4 ms·

I think part of it is, within software engineering, what is “high performance”? Is high performance making economically valuable contributions? If so, there is

by lumb63 4y ago

I think part of it is, within software engineering, what is “high performance”? Is high performance making economically valuable contributions? If so, there is huge inherent inequality between the economic value of projects, so the metric is worthless for judging engineering talent. Is high performance getting good performance reviews? In my experience performance reviews are wrought with favoritism, ageism, and probably other subjectivities that create a very low signal to noise ratio, so that metric is worthless. Is high performance someone who is good at writing software? There are engineers I know who write very good software but lack the decision making or vision to do so in valuable areas. Thus, another metric is worthless. The reality is there is no general “high performance”. There are smarter and more motivated people, sure. I think testing for general intelligence, personality type, etc., are valuable. But I also think a lot of high performance is about finding someone who is a good fit for the organization in terms of the individual’s experience and skills and the organization’s needs.

908B64B197 4y ago
> The reality is there is no general “high performance”. I've heard that claim times and times again. Often it's from companies believing in "Best Cost IT talent" or whatever the current buzzword is on LinkedIn. Chances are, they never even worked with an SV caliber dev. We've all seen engineers that are simply running around in circles around others. Just think of John Carmack. If any of these organizations managed to luck out by hiring someone from, let's say Apple or Google, it would most likely change their beliefs that there's no "high performance".
twelve40 4y ago
if performance reviews are worthless why do people have them at all? if they are regularly practiced at a company, this means the company puts enough faith in them to overall promote those who deserve it and to decide peoples' and company's fate based on that. Which then makes it quite a decent interview outcome metric. If on the other hand performance reviews are as bad and worthless as you claim, they should be stopped completely, and everyone running them should be instantly fired as a bunch of ageist favoritist pigs who are scamming the company.
george574 4y ago
[dead]
kerpotgh 4y ago
As a dev, high performance is velocity, number of bugs and cordial behavior. Additional parameters need to be considered for more senior roles like ownership, cross org influence, mentorship etc. It’s not rocket science.
- bluGill 4y ago
  A few years back I worked with two engineers who sat side by side, over the course of a month the one girl fixed one bug, while the guy next to him did 22. Having worked with them both I believe they were actually about equal despite the numbers. The girl randomly drew a complex bug that was hard to figure out, while the guy got a bunch of easy ones (including one the is not spelled t-e-h) This variance is why it is so hard to assign objective numbers.
  - kerpotgh 4y ago
    [dead]
- Cheezewheel 4y ago
  >number of bugs Bugs are not created equally.
  - kerpotgh 4y ago
    [dead]
- zelphirkalt 4y ago
  So anyone who puts in lots of bugs in the first place, will look great in the numbers, because they were so great at fixing all those bugs.
- george574 4y ago
  [flagged]
29athrowaway 4y ago
Favoritism can be reinforced when assigning projects: - assign low effort, high impact, high visibility, low risk projects to the most favorite engineers. - assign high effort, low impact, low visibility, high risk projects to the least favorite engineers. Favoritism in toxic orgs is the reward for "loyalty". Another way is by reorganizing teams, assigning favorites to a team just before the completion of a project. Or assigning undesirable employees to a failed project.
- Arisaka1 4y ago
  Yep. I got a taste of that in my first gig, where the guy who always attended the "optional" office twice per week ended up getting the high profile project that drives the company, and they didn't even tried to hide it because they switched the team assignments a week before it began.
  - george574 4y ago
    [flagged]

by lumb63 4y ago

908B64B197 4y ago

> The reality is there is no general “high performance”. I've heard that claim times and times again. Often it's from companies believing in "Best Cost IT talent" or whatever the current buzzword is on LinkedIn. Chances are, they never even worked with an SV caliber dev. We've all seen engineers that are simply running around in circles around others. Just think of John Carmack. If any of these organizations managed to luck out by hiring someone from, let's say Apple or Google, it would most likely change their beliefs that there's no "high performance".

twelve40 4y ago

if performance reviews are worthless why do people have them at all? if they are regularly practiced at a company, this means the company puts enough faith in them to overall promote those who deserve it and to decide peoples' and company's fate based on that. Which then makes it quite a decent interview outcome metric. If on the other hand performance reviews are as bad and worthless as you claim, they should be stopped completely, and everyone running them should be instantly fired as a bunch of ageist favoritist pigs who are scamming the company.

george574 4y ago

[dead]

kerpotgh 4y ago

As a dev, high performance is velocity, number of bugs and cordial behavior. Additional parameters need to be considered for more senior roles like ownership, cross org influence, mentorship etc. It’s not rocket science.

bluGill 4y ago
A few years back I worked with two engineers who sat side by side, over the course of a month the one girl fixed one bug, while the guy next to him did 22. Having worked with them both I believe they were actually about equal despite the numbers. The girl randomly drew a complex bug that was hard to figure out, while the guy got a bunch of easy ones (including one the is not spelled t-e-h) This variance is why it is so hard to assign objective numbers.
- kerpotgh 4y ago
  [dead]
Cheezewheel 4y ago
>number of bugs Bugs are not created equally.
- kerpotgh 4y ago
  [dead]
zelphirkalt 4y ago
So anyone who puts in lots of bugs in the first place, will look great in the numbers, because they were so great at fixing all those bugs.
george574 4y ago
[flagged]

29athrowaway 4y ago

Favoritism can be reinforced when assigning projects: - assign low effort, high impact, high visibility, low risk projects to the most favorite engineers. - assign high effort, low impact, low visibility, high risk projects to the least favorite engineers. Favoritism in toxic orgs is the reward for "loyalty". Another way is by reorganizing teams, assigning favorites to a team just before the completion of a project. Or assigning undesirable employees to a failed project.

Arisaka1 4y ago
Yep. I got a taste of that in my first gig, where the guy who always attended the "optional" office twice per week ended up getting the high profile project that drives the company, and they didn't even tried to hide it because they switched the team assignments a week before it began.
- george574 4y ago
  [flagged]