7 ms·

Got a 4? You just got fired from Microsoft

39 points by cek 14y ago

ricardobeat 14y ago
Level 64?
- doktrin 14y ago
  Presumably an internal pay-scale ranking system. Government jobs, for instance, are ranked in a G(1?) - G12+ scale. Sounds a little goofy, but large enterprises need some method to standardize and track compensation.
- brg 14y ago
  That's the second level for a "Senior" developer. The senior level band starts at 63. Below that are 59 (college graduate) to 62, which are the bands of Software Engineer and Software Engineer II. Above it are Principle (65-67) and Partner levels.
  - danielweber 14y ago
    I was expecting the levels to be factors of 2. :(
- jobowoo 14y ago
  Most college hires enter at level 59 (SDE/PM/SDET I) Once you hit level 61, you're an II Once you hit level 63 (maybe 64?), you're Senior After Senior, it goes Principal then Partner.
  - joshAg 14y ago
    why start at 59?
    - kgermino 14y ago
      Without knowing, I would guess that lower numbers are used for non-developer employees (i.e. sales or marketing).
    - michaelochurch 14y ago
      HR silliness. Supposedly, people are less pissed off by a ladder that puts them at 59 out of 70 than by one that puts them at 1 out of 12.
      - contextfree 14y ago
        I've heard it was to avoid ambiguity with numbers used in an earlier system.
tptacek 14y ago
The friends I have who have gotten offers from Microsoft were all informed that Microsoft, as a matter of policy, pays 60% of the top market salary. Has that policy changed?
- joshAg 14y ago
  Is an offer for just above 100k for someone who just got their undergrad degree (i didn't get an offer like this, but more than one of my friends has) just 60% of the top market salary now? Man, I need to renegotiate my salary.
  - adgar 14y ago
    Yes, just over 100k is about right. My fresh out of undergrad offer to one of Microsoft's major competitors was almost identical to my colleagues' MS offers. Mine was to a competitor who is also known for offering below-market salaries along with generous benefits.
    - joshAg 14y ago
      so you're saying $100k + benefits is below market for someone who just graduated?
      - KirinDave 14y ago
        Anyone who is saying this is probably wrong, unless the hire getting this rate has very clearly awesome traits that the company really wants to develop. People just out of college almost invariably are really bad at actually releasing products. They've often been shielded from the merciless process of productization of a system. So the first year is almost always going to involve a lot of hand-holding. "Yes, you really have to write tests," and "Yes, you really have to have repeatable deploys," and "Yes, you really have to document this." You know, the important but humdrum part of being a software engineer. Exceptions to this rule; the kids who excel right out of the gate? Cultivate, cheerlead, and rapidly moved up your pay scale. Because invariably kids just out of college are going to work longer hours than most other people; they just don't have much of a life compared to people who've been out of college a few eyars.
tonetheman 14y ago
Wow hard to figure out if the post is sarcastic or mad or just a matter fact this is how it is. It seems like a sad place. :(
- majormajor 14y ago
  Doesn't sound bad to me. Seems like a good place to be if you're performing well.
  - jinushaun 14y ago
    The problem is the system imposes a bottom 10% even if everyone performs equally well.
    - tonetheman 14y ago
      exactly... anyone who has worked in a place like that (I have) thinks it sucks... or you really thrive... one of the two. I end up in the camp that thinks it sucks. In other words your entire team works for a full quarter straight 60 hours a week... ah well at least some percentage of you are ranked lower. Tell me that is fair. Stack ranking is horrible.
      - majormajor 14y ago
        I haven't yet worked anywhere where everyone performed equally. I've seen places that keep the people at the bottom on as long as everything else is going well, and other places that try to replace them as soon as possible. But I don't know enough about the precise details of MS's system to comment on how fair it would be in the end. An entire team working 60 hours a week a full quarter straight is an entirely different problem.
        tonetheman 14y ago
        true... ;)
    - 14y ago
butterfi 14y ago
