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The thing I'm actually good at is understanding highly technical non-software stuff well enough to write the software needed to support it. In particular, I have a lot of life sciences experience (microbiology, biochemistry, microscopy, and lab work). I'd love to continue doing that kind of work, but it's not nearly as widely-needed as the latest AI/simulation-heavy self-driving car du jour or whatever. I've become pretty disenchanted about this whole job hunt though. Maybe I'm still burnt out from launching my game earlier this year 
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Jun 16, 2023 02:45
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A lot of roles like that are either going to be listed as quant developers (primarily in finance) or data engineers (everywhere else). They're out there, even if they're not as prevalent as some other specialties.
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Jun 16, 2023 03:57
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So my manager dropped some hints in todays 1x1 that Im not meeting expectations for my level, and that is loving me up. Obviously Ive been kinda burnt out and dissatisfied on my current team, but this changes things and makes it feel a lot more like a personal failure. Which feels pretty fuckin bad. I was courteous and understanding, and made it clear that it wasnt a surprise to me. Getting things done has been a slog, the work hasnt kept my interest, and Ive lost a lot of my enthusiasm. (Honestly, Ive considered finding a new team). I asked my manager for help on refocusing going forward, but I dont really know what happens now - whether its a hey are you doing alright kind of thing or just a windup to a PIP. None of this is a surprise, but its still upsetting. Especially after the honestly not great experience Ive had here so far - all the reorgs, all the poo poo flinging at our team, all the frustrating roadblocks. To be told that obviously the problem is Im not delivering fast enough or consistently enough makes me feel gaslighted. I agreed that the current situation wasnt great and that structure and guidance would be very well appreciated, but in reality Im at a loss for what to do next. This really isnt how I saw my time here going, and despite it all I do want things to go well.
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Jun 22, 2023 22:01
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Jun 22, 2023 22:29
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Most companies make it pretty hard to find a new team once you have a negative performance review, so it might be a good time to get serious about looking.
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Jun 22, 2023 22:32
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Same, just got an SCI.
oliveoil fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Jun 22, 2023 |
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Jun 22, 2023 22:33
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Good luck. Even if you love engineering, you're more than what folks at work think of you.
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Jun 22, 2023 22:48
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ultrafilter posted:Most companies make it pretty hard to find a new team once you have a negative performance review, so it might be a good time to get serious about looking. Yyyyeah after thinking it over for some time, I dont know if changing to a new team would even help anyway. My past experience so far would stick with me, and it wouldnt feel good. Im mostly just filled with disgust. This has been a pretty lame experience and I resent being told its my fault.
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Jun 22, 2023 23:28
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Just rumors/gossip but I've heard bits about them turning the screws on people more recently, might just be some thing where management is being encouraged to be lovely
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Jun 22, 2023 23:32
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That and RTO talk sound straight out of a McKinsey playbook on saving face instead of doing yet another round of layoffs or something.
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Jun 23, 2023 00:14
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Pollyanna posted:So my manager dropped some hints in todays 1x1 that Im not meeting expectations for my level, and that is loving me up. Obviously Ive been kinda burnt out and dissatisfied on my current team, but this changes things and makes it feel a lot more like a personal failure. Which feels pretty fuckin bad. Preface: That sucks man, it's always rough to get into a situation like that. The best thing you can do right now is to try and get constructive, concrete details on what the gap is between where you're at and expectations - this serves a couple points. First, it gives you a chance to examine those and be self-reflective, and second, it helps identify whether it's bullshit or not. If it's bullshit (handwavy answers, things that don't make sense, or just generally your manager doesn't seem interested in helping you fix it), then be polite and start focusing on getting a new job ASAP; don't bother putting a lot of energy into the feedback unless you're going to try and ride for a 'I'll leave quietly with some severance' package that some companies give if a PIP comes up. I had a job (pretty recently, possibly same company if I'm reading the tea leaves right here) where I literally got poo poo on by my skip level over and over again and there was zero explanation other than a general sense they thought I was being uppity. Once I got some confirmation from others I wasn't crazy, I just bounced. If it's a real problem, then being concrete on 'what are some examples of ways I'm failing to perform' lets you sit down and think about those; it could be that those are things you can legitimately improve on and hey, maybe you'll come out of this better off. I got my rear end handed to me by a boss once for legitimate reasons and it actually turned out pretty well in my favor once I figured out what the problem was. If your manager actually wants to move you to a PIP they're going to need to move in this direction anyway, so heading that way generally shows good faith. If the problem is 'You're not doing X', but the reason is because of some other thing, start building documentation/etc and looking around at how others are accomplishing it. If it turns out you're basically getting hosed (ex: "You need to show more cross-organizational collaboration, but we've been making you work on nothing but busy work for months and refused to give you a chance to do that") , then again, go back to the 'it's bullshit' part and prep to bounce. One thing to consider is that you might just not be in the right team to be at your level; every big tech company wants to pretend that engineers of the same level and title are a totally fungible resource, but there's a huge difference in skillset between teams/etc, and you might be way more successful elsewhere in the company...or elsewhere at a different company. Ninja Edit: One time earlier in my career, I was at Microsoft and (during the days of stack ranking) got a 4, which was 'Needs improvement'. I sat down with my boss and was like 'alright, walk me through it and how this came up' and he told me that my project performance had dropped off a lot about six months before. I pointed out that was right when he assigned me to be the lead for a shift with three brand new guys who were all struggling and took all my time coaching them, and when I mentioned that you could tell he immediately realized he had hosed it up. It was too late to do any adjustments (stack ranking was a loving nightmare), but I was able to have a frank conversation with him about how I needed to get that information sooner than review season/etc, and we came out of it alright, although it was one of many reasons I realized he was a poor manager. Anyway the moral of this story is that it's worth trying to approach your manager straight on and get details from him. If the guy's an rear end in a top hat or a lovely manager, that might not fix the problem, but at that point you shouldn't be sticking around anyway, because a manager's job is to help you improve and if they can't do that, don't work for them, because they'll gently caress up your career through apathy, if not straight malice. Falcon2001 fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Jun 23, 2023 |
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Jun 23, 2023 02:18
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Yeah the whole "dropped some hints" business is bullshit. A manager's job is to provide clear actionable feedback. If your manager can't or won't do that, find a new one.
