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Management is a difficult topic to discuss online because the average commenter is statistically far more likely to be an IC than a manager. Before I transitio

Management is a difficult topic to discuss online because the average commenter is statistically far more likely to be an IC than a manager. Before I transitioned to management, I would read these stories from the perspective of an IC. That is, the one being fired. None of us likes to think of ourselves as under qualified or deserving of being fired, so these stories feel deeply unfair. They also play to tropes about businesses being inhumane or rigged against the individual, or the idea that everything that goes wrong is the manager’s fault rather than the blameless employee. As a manager, I read these stories and immediately think of the problematic employees I’ve had to deal with over the years. Firing people is never easy, as you said, but one of the epiphanies of management is watching a team’s performance and morale improve after a refractory employee is removed from the company. It’s hard to truly understand until you’ve been through it, but some times it’s just not possible to manage underperforming or even troublesome employees into good team members. It’s also not fair to the rest of the team if you have to spend 50% of your time dealing with 10% of the employees causing all of the problems. If nothing else, we have to acknowledge that interviewing is a highly imperfect process. It’s unrealistic expect companies to never make an incorrect hire, and it’s also unrealistic to expect companies to never fire any incorrect hires. Every company of significant size will always have some number of underperforming or troublesome employees. They don’t benefit by hiring people to fire them, but they do need to induce some targeted turnover to avoid accumulating incorrect hires.

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
That's orthogonal to the point. There are also teams with no "refractory employees", no morale problems, and no performance problems. But according to this piece, Amazon and other companies who practice what used to be called stack ranking assume that someone needs to go anyway. It's pure cargo cult management. Not only does it have no relationship to performance, it actively degrades it. It actively degrades performance because these choices can easily become political. Competent people may disagree with management, and sometimes they disagree for good reasons. A culture that can't handle that is not a good culture. Good people who execute and have rational strategic insight are management track almost by definition, and throwing them out is not a winning move.
nobodyandproud 5y ago
I’m in this position now. Nice person, is eager, but simply isn’t a high performer (or imho, even average). They’re also a junior engineer (less than two years), so I’m still not sure if I should be looking to push them out. My biggest uncertainty is what is an objective criteria and expectation for a junior engineer. The fault is mine.
- derekp7 5y ago
  Two things to look at are (1) are they being paid as a junior? And (2) don't look at their performance at any specific point in time, but look for improvements. It's also possible for and employee to get stuck in a rut at a job, and nothing can get them out of it except a change of scenery. This is because everyone's expectations of them being a low performer or troublemaker or whatever are already set, and that perception will not change. So it ends up becoming a self fulfilling prophecy, because any small improvements the employee makes don't move the needle on how people perceive them.
  - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
    Great points. I would also add that you should look at their trajectory and momentum. An underperformer who is improving fast enough that they might catch up in a year is worth stick with. An underperformer who has become comfortable with low expectations is best removed from the company so they have a chance to recalibrate and reset in a new job. Keep a close eye on how their underperformance is affecting other team members. If the rest of the team has to make up for the person's underperformance or rewrite their code, they could be subtracting rather than adding value to the team. Engineers are rarely islands of productivity. Consider your headcount. If you can only hire 5 people and 1 of them isn't really contributing, you're giving up a full 20% of your team's potential. Replacing that one person with a performer on par with the other 4 people on the team will instantly boost their performance by 25%. Withholding that kind of advantage from your team isn't good.
- cloche 5y ago
  While I'm not a manager I can relate to a past position where I was technical lead. I had a person on my team who was the same - friendly, enthusiastic. In conversations he would give you the impression that he's a person who knows what he's talking about. But when it came time to do the work it seemed he was interested in any distraction that would prevent him from programming. I tried to help him focus and spent a lot of time on coaching. Now I wonder if that was a waste of time. Earlier on in my career I would read stories from tech companies that said something like "if you don't get promoted to a certain level within 2 years then you get fired." Initially I thought that was pretty harsh. Now, I understand where it comes from. If someone hasn't shown progress in 2 years, assuming proper feedback, it's doubtful that they'll ever improve much. On the other hand, I believe there are places for average engineers. Part of the issue with this person is that they wanted to keep trying to do more complex work even though they struggled with easier tasks and it was a constant struggle to try to balance that. I think in retrospect, had I been the person's manager, the best option would have been to restrict their work to the easy tasks. If they didn't like it then they could always leave. I now also understand why some people are "managed out". Maybe they can stay in their role but if they don't have the ability to progress then I don't think it's a manager's duty to help them beyond a certain point.

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago

That's orthogonal to the point. There are also teams with no "refractory employees", no morale problems, and no performance problems. But according to this piece, Amazon and other companies who practice what used to be called stack ranking assume that someone needs to go anyway. It's pure cargo cult management. Not only does it have no relationship to performance, it actively degrades it. It actively degrades performance because these choices can easily become political. Competent people may disagree with management, and sometimes they disagree for good reasons. A culture that can't handle that is not a good culture. Good people who execute and have rational strategic insight are management track almost by definition, and throwing them out is not a winning move.

nobodyandproud 5y ago

I’m in this position now. Nice person, is eager, but simply isn’t a high performer (or imho, even average). They’re also a junior engineer (less than two years), so I’m still not sure if I should be looking to push them out. My biggest uncertainty is what is an objective criteria and expectation for a junior engineer. The fault is mine.

derekp7 5y ago
Two things to look at are (1) are they being paid as a junior? And (2) don't look at their performance at any specific point in time, but look for improvements. It's also possible for and employee to get stuck in a rut at a job, and nothing can get them out of it except a change of scenery. This is because everyone's expectations of them being a low performer or troublemaker or whatever are already set, and that perception will not change. So it ends up becoming a self fulfilling prophecy, because any small improvements the employee makes don't move the needle on how people perceive them.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  Great points. I would also add that you should look at their trajectory and momentum. An underperformer who is improving fast enough that they might catch up in a year is worth stick with. An underperformer who has become comfortable with low expectations is best removed from the company so they have a chance to recalibrate and reset in a new job. Keep a close eye on how their underperformance is affecting other team members. If the rest of the team has to make up for the person's underperformance or rewrite their code, they could be subtracting rather than adding value to the team. Engineers are rarely islands of productivity. Consider your headcount. If you can only hire 5 people and 1 of them isn't really contributing, you're giving up a full 20% of your team's potential. Replacing that one person with a performer on par with the other 4 people on the team will instantly boost their performance by 25%. Withholding that kind of advantage from your team isn't good.
cloche 5y ago
While I'm not a manager I can relate to a past position where I was technical lead. I had a person on my team who was the same - friendly, enthusiastic. In conversations he would give you the impression that he's a person who knows what he's talking about. But when it came time to do the work it seemed he was interested in any distraction that would prevent him from programming. I tried to help him focus and spent a lot of time on coaching. Now I wonder if that was a waste of time. Earlier on in my career I would read stories from tech companies that said something like "if you don't get promoted to a certain level within 2 years then you get fired." Initially I thought that was pretty harsh. Now, I understand where it comes from. If someone hasn't shown progress in 2 years, assuming proper feedback, it's doubtful that they'll ever improve much. On the other hand, I believe there are places for average engineers. Part of the issue with this person is that they wanted to keep trying to do more complex work even though they struggled with easier tasks and it was a constant struggle to try to balance that. I think in retrospect, had I been the person's manager, the best option would have been to restrict their work to the easy tasks. If they didn't like it then they could always leave. I now also understand why some people are "managed out". Maybe they can stay in their role but if they don't have the ability to progress then I don't think it's a manager's duty to help them beyond a certain point.