Dear Microsoft You may have received a payment from me, likely for something X-Box related my kids have requested. On my payment, you will notice a number, from one to five. The breakdown for the numbers are as follows: 5: Wow, I really love your products! Each one is a groundbreaking example of "the road ahead." The design and execution are an example to the rest of us of what success looks like. Sadly MCSFT, you just didn't make the cut this year, but don't worry, only a few of your competitors ever get this number, i.e. Google and Apple. 4: Rock star! I couldn't make it through the day without one of your products. To be honest, you didn't really perform as a "4" this year, but work hard! I'm sure you can do it! 3: Thank you! My 2008 copy of Word still works great, and on the rare occasion I boot into Windows 7 I think, "Hey, this OS isn't so bad. I've used worse." 2: By "worse," I mean Vista. Yeah, it works, but honestly, I'm still a little put out by the whole experience. If you really put your heart and mind into it, I'm sure Win 8 will be the run-away success I know you've been working hard to achieve. But, don't screw this up, okay? People are watching. 1: Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Failure to actually deliver innovation, years of being a bully, and products known for their bugginess is no way to run a company. I might care more, but I don't. I'm too busy watching netflix on my iPhone. I hope this helps. PS - I'm sorry, but thats not what I meant by "you're number one."
- JulianWasTaken 14y ago
  That's odd. They get a 5 from me. Where 5 is the number of times I have RMAed that XBox there you've mentioned. (Actually the sad part is that that's a lie, I think the last time was number 6 for this same console, which I play rarely).
- batiudrami 14y ago
  Snarky, not even close to relevant to the article and adds nothing to the conversation. I sure am glad this is the top post.
trimbo 14y ago
Microsoft, I think, will be looked back upon as a great example of stack ranking's failure or success. At GE, it is looked upon as a success. But GE's workforce is (mostly) not in the world of knowledge-workers. They're not expected to come up with great products that sell to the masses, for the most part. I often wonder if Microsoft's inability to get great products to market in a timely fashion is due to stack ranking. They clearly have great people who work there, who can make great products. Even the Zune was a great product. They arrive on the market about 3 years too late, and then require iteration on top of it. Is this because people there optimize their careers for "their number", rather than what's truly best for the company? Only time will tell.
- majormajor 14y ago
  I think it would be very lazy to reduce Microsoft's ultimate success or failure in this decade to a single policy. There are lots of factors that can make large companies fail to move well with the times. Likewise, I wouldn't give it much credit if MS (or Google, or whoever) does well. With a few notable counterexamples, most very large companies end up adopting processes to manage the size of the company, but how large is the impact of the particular process chosen? Is it really controlling success or failure? Bad management/vision can happen in any system.
  - homosaur 14y ago
    What would Ballmer rate in CEO stack ranking with the rest of corporate America?
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    Stack ranking and vicious careerism can demolish a company independent of anything else. Look at what is happening to Google, with its calibration score nonsense and the draconian transfer policy. Same story, 7 years back in time. "Vision" is one thing but a lot of people have vision (or think they do). Very few people have that rare combination of interpersonal empathy and competency around complexity that enable them to reliably make good decisions as executives of large companies. (Worse yet, over 90 percent of the people given those positions get them as favors and utterly lack both skill sets.)
madrona 14y ago
Somewhat off topic: what happened to Mini Microsoft? It seems like he/she was intercepted and lobotomized by Microsoft PR. The open threads with wonderful discussion (one of the best venues for talking across silos) habitually wither from neglect from Mini. What's the next best place?
losethos 14y ago
God says... laughed dispenser Passion admit butler Newsletter program Victim enlarge leading conferring creepeth reproachful ceaseth furnished forgiving spectacle melodies boastfulness vice worshipping would-be Tobias represent discovering boiled breathe Oratory Whence rounds ETEXTS*Ver New_Zealand exceedingly ehheh_thats_all_folks philosophy anxiety Wyoming
throwaway118 14y ago
The system is really ugly in the sense there's a percentage of people that get each score and MUST be met each cycle. 20% people of each group will get a 4/5 regardless of their work done. Then the other 50% of the people that bust their butt off are told: Sorry! We can only tell 10 percent of the people they rock.
