
The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions - cpeterso
http://matt-welsh.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-google-career-path-part-3.html
======
Afforess
No wonder Google lets many services languish. With a system of promotion based
on launches of new products/services/features there is no personal incentive
to make things work long term. It seems like the person who redesigns the
gmail categories for the nth time would get a promotion, but someone who
followed up on bug reports, maintenance and stability patches years later
wouldn't.

Support is just as important as innovation. There's no point in having great
ideas if they aren't maintained. Google doesn't seem to get this...

~~~
typpo
Is there any company where churning through a list of bugs and maintenance
projects will get you further in the long term than launching new things?
Hacker News generally praises "ship it" culture, where experimentation and
measurement is prioritized as the way to succeed. This is considered a good
thing in most places and the incentives are not unique to Google.

~~~
mendicantB
Facebook. See [http://www.quora.com/For-top-technology-companies-what-of-
th...](http://www.quora.com/For-top-technology-companies-what-of-their-
engineer-time-is-devoted-to-tough-groundbreaking-intrinsically-satisfying-
problems-and-what-is-routine-grunt-work-a-1X-engineer-could-
handle/answer/Yishan-Wong)

------
kentonv
Google's system is promotion-by-committee. It ends up having the same pros and
cons as any committee-based system. On one hand, it avoids the kind of
egregious mistakes and crimes that occur when too much power (i.e. to promote
others) is vested in individual people (e.g. managers). On the other hand,
committees are risk-adverse and will shy away from controversial actions.
People who do good work following expected patterns get promoted. People who
do controversial work, or who don't fit into an obvious mold, will have a
tougher time, as a committee that can't come to agreement will default to no
action.

~~~
yid
> or who don't fit into an obvious mold,

Genuine question: is that why you went in a completely different direction
with Capn'proto than protobufs?

~~~
kentonv
Hmm, not sure I exactly understand the question. But I think the answer is
probably "no". Cap'n Proto's design came mostly out of someone asking me one
day whether two processes could share a protobuf object via shared memory,
without serializing and parsing. I found the question interesting enough that
I kept thinking about it and that eventually evolved into a design. My reasons
for leaving Google had nothing to do with any of this, but gave me a well-
timed opportunity to work on it.

I actually primarily quit to do sandstorm.io, and did Cap'n Proto more on a
lark, although it turns out to be really useful infrastructure on which to
build Sandstorm.

------
buckbova
>If you want to get promoted, just start acting like someone at the next level
up.

Not at Google, but this is how I've always treated my career. Kind of a step
beyond "dress for the job you want."

~~~
eitally
The only problems are when your boss doesn't pay attention and recognize the
step up, or when they actively ignore it because you've taken some of the
stress of their job and they are averse to potential change/risk if they
promote you.

~~~
potatolicious
Then you take the fact that you're outperforming your title to another company
that _will_ recognize it.

Job-hopping (done within reason) is entirely underrated. Your salary will rise
at a dramatically faster rate than if you stuck around one place, your
responsibilities too, and best of all you get to learn how things are done
across the industry.

------
xiaoma
The most interesting part of this piece for me was that the peer feedback
isn't anonymous. I can see this leading to some uncomfortable situations, but
I can also seeing it be a net positive. Getting honest feedback (unrelated to
performance review) from one of my senior peers at Groupon was a very
beneficial for me.

------
Yimgo
Wondering why the article is not available anymore but here's the cached
version:
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9XGHjq...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9XGHjqJ6NI4J:matt-
welsh.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-google-career-path-
part-3.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

[http://pastebin.com/UyvbHcw2](http://pastebin.com/UyvbHcw2)

------
e12e
Am I the only one that finds it odd that (according to the article _and
comments_ ) the compensation is tied tightly to levels, but the mean salary
for each level is considered secret? So you get to know how you "compare" in
terms of "performance", but not how much Google _actually_ values you as an
employee? Is this just an aspect of "if you generate revenue we pay you more"?

------
Redoubts
> Sorry, the page you were looking for in this blog does not exist.

Aw.

------
jamesblonde
This article has been pull by Google - how predictable! I can't find it
anymore. Anybody got a copy they could put up here?

------
dsplatonov
I wonder if VC's apply the same metrics to the new start-up companies. If so,
no venture capitals give funds to google.

------
van2077
Hmm, it seems this page's been taken down now. It's still in google cache
though...

------
michaelochurch
_That is, nobody is going to say, "You're only an L4, therefore you can't work
on this project."_

Someone said exactly that to me when I was at Google. That's kinda how closed
allocation works.

 _What I always tell people: If you want to get promoted, just start acting
like someone at the next level up._

At any company, that's the quickest way to get fired. Getting into a turf war
with someone with a much higher title? Not a good idea. To be honest, if I
were to do Google again, I'd have kept my head down and said "Yes, sir". It
can do a lot for your career to work there, but it's not a place where you can
safely overperform.

 _However, there is a way to provide private feedback that can only be seen by
your manager; in my experience this backchannel is rarely used._

"Yes, I realize that a murder count of 2,500 in a city of 1 million is
horrifying. But look on the bright side. That means there were 997,500 people
who were _not_ murdered last year."

 _Managers take all of your reviews as input and determine a performance
rating, which is a score in one of five buckets to indicate how well you 're
doing overall._

As of 2011, you actually get a score between 1.0 and 5.0. Almost everyone is
between 3.0 and 4.0. The buckets are very large. "Meets Expectations" is
everything from a 3.0 (acceptable for new hires, but damning if you've been
there for a while) to 3.4 (slightly above average). If you're in this bucket,
you don't know if you've been marked as a loser (and rendered unable to
transfer) or are getting 65th-percentile ratings. You can literally waste 18
months on a loser project only to find you can't transfer because your boss
gave you 3.0's.

