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I spent over 9 years at Google. Got promoted 3 times. Was a manager. Google is absolutely bonkers when it comes to promotions. At every opportunity to provide

• openfuture 5y ago
  Inevitable with bureaucracy unless we solve the oracle problem in a tragedy of the commons resistant way.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• lostcolony 5y ago
  Can't speak to Google, but I can say that having ICs write their own packets has been hugely enabling for me at other companies. It means their success isn't reliant solely on implicit visibility of their work by me (which in turn meant I either had to maintain visibility on everything to the nth degree, get everyone to give constant feedback on each other, or fail to recognize their successes). I still come in and help consolidate and tweak it (I ask for a brag sheet from them that fits the packet format), with a 1-on-1 or three to ensure any questions I have get answered, and that we're aligned on the message, but taking it off my plate was -huge-.
  • metadat 5y ago
    As stated in TFA and throughout this thread, moving the burden to the ICs means they will be incentivized to focus on Promo Packet instead of real work. No offense intended, but in your comment it comes off a bit selfish and bears the hallmarks of a classic archetype of terrible manager. I'd never willingly work for you. Being in management isn't for everyone, it's a people-focused domain. The whole job is about supporting the team and setting things up for successful outcomes. There is nothing wrong with being an individual contributor. If your organization limits how far ICs can go, take this as a sign of toxicity and consider finding a higher quality organization to join.
    • engineeringwoke 5y ago
      It's hard to believe that someone can write these sentences based solely on the OP's statement. You have no idea who this person is.
      • samhw 5y ago
        Some people think that if they look down hard enough at someone else, they can lift themselves up. Especially if that 'someone else' is someone clearly high-status by an agreed standard (which 'senior software engineer at Google' undoubtedly is, on this forum, no matter what we tell ourselves). So the GP comes on here, sharing a perfectly nice and candid opinion, and our friend sees the chance of a lifetime ("terrible manager", "would never work under you", "management isn't for everyone", "find a higher-quality organisation", etc). Simples.
    • lostcolony 5y ago
      Hey, agree to disagree on basically every point you make. But, just to provide some context you're missing, I had someone promoted the last promo cycle without any mention of features or new products in her packet. It was entirely support work, tackling tech debt, etc, all of which was stuff she personally was passionate about, and which had led to her being passed over for promotion -for years- prior to my managing the team. The incentive I'm working to create is "document your successes so we can ensure they're visible", not "focus on work that is by its nature highly visible", and, yes, definitely not "ignore the visibility of your work and rely entirely on your manager instead". It's no different than "maintain a brag sheet", except that I want them to be aware how that brag sheet feeds into the actual promo packet, and provides a common place for us to connect and discuss. If that means you'd never work for me...okay.
• GoatOfAplomb 5y ago
  It would be great if promo wasnt such a big deal. But when I look at the comp for an L3 software engineer, and the comp for an L5 software engineer, I have a hard time seeing how you could make people pay less attention to promo. I guess you could switch the process to "promo after N years of not being fired at your current level" but that seems even worse.
  • pavlov 5y ago
    Why exactly does it seem worse? Last year I switched from a FAANG to a Series B startup that does experience-based levels, and in my observation it's just better in every way. Here's a blog post explaining their approach: https://www.daily.co/blog/rethinking-levels-promotions-and-salaries/ https://www.daily.co/blog/rethinking-levels-promotions-and-s... Maybe it's not possible to switch from a cutthroat promotion-oriented environment to this, but it's worth thinking about for anyone building up a software engineering workplace.
    • elefanten 5y ago
      “ We have around 50 people on staff, and for the past couple of years, we have leveled new employees based on years of relevant experience. We had three levels, each with a single, non-negotiable salary that was the same across locations, and everybody was assigned to one of those levels. We've always been completely remote” I guess the main question that comes to mind is “why would a strong-performing, early-in-career engineer want to join?” In other words, aren’t you capping junior hires to come from the bottom ~60%?
      • dolni 5y ago
        Normalizing pay to years experience is a bad move in general, IMO. You are going to have a distribution of high and low performers at all levels of experience. If you pay all the senior people the same, you have less money to pay your high performers. And maybe they go get that pay from elsewhere. There's a difference between having 20 years of experience and one year of experience 20 times.
• mandelbrotwurst 5y ago
  > It reduced the bias in the system from ICs writing up their own packets, which disadvantaged poor writers and poor self-promoters less. It got employees thinking less about promotion, since there was less they could control or do. I agree that this seems positive, but you lose some things with this sort of change as well. ICs often have knowledge of their own performance that their managers don't, even when you're having highly effective 1-on-1s. You definitely don't want engineers spending huge amounts of time and energy selling themselves, but you probably do want them to at least a little bit!
  • lanstin 5y ago
    I have been using git logs and cvs logs to see who does what, across hundreds of developers, since 1997. I don't understand how people, managers, claim to not be able to figure it out. And if people are doing work in an engineering organization that isn't backed by commits to some durable and versioned system, that is a huge red flag. They should probably not get promotions till they automate and make their work flow use version control. Even in the 90s this was true (the "install the OS on the new hardware" team would have things more automated than many "application dev" teams). Now in 2020s, the whole AZ should be in git and the change implementation procedure should be a variation on a big button that does "push master to n% of live; wait for monitor/validate scripts roll back or push more; repeat"
    • sidlls 5y ago
      There is so much more to engineering than slinging code into the repo. Using commit logs as anything other than a superficial note of trivia is absolutely terrible for anything but the most junior engineers.