- jlarocco 14y ago
  First, despite the headline, nowhere in the actual article does it say 4s and 5s will be fired. In fact, the snarky comment for 5 explicitly says they won't be fired. Second, I don't really see putting people into these groups is so bad because it's relative to the other employees. Even if everybody is awesome, some people will be more awesome than others. It would be ridiculous to assume everybody in the group is providing the exact same amount of value and should all be ranked 1 or 2.
- kabdib 14y ago
  Yeah, you can be a really, really good dev in a really, really good group, and get screwed. But if you move to another, weaker group you'll start getting great reviews again. It's nuts. It's probably what's going to force me out. I want to work with very good people, but to get good reviews I'd have to work with knuckledraggers.
  - cek 14y ago
    Author here. This is the point where I have my biggest beef with the Microsoft system. I was fortunate to have worked in and managed several groups that were CLEARLY exceptional. One team I built was built from the ground up and EVERYONE I hired (about 30 people) had previously had 3.5 or better reviews. In the end, I did those people a dis-service by hiring them. Some of them got 3.0s the following year. If I had been 'smarter', I would have 'padded' the team with a few poor-performers to ensure that I could meet the curve. However, earlier in my career, someone I worked with, and whom I thought I respected, confided in me that he did this; he padded this team with "3.0s" intentionally. This felt completely and morally bankrupt to me. So I vowed to never do it myself. The way this is supposed to be dealt with is that the stack ranking is supposed to balanced up to groups of ~250 people. The VPs or GMs of these larger groups are supposed to 'break ties' and deal with outliers by using their larger population. At a certain scale (and I believe this) it is realistic to believe that there can be a 20%, 20%, 40%, 13%, 7% bucketing. However, this system requires managers to be ready & willing to fight all the way up the chain. And, to a certain extent ALL managers at MS think their groups are better than others (due to the competitive nature induced by the stack ranking we're talking about also applying with even more dire consequences). There is a related issue that the Microsoft system causes that is directly related to this: Even though groups must put 7% of their people in the "5" bucket, and are expected to "manage those people out" they are not rewarded for doing it, at all. In fact, it is in those managers best interests to keep those "5s" around. Sad. And Frustrating.
codeonfire 14y ago
Ranking is designed to protect and benefit the people assigning the numbers. The numbers are meaningless and should be called political ranking. Its ok to work at one of these places short term if you need the cash, but have a plan to move on soon.
wcdolphin 14y ago
Nothing too new in the post, perhaps a little bit more jaded than how it is often explained. The part I found most interesting was your opinion on the different roles at Microsoft (quoted below). As someone with some experience in the PM role, I found it especially interesting. I find the opinion you have described spectacularly oversimplified, specifically in that the goal is just to write software (something only developers are needed), instead of writing the /right/ software, and at the right time. It is interesting to examine the different roles and how they interact, i.e. how devs often think of PMs as meetings and overheads, whilst PMs sometimes think of devs simply as resources. Tests, of course, are often left out in their own world, just hacking on whatever, and fixing the builds :-) --------- Did you notice I said “software developer” above? This advice is really targeted at people who are good at and love actually writing software. It somewhat applies to program managers, product managers, and so forth, but hey, we work in the SOFTWARE industry. The only clear-cut jobs are for those who actually write the shit. Everyone else just helps.
- cek 14y ago
  Author here. I was a PM for a great part of my 21 years at Microsoft. I'm quite sure I am "spectacularly" oversimplifying things. That was intentional. Here's the problem, related to this specific post, which is about mediocre reviews: A SDE's job can be measured far more objectively than most other roles in a software company. PM's, specifically, have an additional challenge in that what they do is extremely hard to measure. But don't get me wrong, I was not trying to diminish the importance of the other roles in creating great products.
