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If it's only used for compensation, I agree that it's not such a big deal. Getting a 10% year-end bonus instead of 20% is not exactly "getting screwed". The on
by michaelochurch 15y ago
If it's only used for compensation, I agree that it's not such a big deal. Getting a 10% year-end bonus instead of 20% is not exactly "getting screwed".
The only large (200+) private-sector company where I've worked is Google, where their stack-ranking/Perf system had some serious problems.
The first was a 5% cut-line. If you were in the bottom 5% of the Perf stack, you ended up on a PIP. Who usually ends up here? Some were objective underperformers, who'd been coasting for years, in some cases running at less than 1 CL per month. Most, on the other hand, were junior people on underperforming teams-- and of course, those junior people had the least to do with that team's underperformance, but they were poorly established so they got the shaft. That's how most layoffs actually work: junior people who landed on the least effective teams. It's not atypical, but it's dysfunctional.
By the way, PIPs have nothing to do with "improving performance". They exist to make it easy to fire people without severance. I actually think PIPs are imbecilic, because I'd rather cut a 3-month severance check and separate cleanly than keep a fired employee in the office for 1 month, but that's another rant. PIPs make the finance department happy (look at what we saved on severance payments!) but piss all over morale and make the manager's life hell, to say nothing about what they do for the PIP'd employee.
At Google, a PIP is effectively permanent. Even if you pass the PIP, you become damaged goods and can't transfer. It sticks around on your permanent record until you leave.
Which brings discussion to the second problem with Google's system. It sticks around forever.
When these types of systems get rotten is when they start getting in the way of peoples' transfers. It means that the people who really should be moving to other projects can't get on to them because no one wants to take a chance on that guy who was an "objective underperformer" in Q4 2005.
So, to come around to your point, I agree that if the rankings are only used to adjust pay, there's not much harm done. Unfortunately, it's rare that data collected is only used for the stated purpose. If these numbers start damaging peoples' ability to choose their own projects, it can become nasty quickly.
- chrisbroadfoot 15y agoSorry, but what does any of that have to do with what happens at Valve? Is there actually some relation between your story and Valve?
- chwahoo 15y agoI suspect that people are interested in an article about Valve's culture not (just) because they'd want to work at Valve, but also to take its good ideas and use them elsewhere. I think talking about how one of those ideas worked well or poorly at another company fits perfectly with this discussion.
- chrisbroadfoot 15y agoI didn't see anything in the handbook about PIPs.
- rdl 15y agoI don't understand how Valve could implement a PIP. How do they even fire people? Is it just your team shuns you and then you end up with nothing to do, so if you don't figure out something yourself, you wither away and are culled by the wolves/robots?
- gruseom 15y agoI have the same question. If they addressed it, I missed it. You know what, though? Your facetious suggestion is intriguingly sensible.
- officemonkey 15y ago>Is it just your team shuns you and then you end up with nothing to do I think the "wither away" bit is probably actually the truth. Let's say you're consistently ranked in the bottom and stick to projects that don't add value to the company. Since stack-ranking determines compensation, someone who costs the company money probably gets salary decreases. After a while, an underperforming worker could make more money in a different company, and they take the hint. Of course, since Valve is dedicated to hiring the right people, they probably don't hire too many duds. Talented people who just don't fit in probably just update their resume and go somewhere else.
- 15y ago
- pja 15y agoWhat's a CL in this context? (Maybe this is obvious, but I haven't seen the acronym before!)
- michaelochurch 15y agoChangeList. A commit, in Git terminology.
- pja 15y agoThanks. Presumably if we're talking about 1 CL / month this is more like a feature checkin to the release branch, rather than individual working commits given the context? (1 local WIP commit per month really would be slacking off!)
- jrockway 15y agoCLs become one perforce commit, but their lifetime is more like a git branch. I try to keep CLs under 100 delta lines. (In contrast, I try to keep git commits around 10 delta lines.) People that only write one CL a month have probably written a fairly large amount of code, but are being blocked on reviews. When I see a review for more than 100 lines of code, I immediately think, "I'll do this later" or "Oh good, I'm only CC'd on this review; ignore." If the person doesn't have anything else to work on, this blocks him until I feel like diving into 1000 lines of code I've never seen before. Conversely, if I got one 30 line CL every day for a month, I would probably immediately review each, turning the one-CL-a-month guy into a 30-CLs-a-month guy with the same amount of code.
- pja 15y agoThanks for the clarification. (Also, you just made CLs sound like yet another metric that can be gamed by the appropriately cynical employee. Ouch.)
- rictic 15y agoI haven't heard anyone besides mchurch cite number of CLs as a productivity measure. Lines of code sometimes, but not CLs. Sometimes it's just not worth it to break a large, cross-cutting change up into small chunks. That said I do vastly prefer smaller CLs because the review process goes so much better.
- mikeytemple 15y agoWow, I'm surprised that google would work like that. Did they actually tell you that you'd get fired if you were in the bottom 5%? I assume you must have been there back in 2005/ 2006 to have seen someone who was an objective underperformer in Q4 2005 but was still allowed to work there. Maybe things have changed since then?
- tazzy531 15y agoAs with all mchurch comments, you need to take it with a grain of salt. He was with Google for less than a year and has been extrapolating his short experience into a generalization of the company.
- tptacek 15y agoIf he's wrong, say he's wrong and how. Comments like this have negative value: they just turn the issue into a soap opera.
- tunah 15y agoThe generalizations he's making simply aren't accurate, you wouldn't find half-a-dozen googlers who think he's more right than wrong. I'm not saying that the system doesn't fail in some cases, but consider that anyone so certain of how everything works, after less than six months at a company, is probably overstating his case.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- BarkMore 15y agoFirst, it makes people hate each other. That was not my experience at Google. Not all people turn to hate when learning how they are valued by others. There's certainly disappointment. it encourages people to work on the projects that are most visible, which are not always the most valuable. Some types of work at Google are undervalued, but it's not related to visibility. Third, it creates a general atmosphere of distrust. I think it creates a more pleasant atmosphere. People learn that being an asshole can hurt come review time.
- strongjas 15y agoYou should consider yourself lucky enough as you didn't have to work for the Sundar Pichai shithead.
- HandbookLinks 15y agoMichael, you worked at google, but you also failed at google, which makes you not a very balanced advocate for change.
- FlyingTroll 15y agoWhy did you know these details? Were you also an objective underperformer that got PIP? How many CLs per month did you submit?
- densely 15y agoI've worked for companies at which a PIP was always a signal that the decision had been made to fire someone. Google is not one of those companies. I know people who have been through PIPs at Google and then resumed successful careers. Including transfers.