kernighan's Unix memoir and it had an interesting anecdote about performance reviews. Turns out that Brian was a department head for quite a long time at Bell Labs and at first performance reviews were all "You're doing great work, keep it up!" but eventually someone at corporate added a "areas to improve" section. So for a couple of years he got away with "nothing, great job", but then the upper management came back with "nobody is perfect, you need to fill in that field." And he's like "What would you put down for Dennis Ritchie?"

grep_name 7y ago

> 1. You're doing a great job. Keep at it. >2. You're doing terribly. We are going to start a paper trail to fire you (aka performance improvement plan). This is exactly why I only rate myself 4 or 5 out of 5 on any review I ever have. Normally I'm a quiet, humble person and maybe a little self-effacing. But in performance reviews, I'm always a stellar employee. I learned a long time ago that an honest, uncompromising self evaluation is little more than a signed admission of guilt. If I could remain silent I would, but if I have to document myself with the disadvantage of not knowing the context it's being sent into, I'm not going to give any other party leverage against me. And putting every employee in that position habitually is a recipe for a dehumanizing and demoralizing interaction

sporkland 7y ago

Either your HR/People team sucks or you're just meeting expectations. If you are exceeding to greatly exceeding expectations and they don't drive your comp either via equity or salary increase faster than that then something is off.