michaelochurch 14y ago
Stack-ranking is this idea that emerges when a bunch of bored, overpaid and underemployed people of marginal intellect (that's being generous) watch a terrorist attack on TV and decide, "It be funna' do that to, hurr hurr, a comph-uh-ny!". The caretaker who wipes the shit off their mirrors every morning reminds them that they have executive positions and can actually act out their childish fantasies, so they do.
- alttag 14y ago
  There have been several articles posted here at HN that complain (rightly, IMNSHO) about stack ranking and the inner turmoil it engenders. (For example, why share a shortcut or automation if using it when others do not makes you appear superior?) I'm curious, does MSFT still enforce the stacks? The OP made it sound like the scale was independent of one's relative rank.
- kamaal 14y ago
  I don't know why you are being down voted, because there is some truth in what you say. The point is so called senior managers and executives you see today in the vast majority of the companies are totally undeserving of what they get. They didn't make it to the top on merit. Most of them had it easy, they made it big during gold rush in the IT boom. They were just there in the right place at the right time. Most of them if were to compete with even a average developer of our time, will not last much longer.
- jrockway 14y ago
  I propose this instead of perf: http://sportsfixchicago.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Boston-Sunshine-Academny-Reports-Card-300x258.jpg http://sportsfixchicago.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Bosto...
alttag 14y ago
How does this affect the "contract employees"? I'm guessing they don't get the bonuses, but do they get rated? Microsoft still has a high rate of contractors (and I count some friends and relatives among this number), although less since they got in trouble from the federal government for not paying most types of benefits to contractors. [1] 1: http://archive.washtech.org/news/courts/display.php?ID_Content=381 http://archive.washtech.org/news/courts/display.php?ID_Conte...
- cek 14y ago
  Author here. In my experience what this post discusses is completely irrelevant to contract employees.
Xcelerate 14y ago
9:00 PM? Is this what hard work is considered nowadays? Going home that late everyday? Geez, I'd rather be called lazy.
- kamaal 14y ago
  I've stayed at office for days. Some people I know never went back home for a week. At the year end appraisal. We were told we deserved nothing extra as we were told that we were just doing our jobs. That's how badly management can rip you off.
kamaal 14y ago
Stack ranking is nor for everyone. Its a bit like making a awesome but a very difficult dish. Its a kind of a dish which will taste horrible if don't get the ingredients right to the very pinch. For stack ranking to work you will need awesome leaders at the top rung in the company. You will need to fight out politics, processes and eliminate bureaucracy. You will also need a fair measuring of performance. Without all of this you see managers awarding their yes-men(their pets and bootlickers basically) top ranks and the good guys will leaving the organization. Unfortunately its very easy to get into this mode, especially if you are a large company will several layers of management- this kind of things can run for years until irreversible damage is caused. The net result after years will be false or irrelevant numbers floating in the company, while the best talent has already left. Even Jack Welch, mentions that stack ranking works best if everybody in the organization is stack ranked all the way up to the CEO. So that if some one cheats in the middle he will get ranked low under his manager and so on an so forth. This is very different to what happens in most big corporates. Managers are generally left immune to this process. The net result is they begin to form gangs of yes-men around them. Whoever refuses to be a part of it, slips out of favor of the manager and gets a bad ranking. Net result in mass is a disaster. Which is not apparent until very late. So if you are company with a culture of politics, processes, nepotism, bureaucracy and biases. Stack ranking will not help, but rather destroy you. I saw all this at a Mega Corp here in India. Needlessly to say that company today is struggling fallen far below from its original glory days.
KirinDave 14y ago
I wonder what the stack ranking in MSR (the pure research arm of Microsoft) looks like.
codeonfire 14y ago
I always found it amusing that Enron did stack ranking while at the same time cooking it's books. They were just doing it to be assholes.

