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Managers lurve to have standard KPIs that they could apply to all engineers (for the purpose of fairness of course) and then be able to rank engineers. At the

Managers lurve to have standard KPIs that they could apply to all engineers (for the purpose of fairness of course) and then be able to rank engineers. At the same time, they forget that not everyone, not every team is working on the same thing. So the KPI (whatever it is defined to be) is not measuring anything of value. But a manager will never admit that they are measuring the wrong things. So engineers are stuck with poor practices. Go improve your number of commits even if is meaningless.

malfist 3y ago
One of the things Amazon measures for engineers is revisions to PRs. This makes since at a very superficial level. If you're a better engineer, you make the PR right the first time. Except what happens is either engineers game it by just canceling PRs, making the requested change and resubmitting it. Or fighting tooth and nail for everything. No I won't change the naming on this variable because then I might get out on PIP. Or even more insidious, the team just doesn't do real code reviews, they just rubber stamp each others work in a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours"
- nine_zeros 3y ago
  An Amazon engineer (also other FAANG engineers) spends an insane amount of time on gaming an adversarial system. If it were not for the unrealistic anti-competitive moats of these companies, these management practices would have burned them to the ground. Startups that have copied these practices without giving FAANG compensation have faded away in history.
quickthrower2 3y ago
The problem with capitalism is it works too well: a company doing well can subsidise a lot of bad management practice and still do great. And because it is doing great they believe what they are doing is great. But it is largely a snowball effect. Talking about larger companies more than startups here.
marcinzm 3y ago
If a company wants to rank engineers then there is always a metric to rank engineers. That metric may simply be how much the manager or director likes each engineer. That's still a metric and it still can be gamed (ie: classic kiss ass culture).
- nine_zeros 3y ago
  Any ranking system produces undesired, pathological behaviors in the company. Then, a large amount of management needs to be hired to contain the pathological behaviors created by management in the first place. But hey, its not my company. If they want employees to spend time on BS, I'll play along as long as I keep getting my money. I don't care for the product, services or the company at that point.
  - marcinzm 3y ago
    Not having a ranking/promotion/PIP system also eventually creates pathological behaviors in the company baring temporary situations of near infinite revenue unrelated to what employees do.
    - nine_zeros 3y ago
      A promotion system is important? Yes But ranking and PIP? I assure you you are not incentivizing collaboration. You can try to force collaboration but most employees will do just enough because it is in their best interest if someone else fails. If there were a system design interview where you had to design a system in which employees throw others under the bus - but subtly - what would you design?
      - marcinzm 3y ago
        >PIP Have you ever talked to an engineer that was forced to work with someone on their team who providing negative value? That doesn't drive collaboration, that drives low morale and eventually people moving on. If you need to identify low performers then you now have an metric explicit or implicit that identifies them.
commandlinefan 3y ago
> able to rank engineers It's mind-boggling that people who are specifically selected for intelligence are subsequently assumed to be complete idiots. This is why your business depends crucially on one bit of software that only one person actually understands.

malfist 3y ago

One of the things Amazon measures for engineers is revisions to PRs. This makes since at a very superficial level. If you're a better engineer, you make the PR right the first time. Except what happens is either engineers game it by just canceling PRs, making the requested change and resubmitting it. Or fighting tooth and nail for everything. No I won't change the naming on this variable because then I might get out on PIP. Or even more insidious, the team just doesn't do real code reviews, they just rubber stamp each others work in a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours"

nine_zeros 3y ago
An Amazon engineer (also other FAANG engineers) spends an insane amount of time on gaming an adversarial system. If it were not for the unrealistic anti-competitive moats of these companies, these management practices would have burned them to the ground. Startups that have copied these practices without giving FAANG compensation have faded away in history.

quickthrower2 3y ago

The problem with capitalism is it works too well: a company doing well can subsidise a lot of bad management practice and still do great. And because it is doing great they believe what they are doing is great. But it is largely a snowball effect. Talking about larger companies more than startups here.

marcinzm 3y ago

If a company wants to rank engineers then there is always a metric to rank engineers. That metric may simply be how much the manager or director likes each engineer. That's still a metric and it still can be gamed (ie: classic kiss ass culture).

nine_zeros 3y ago
Any ranking system produces undesired, pathological behaviors in the company. Then, a large amount of management needs to be hired to contain the pathological behaviors created by management in the first place. But hey, its not my company. If they want employees to spend time on BS, I'll play along as long as I keep getting my money. I don't care for the product, services or the company at that point.
- marcinzm 3y ago
  Not having a ranking/promotion/PIP system also eventually creates pathological behaviors in the company baring temporary situations of near infinite revenue unrelated to what employees do.
  - nine_zeros 3y ago
    A promotion system is important? Yes But ranking and PIP? I assure you you are not incentivizing collaboration. You can try to force collaboration but most employees will do just enough because it is in their best interest if someone else fails. If there were a system design interview where you had to design a system in which employees throw others under the bus - but subtly - what would you design?
    - marcinzm 3y ago
      >PIP Have you ever talked to an engineer that was forced to work with someone on their team who providing negative value? That doesn't drive collaboration, that drives low morale and eventually people moving on. If you need to identify low performers then you now have an metric explicit or implicit that identifies them.

commandlinefan 3y ago

> able to rank engineers It's mind-boggling that people who are specifically selected for intelligence are subsequently assumed to be complete idiots. This is why your business depends crucially on one bit of software that only one person actually understands.