 _These scores are also calibrated against other managers across the
organization, to prevent managers from biasing their scores -- an individual
manager can 't game the system._

That's a nice way to present stack ranking. Each boss gets a finite number of
calibration points and has to pick who does well and who doesn't. If he gets a
crappy allotment and desperately needs to use all his points to promote the
guy who'll do a startup unless bumped, you could get stuck with a (career-
ending) 2.9.

\----

The important thing to remember about Google's promotion process is that it's
bicameral. Manager-assigned calibration scores are one component. Peer reviews
are another. You need _both_ to advance at Google. Google provides multiple
paths to failure, not multiple paths to success. If your manager likes you and
gives you 4.0+, you can still get dinged for lack of visibility. On the other
hand, if your manager is giving you shit for calibration scores, all the peer
review in the world won't get you out of the muck. I've known many Googlers to
damage their careers by playing their manager but not the crowd, or vice
versa. You need to play both games at the same time.

For a better analysis of Google's promotion/review system, read Piaw Na's
essays, such as this one: [http://piaw.blogspot.com/2010/04/promotion-
systems.html](http://piaw.blogspot.com/2010/04/promotion-systems.html)

This is also worth reading: [http://valleywag.gawker.com/eric-schmidt-
personally-ruined-g...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/eric-schmidt-personally-
ruined-google-employees-review-1587309422)

~~~
jedc
The 1.0 to 5.0 system doesn't exist any more. What is in the OP's blog post is
how it's done as of 2014. (Very recent Xoogler here).

~~~
potatolicious
As someone who has never worked for Google - how does The New Way address the
problems he mentioned?

~~~
jedc
Anyone who has a particularly strong opinion (coupled with strong evidence) is
likely full of crap, since it just recently rolled out across the company. By
the end of the year it'll be more clear what the long-term effects are.

------
JSno
"If you want to get promoted, just start acting like someone at the next level
up. Eventually they'll realize you're not being paid enough and will promote
you."

\--This sounds really bad. Like a slave trying to move more bricks to show
slave-owner that he is not being paid enough.

~~~
sliverstorm
Can you think of a better argument to give your boss for why you should be
promoted than, "I am already doing the work of one grade above me"?

~~~
patio11
"I am already doing the work of one grade above me... at Facebook."

I'm joking, but not by much.

~~~
ChuckMcM
"I [think] I am already doing the work of one grade above me... at Facebook."

Is more often the case. It's interesting to see folks who act on that thought
and find out they were mistaken. A manager of mine once quipped "The grass is
always greener somewhere else, but sometimes that is because it's astroturf."

------
MileyCyrax
You guys seriously have levels? I've never heard of that before. It sounds
awful.

~~~
mynameisvlad
Pretty much all companies have levels. Even if it's not something as set in
stone as Google's 1-11, or Microsoft's 59+, there's almost always some sort of
differentiator, from something as small as "Senior" or "Junior" to denote
experience.

~~~
dsplatonov
But that can kill all innovations. Especially, when junior can't report or
discuss ideas with the manager, who can make decisions

~~~
nostrademons
The levels don't work like that, as the blog post describes. They basically
count for paygrade and job title, and that's it.

At Google you were basically expected to make all the decisions you had good
information on, and you had access to a lot more information than people did
at most companies. I launched the [blink tag] easter egg by socializing my
ideas around a few peers who said "Cool idea, go for it", implementing it in
my spare time, getting a code review, and then e-mailing PR, legal, and Amit
saying "Hey, I'm planning to launch this easter egg in a couple weeks, any
objections?" I had approval powers for putting stuff up on google.com myself,
so in theory I could've launched it with just one other person's code review,
but if you launch without approval and things blow up you (and your peers)
will never ever be able to do cool stuff again, so it's a nice courtesy to
keep the execs in the loop. (Although this rule has been bent before - [do a
barrel roll] was launched without any execs' knowledge.)

~~~
dsplatonov
ok, agree, but thats doesn't covered in the article, which can lead to
misunderstanding

~~~
dekhn
Those points were covered in Matt's _previous two_ articles on the subject.

But Matt is writing primarily for Researchers who leave academia for industry.
They are a special class of people who tend to be more.... experienced with
pushing back against management to achieve their research goals. However, the
same idea applies equally to motivated low-level engineers who want to get
things done.

------
sid-
>If you want to get promoted, just start acting like someone at the next level
up. This is the most ridiculous thing companies make u do I start acting and
working like a CEO will I become one ?

~~~
ChuckMcM
No I didn't down vote you, but in my experience that is exactly correct. If
you start acting like the CEO you will eventually become the CEO. The tricky
bit though is that often times people don't really know _why_ the CEO acts as
they do. And that is partly because there is information available to the CEO
that isn't available to just anyone, and partly because the CEO is often
balancing problems and opportunities that aren't necessarily visible to those
outside their direct reports.

One of the first things I try to impress upon new managers is that their job
is not about telling people what to do, rather their job is about getting the
most done with the people they have on the most important parts of the
problem. They have to take the whole set of possible things that could be
worked on, and figure out the important ones to invest in. Sometimes the
importance comes from being or staying competitive, sometimes the importance
comes from keeping things alive long enough to get to the next milestone.

~~~
sid-
U live in a more idealistic world than I do There is no point climbing someone
else"s organized corporate ladder with 10 levels when u can do ur own
experiments :) Don't want to be an old man filled with regret on level 3 or 6

~~~
codeka
I don't see how you would have anyone to blame but yourself if that happened.

------
chetanahuja
Oh boy. A google career thread on HN. I look forward to measured and
thoughtful discussion. Definitely not going to be sidetracked by multi-
paragraph rants from some familiar names. No, not this time.