39 points by cek 14y ago

ricardobeat 14y ago

Level 64?

doktrin 14y ago
Presumably an internal pay-scale ranking system. Government jobs, for instance, are ranked in a G(1?) - G12+ scale. Sounds a little goofy, but large enterprises need some method to standardize and track compensation.
brg 14y ago
That's the second level for a "Senior" developer. The senior level band starts at 63. Below that are 59 (college graduate) to 62, which are the bands of Software Engineer and Software Engineer II. Above it are Principle (65-67) and Partner levels.
- danielweber 14y ago
  I was expecting the levels to be factors of 2. :(
jobowoo 14y ago
Most college hires enter at level 59 (SDE/PM/SDET I) Once you hit level 61, you're an II Once you hit level 63 (maybe 64?), you're Senior After Senior, it goes Principal then Partner.
- joshAg 14y ago
  why start at 59?
  - kgermino 14y ago
    Without knowing, I would guess that lower numbers are used for non-developer employees (i.e. sales or marketing).
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    HR silliness. Supposedly, people are less pissed off by a ladder that puts them at 59 out of 70 than by one that puts them at 1 out of 12.
    - contextfree 14y ago
      I've heard it was to avoid ambiguity with numbers used in an earlier system.

tptacek 14y ago

The friends I have who have gotten offers from Microsoft were all informed that Microsoft, as a matter of policy, pays 60% of the top market salary. Has that policy changed?

joshAg 14y ago
Is an offer for just above 100k for someone who just got their undergrad degree (i didn't get an offer like this, but more than one of my friends has) just 60% of the top market salary now? Man, I need to renegotiate my salary.
- adgar 14y ago
  Yes, just over 100k is about right. My fresh out of undergrad offer to one of Microsoft's major competitors was almost identical to my colleagues' MS offers. Mine was to a competitor who is also known for offering below-market salaries along with generous benefits.
  - joshAg 14y ago
    so you're saying $100k + benefits is below market for someone who just graduated?
    - KirinDave 14y ago
      Anyone who is saying this is probably wrong, unless the hire getting this rate has very clearly awesome traits that the company really wants to develop. People just out of college almost invariably are really bad at actually releasing products. They've often been shielded from the merciless process of productization of a system. So the first year is almost always going to involve a lot of hand-holding. "Yes, you really have to write tests," and "Yes, you really have to have repeatable deploys," and "Yes, you really have to document this." You know, the important but humdrum part of being a software engineer. Exceptions to this rule; the kids who excel right out of the gate? Cultivate, cheerlead, and rapidly moved up your pay scale. Because invariably kids just out of college are going to work longer hours than most other people; they just don't have much of a life compared to people who've been out of college a few eyars.

tonetheman 14y ago

Wow hard to figure out if the post is sarcastic or mad or just a matter fact this is how it is. It seems like a sad place. :(

majormajor 14y ago
Doesn't sound bad to me. Seems like a good place to be if you're performing well.
- jinushaun 14y ago
  The problem is the system imposes a bottom 10% even if everyone performs equally well.
  - tonetheman 14y ago
    exactly... anyone who has worked in a place like that (I have) thinks it sucks... or you really thrive... one of the two. I end up in the camp that thinks it sucks. In other words your entire team works for a full quarter straight 60 hours a week... ah well at least some percentage of you are ranked lower. Tell me that is fair. Stack ranking is horrible.
    - majormajor 14y ago
      I haven't yet worked anywhere where everyone performed equally. I've seen places that keep the people at the bottom on as long as everything else is going well, and other places that try to replace them as soon as possible. But I don't know enough about the precise details of MS's system to comment on how fair it would be in the end. An entire team working 60 hours a week a full quarter straight is an entirely different problem.
      - tonetheman 14y ago
        true... ;)
  - 14y ago

