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Google claims that its performance review system is "peer-driven", but what actually exists is a bicameral system where you need strong peer reviews and good ca

Google claims that its performance review system is "peer-driven", but what actually exists is a bicameral system where you need strong peer reviews and good calibration scores in order to get a transfer or a promotion. If you play one game and not the other, you can get stuck. Calibration happens every quarter and a manager can unilaterally ding you. However, a supportive manager doesn't guarantee a good score. He actually has to get involved in the horse-trading and tit-for-tat of the whole process. Some people get screwed because their managers don't show up to calibration and they get low scores. Finally, you often have no idea what your score is. Meets Expectations is everything from the 2nd to 70th percentile of the company. At the high end of that range, you're OK-- you won't get fired, you can get a decent transfer. At the low end, you're fucked. However, you may have no idea where in that range you are. It's a play-for-play copy of Enron's performance review system, except with even more managerial secrecy and, therefore, less accountability. In short, it's why Google has less future than past.

seanmcdirmid 14y ago
I'm not trying to give Google a pass, but this sounds like every big tech company actually. Managing is hard I guess, and opaqueness arises naturally even in meritocracies.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Even though managing is hard, that's not an excuse for being a dick when you have huge reserves of cash and could be giving employees a lot more in the way of autonomy, compensation, and advancement. Companies like Google and Microsoft can afford not to be evil. I agree with you that Google is probably no worse than the other large tech companies, but I wouldn't call that an endorsement. For one example of something I don't like about tech culture, these firms have a tendency to throw their employees under the bus when the economy gets bad. Banks have layoffs. It's just something you get used to on the Street. Good people get let go, take their severance packages, and find other jobs. No big deal. On the other hand, many tech companies, when they do the same thing, make it look like a wave of performance-based firings so they can say they've never had a layoff. Google still claims it has never had an engineering layoff, even though it's had waves of PIPs. That's slimy.
  - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
    As in government, we can talk about "different ways" of doing things like communism or libertarianism, but each new way seems to have just as many, if not more, problems than the previous. So ya, meritocratic companies might be the worst ones to work for, except for maybe non-meritocratic ones. I believe managers are just human: even Google will have good and bad ones, evil but effective ones along with good but ineffective ones (wrt to biz goals), and lots of other different combinations. Until we can come up with a system that removes inconsistent human nature from the equation, we'll just have to tolerate what we have. Sliminess is just one common trait of human beings, and I'm sure even Google can't avoid hiring and promoting sociopaths.

seanmcdirmid 14y ago

I'm not trying to give Google a pass, but this sounds like every big tech company actually. Managing is hard I guess, and opaqueness arises naturally even in meritocracies.

michaelochurch 14y ago
Even though managing is hard, that's not an excuse for being a dick when you have huge reserves of cash and could be giving employees a lot more in the way of autonomy, compensation, and advancement. Companies like Google and Microsoft can afford not to be evil. I agree with you that Google is probably no worse than the other large tech companies, but I wouldn't call that an endorsement. For one example of something I don't like about tech culture, these firms have a tendency to throw their employees under the bus when the economy gets bad. Banks have layoffs. It's just something you get used to on the Street. Good people get let go, take their severance packages, and find other jobs. No big deal. On the other hand, many tech companies, when they do the same thing, make it look like a wave of performance-based firings so they can say they've never had a layoff. Google still claims it has never had an engineering layoff, even though it's had waves of PIPs. That's slimy.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  As in government, we can talk about "different ways" of doing things like communism or libertarianism, but each new way seems to have just as many, if not more, problems than the previous. So ya, meritocratic companies might be the worst ones to work for, except for maybe non-meritocratic ones. I believe managers are just human: even Google will have good and bad ones, evil but effective ones along with good but ineffective ones (wrt to biz goals), and lots of other different combinations. Until we can come up with a system that removes inconsistent human nature from the equation, we'll just have to tolerate what we have. Sliminess is just one common trait of human beings, and I'm sure even Google can't avoid hiring and promoting sociopaths.