      • daemin 5y ago
        There is more to software engineering than just version control logs, but those artefacts should be accessible in the system somewhere, be they documents, diagrams, meeting notes, system logs (for software releases), etc. There should be some way for a manager to see what someone has accomplished by the artefacts they have left on the company systems.
• dmitriid 5y ago
  > It reduced the bias in the system from ICs writing up their own packets, which disadvantaged poor writers and poor self-promoters less. It could be a blessing and a curse. Sometimes managers are rotated right before the next round of appraisals, and the new manager knows nothing about you or your contributions.
• iamevn 5y ago
  Even after the shift, both managers I had requested very firmly that I write the initial draft of the packet. I left Google in September and my last day was a week after packet due date. I straight up refused to waste my time on a packet when I should be documenting any and everything that people might need after I left. My manager put tons of pressure on me and threatened me saying I was burning bridges and that word gets around.
  • H8crilA 5y ago
    Definitely much more to this story, but they basically wanted you to do a part of their job for them. It's common and mostly understandable, as they might not remember everything that you did. They'll have to re-word everything anyhow.
    • iamevn 5y ago
      I'd understand if we were asked to pick what we felt was worth highlighting and provide some supporting data, but we effectively were doing the same amount of work on our own packets as before the shift. Just with a due date a couple weeks sooner so our manager could have time to edit.
• staticautomatic 5y ago
  What is a packet?
  • chrismcb 5y ago
    A promo packet is a document explaining why you should be promoted. Includes link to the evidence, your design docs, your check-ins, and anything else you think might help.
  • philjohn 5y ago
    It's a precis of what an IC has achieved over the last performance cycle. Can't speak for Google, but where I am it's focussed on the impact you've achieved in various axes.
  • cjsplat 5y ago
    At Google you do a "self-assessment" for your annual review, and you pick some number of peer reviewers who you want to also provide feedback. Your manager can add or subtract from this list. Your manager then provides that perspective and a rating that is normalized across the organization through managerial "calibration meetings". This turns into your annual (sometimes 6 monthly) review packet. In engineering, you and/or your manager can decide to put you up for promotion. In this case, your review turns into a "promo packet", and it is sent to a promotion committee who decides whether you are clearly operating at the next level. A critical point is that your peer reviewers can see a 'P' next to your feedback request, so they know if you are up for promotion. In theory, promo feedback should match normal review feedback, but in practice promo feedback follows game theory dynamics.
• gowld 5y ago
  > it reduced the bias in the system from ICs writing up their own packets, and replaced it with manager bias.
• twayt 5y ago
  Google hires a ton of really competent and motivated people with low experience at a low level. Many times undeservedly so. I’ve seen some phds with 3-4 years of experience being hired at L4 (starting phd level), some masters with 3-4 years of experience, sometimes even leading teams at previous companies at L3 and some experienced managers with 10 years of experience at L4. Why do these people accept offers? Because although their level is lower, their comp is adjusted to the appropriate (higher end) of the level. What you notice at Google is that projects and work are scoped to your level so that you can justify your promotion easily. So a PhD with 4 years of experience who’s completely capable of leading a project has to act as an individual contributor fulfilling others’ plans until they get promoted. There are some exceptions but most people and teams in Google operate as though someone’s level defines their scope of work. Managers/TLs will often talk about how many LXs they have on the project and who is responsible for what kind of work. So you have a ton of highly competent people hoping that their promotion will finally allow them to play at their true level and contribute in a way that will be rewarded. A ton of such deserving candidates are passed over during promotion and this is very demoralizing. They still get paid handsomely so they don’t leave and continue to coast while looking for a better alternative (which is hard to come by). Promos at Google are primarily about self-actualization. The comp is what prevents them from quitting and joining a startup.
  • JJMcJ 5y ago
    > PhD with 4 years of experience Google and other FAANGs pay very well, so it's not surprising they can hire PhDs but I sometimes wonder about the negative effects of vacuuming up so many research level people and having them do very mundane work.
  • IX-103 5y ago
    This ^ Exactly this. I worked at Google for a while. I started there at 50% more than my previous compensation, but two steps down in terms of responsibility. After a couple of years of my manager saying that I'd be ready to apply for promo when the current project finished and watching projects fly by, I started shopping my resume around.
  • google234123 5y ago
• lumost 5y ago
  It's an arms race. Promotion reviewers expect some portion of candidates for promotion won't pass promotion - otherwise the bar isn't being set high enough. The answer to this is that managers refine the promotion packets to ensure their employee's promotions are in the upper bracket - which in turn forces reviewers to recalibrate. Eventually you are left with an over the top expectation of what a promotion case looks like. As an engineer at a FAANG I recently moved out of a team where I had built a range of services and was close to PE, because I found that I was closing in on a point in my career where I was spending ~80% of my time on promotion oriented activity... which in turn means politics.
• flappyeagle 5y ago
  How does the important, money-making stuff at Google get done?
  • strongpigeon 5y ago
    It’s easy to demonstrate impact with the money-making stuff as you can put a dollar figure in your perf. The stuff that doesn’t get done as much is where your impact isn’t as easily demonstrated (e.g small incremental improvements that add up to a lot in term of overall quality)
  • cmrdporcupine 5y ago
    Automatically. Everyone else is eating the results of all that money-making in the many many cafes. Actually, this is only true for SWEs. The money making at Google really runs on the insane hard work of its SREs and its data centre staff.
• sjtindell 5y ago
  I often have the feeling that if almost everyone at Google just took a 1 year vacation, the thing would run itself. It's a money printer (search + ad auctions) surrounded by all this other busy work. Just leave the Borg to its business and take a break already.