butterfi 14y ago

Dear Microsoft You may have received a payment from me, likely for something X-Box related my kids have requested. On my payment, you will notice a number, from one to five. The breakdown for the numbers are as follows: 5: Wow, I really love your products! Each one is a groundbreaking example of "the road ahead." The design and execution are an example to the rest of us of what success looks like. Sadly MCSFT, you just didn't make the cut this year, but don't worry, only a few of your competitors ever get this number, i.e. Google and Apple. 4: Rock star! I couldn't make it through the day without one of your products. To be honest, you didn't really perform as a "4" this year, but work hard! I'm sure you can do it! 3: Thank you! My 2008 copy of Word still works great, and on the rare occasion I boot into Windows 7 I think, "Hey, this OS isn't so bad. I've used worse." 2: By "worse," I mean Vista. Yeah, it works, but honestly, I'm still a little put out by the whole experience. If you really put your heart and mind into it, I'm sure Win 8 will be the run-away success I know you've been working hard to achieve. But, don't screw this up, okay? People are watching. 1: Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Failure to actually deliver innovation, years of being a bully, and products known for their bugginess is no way to run a company. I might care more, but I don't. I'm too busy watching netflix on my iPhone. I hope this helps. PS - I'm sorry, but thats not what I meant by "you're number one."

JulianWasTaken 14y ago
That's odd. They get a 5 from me. Where 5 is the number of times I have RMAed that XBox there you've mentioned. (Actually the sad part is that that's a lie, I think the last time was number 6 for this same console, which I play rarely).
batiudrami 14y ago
Snarky, not even close to relevant to the article and adds nothing to the conversation. I sure am glad this is the top post.

trimbo 14y ago

Microsoft, I think, will be looked back upon as a great example of stack ranking's failure or success. At GE, it is looked upon as a success. But GE's workforce is (mostly) not in the world of knowledge-workers. They're not expected to come up with great products that sell to the masses, for the most part. I often wonder if Microsoft's inability to get great products to market in a timely fashion is due to stack ranking. They clearly have great people who work there, who can make great products. Even the Zune was a great product. They arrive on the market about 3 years too late, and then require iteration on top of it. Is this because people there optimize their careers for "their number", rather than what's truly best for the company? Only time will tell.

majormajor 14y ago
I think it would be very lazy to reduce Microsoft's ultimate success or failure in this decade to a single policy. There are lots of factors that can make large companies fail to move well with the times. Likewise, I wouldn't give it much credit if MS (or Google, or whoever) does well. With a few notable counterexamples, most very large companies end up adopting processes to manage the size of the company, but how large is the impact of the particular process chosen? Is it really controlling success or failure? Bad management/vision can happen in any system.
- homosaur 14y ago
  What would Ballmer rate in CEO stack ranking with the rest of corporate America?
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Stack ranking and vicious careerism can demolish a company independent of anything else. Look at what is happening to Google, with its calibration score nonsense and the draconian transfer policy. Same story, 7 years back in time. "Vision" is one thing but a lot of people have vision (or think they do). Very few people have that rare combination of interpersonal empathy and competency around complexity that enable them to reliably make good decisions as executives of large companies. (Worse yet, over 90 percent of the people given those positions get them as favors and utterly lack both skill sets.)

madrona 14y ago

Somewhat off topic: what happened to Mini Microsoft? It seems like he/she was intercepted and lobotomized by Microsoft PR. The open threads with wonderful discussion (one of the best venues for talking across silos) habitually wither from neglect from Mini. What's the next best place?

losethos 14y ago

God says... laughed dispenser Passion admit butler Newsletter program Victim enlarge leading conferring creepeth reproachful ceaseth furnished forgiving spectacle melodies boastfulness vice worshipping would-be Tobias represent discovering boiled breathe Oratory Whence rounds ETEXTS*Ver New_Zealand exceedingly ehheh_thats_all_folks philosophy anxiety Wyoming

throwaway118 14y ago

The system is really ugly in the sense there's a percentage of people that get each score and MUST be met each cycle. 20% people of each group will get a 4/5 regardless of their work done. Then the other 50% of the people that bust their butt off are told: Sorry! We can only tell 10 percent of the people they rock.

jlarocco 14y ago
First, despite the headline, nowhere in the actual article does it say 4s and 5s will be fired. In fact, the snarky comment for 5 explicitly says they won't be fired. Second, I don't really see putting people into these groups is so bad because it's relative to the other employees. Even if everybody is awesome, some people will be more awesome than others. It would be ridiculous to assume everybody in the group is providing the exact same amount of value and should all be ranked 1 or 2.
kabdib 14y ago
Yeah, you can be a really, really good dev in a really, really good group, and get screwed. But if you move to another, weaker group you'll start getting great reviews again. It's nuts. It's probably what's going to force me out. I want to work with very good people, but to get good reviews I'd have to work with knuckledraggers.
- cek 14y ago
  Author here. This is the point where I have my biggest beef with the Microsoft system. I was fortunate to have worked in and managed several groups that were CLEARLY exceptional. One team I built was built from the ground up and EVERYONE I hired (about 30 people) had previously had 3.5 or better reviews. In the end, I did those people a dis-service by hiring them. Some of them got 3.0s the following year. If I had been 'smarter', I would have 'padded' the team with a few poor-performers to ensure that I could meet the curve. However, earlier in my career, someone I worked with, and whom I thought I respected, confided in me that he did this; he padded this team with "3.0s" intentionally. This felt completely and morally bankrupt to me. So I vowed to never do it myself. The way this is supposed to be dealt with is that the stack ranking is supposed to balanced up to groups of ~250 people. The VPs or GMs of these larger groups are supposed to 'break ties' and deal with outliers by using their larger population. At a certain scale (and I believe this) it is realistic to believe that there can be a 20%, 20%, 40%, 13%, 7% bucketing. However, this system requires managers to be ready & willing to fight all the way up the chain. And, to a certain extent ALL managers at MS think their groups are better than others (due to the competitive nature induced by the stack ranking we're talking about also applying with even more dire consequences). There is a related issue that the Microsoft system causes that is directly related to this: Even though groups must put 7% of their people in the "5" bucket, and are expected to "manage those people out" they are not rewarded for doing it, at all. In fact, it is in those managers best interests to keep those "5s" around. Sad. And Frustrating.

codeonfire 14y ago

Ranking is designed to protect and benefit the people assigning the numbers. The numbers are meaningless and should be called political ranking. Its ok to work at one of these places short term if you need the cash, but have a plan to move on soon.

wcdolphin 14y ago

Nothing too new in the post, perhaps a little bit more jaded than how it is often explained. The part I found most interesting was your opinion on the different roles at Microsoft (quoted below). As someone with some experience in the PM role, I found it especially interesting. I find the opinion you have described spectacularly oversimplified, specifically in that the goal is just to write software (something only developers are needed), instead of writing the /right/ software, and at the right time. It is interesting to examine the different roles and how they interact, i.e. how devs often think of PMs as meetings and overheads, whilst PMs sometimes think of devs simply as resources. Tests, of course, are often left out in their own world, just hacking on whatever, and fixing the builds :-) --------- Did you notice I said “software developer” above? This advice is really targeted at people who are good at and love actually writing software. It somewhat applies to program managers, product managers, and so forth, but hey, we work in the SOFTWARE industry. The only clear-cut jobs are for those who actually write the shit. Everyone else just helps.

cek 14y ago
Author here. I was a PM for a great part of my 21 years at Microsoft. I'm quite sure I am "spectacularly" oversimplifying things. That was intentional. Here's the problem, related to this specific post, which is about mediocre reviews: A SDE's job can be measured far more objectively than most other roles in a software company. PM's, specifically, have an additional challenge in that what they do is extremely hard to measure. But don't get me wrong, I was not trying to diminish the importance of the other roles in creating great products.

michaelochurch 14y ago

Stack-ranking is this idea that emerges when a bunch of bored, overpaid and underemployed people of marginal intellect (that's being generous) watch a terrorist attack on TV and decide, "It be funna' do that to, hurr hurr, a comph-uh-ny!". The caretaker who wipes the shit off their mirrors every morning reminds them that they have executive positions and can actually act out their childish fantasies, so they do.

alttag 14y ago
There have been several articles posted here at HN that complain (rightly, IMNSHO) about stack ranking and the inner turmoil it engenders. (For example, why share a shortcut or automation if using it when others do not makes you appear superior?) I'm curious, does MSFT still enforce the stacks? The OP made it sound like the scale was independent of one's relative rank.
kamaal 14y ago
I don't know why you are being down voted, because there is some truth in what you say. The point is so called senior managers and executives you see today in the vast majority of the companies are totally undeserving of what they get. They didn't make it to the top on merit. Most of them had it easy, they made it big during gold rush in the IT boom. They were just there in the right place at the right time. Most of them if were to compete with even a average developer of our time, will not last much longer.
jrockway 14y ago
I propose this instead of perf: http://sportsfixchicago.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Boston-Sunshine-Academny-Reports-Card-300x258.jpg http://sportsfixchicago.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Bosto...

alttag 14y ago

How does this affect the "contract employees"? I'm guessing they don't get the bonuses, but do they get rated? Microsoft still has a high rate of contractors (and I count some friends and relatives among this number), although less since they got in trouble from the federal government for not paying most types of benefits to contractors. [1] 1: http://archive.washtech.org/news/courts/display.php?ID_Content=381 http://archive.washtech.org/news/courts/display.php?ID_Conte...

cek 14y ago
Author here. In my experience what this post discusses is completely irrelevant to contract employees.

Xcelerate 14y ago

9:00 PM? Is this what hard work is considered nowadays? Going home that late everyday? Geez, I'd rather be called lazy.

kamaal 14y ago
I've stayed at office for days. Some people I know never went back home for a week. At the year end appraisal. We were told we deserved nothing extra as we were told that we were just doing our jobs. That's how badly management can rip you off.

kamaal 14y ago

Stack ranking is nor for everyone. Its a bit like making a awesome but a very difficult dish. Its a kind of a dish which will taste horrible if don't get the ingredients right to the very pinch. For stack ranking to work you will need awesome leaders at the top rung in the company. You will need to fight out politics, processes and eliminate bureaucracy. You will also need a fair measuring of performance. Without all of this you see managers awarding their yes-men(their pets and bootlickers basically) top ranks and the good guys will leaving the organization. Unfortunately its very easy to get into this mode, especially if you are a large company will several layers of management- this kind of things can run for years until irreversible damage is caused. The net result after years will be false or irrelevant numbers floating in the company, while the best talent has already left. Even Jack Welch, mentions that stack ranking works best if everybody in the organization is stack ranked all the way up to the CEO. So that if some one cheats in the middle he will get ranked low under his manager and so on an so forth. This is very different to what happens in most big corporates. Managers are generally left immune to this process. The net result is they begin to form gangs of yes-men around them. Whoever refuses to be a part of it, slips out of favor of the manager and gets a bad ranking. Net result in mass is a disaster. Which is not apparent until very late. So if you are company with a culture of politics, processes, nepotism, bureaucracy and biases. Stack ranking will not help, but rather destroy you. I saw all this at a Mega Corp here in India. Needlessly to say that company today is struggling fallen far below from its original glory days.

KirinDave 14y ago

I wonder what the stack ranking in MSR (the pure research arm of Microsoft) looks like.

codeonfire 14y ago

I always found it amusing that Enron did stack ranking while at the same time cooking it's books. They were just doing it to be assholes.