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Jun 23, 2023 04:25
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All feedback is valuable, but not all of it is good for you or is something that you should action upon, and the people who give it to you often don't have your best interest in mind. Your manager is giving you information when they give you vague bullshit feedback and don't want to be specific.
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Jun 23, 2023 04:31
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biceps crimes posted:All feedback is valuable, but not all of it is good for you or is something that you should action upon, and the people who give it to you often don't have your best interest in mind. Your manager is giving you information when they give you vague bullshit feedback and don't want to be specific. That's also true, but it is worth being direct with him about what it means. If you tell one of your directs that they're not performing up to par, you kind of owe it to them to help raise them up to wherever that is. If it's just a vague warning that they're on someone's shitlist, then maybe they literally can't do anything about it.
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Jun 23, 2023 06:18
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Yeah sometimes feedback tells you more about them than yourself, and that can also be illuminating.
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Jun 23, 2023 08:52
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I've only been a team lead for 4 months and probably have to do this for the first time next week. Guys throughput is just poo poo. You can't measure someone's complete performance via tickets closed but he's got half the number as everyone else on the team and most of them aren't difficult tickets, I've been trying to give him easy ones to sort of lift up his productivity. But I honestly don't know how best to communicate that without just making him feel bad or panicked for his job. Mega Comrade fucked around with this message at 10:13 on Jun 23, 2023 |
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Jun 23, 2023 09:04
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Generally speaking, trying to soften the blow by being vague about things instead of straight-up and direct is a bad idea if you actually want things to improve. If this guy needs to lift his game to avoid being performance-managed out, you need to be clear about that if you want him to actually lift his game. (And also be clear that if he does successfully pick himself up, that will be that and there will be no lasting consequences).
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Jun 23, 2023 09:35
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Mega Comrade posted:I've only been a team lead for 4 months and probably have to do this for the first time next week. Guys throughput is just poo poo. You can't measure someone's complete performance via tickets closed but he's got half the number as everyone else on the team and most of them aren't difficult tickets, I've been trying to give him easy ones to sort of lift up his productivity. You could also see if there's anyone else on the team that could help them out for a bit; or if there's something they're getting stuck on/etc. That might not be the case, but it's a good way to broach the topic in a way that can seem a little more comfortable.
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Jun 23, 2023 10:29
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If youre not already reading Ask A Manager, check out https://www.askamanager.org/2022/01/how-can-i-stop-softening-the-message-in-tough-conversations-with-my-staff-2.html and click around.
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Jun 23, 2023 13:11
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Mega Comrade posted:I've only been a team lead for 4 months and probably have to do this for the first time next week. Guys throughput is just poo poo. You can't measure someone's complete performance via tickets closed but he's got half the number as everyone else on the team and most of them aren't difficult tickets, I've been trying to give him easy ones to sort of lift up his productivity. The worst, most common situation, unless you love saying poo poo like "I think this should have taken 2 days, why did it take 4?" The standard advice is to give feedback like that immediately, but then you're the jerk who is looking at your watch every time something gets done. Hopefully its easier for you if its a more junior dev, and you have a big software team and can use average ticket points, but that's not my situation. But the other side is that you can't try to make them feel better and say "Great, you got a ticket done" when really they did a slow, sloppy job. Falcon2001 posted:You could also see if there's anyone else on the team that could help them out for a bit; or if there's something they're getting stuck on/etc. That might not be the case, but it's a good way to broach the topic in a way that can seem a little more comfortable. It's all poo poo.
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Jun 23, 2023 13:13
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While it sucks to have to deliver feedback like that, it can help to remember that you're doing it for the good of the team. Other people notice the underperformance too, and it can be a drag on morale if it feels like someone isn't pulling their weight. Plus, people really do turn things around sometimes, which is a great feeling for both parties.
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Jun 23, 2023 13:45
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Eh, if someone is actually contributing why are you being a productivity cop? Lots of people do nothing, or actively harm the project; go hassle them.
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Jun 23, 2023 14:19
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Because their lack of productivity makes the whole team look bad and risks 5 jobs instead of just theirs.
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Jun 23, 2023 14:38
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I want to be one of those people who turn it around. I want to do a good job and feel good about what I do, and feel valued. I hate failure and feeling like a failure, so this is ultimately very personal (I know, I gotta work on that). So in many ways, I keep thinking I can still make this work. I just dont know how much I trust my higher ups and the organization Im in to actually work with me to get back on track. Some of my coworkers are difficult to communicate with and frustrating to work alongside, our team has become a punching bag, our organization has made a lot of choices that tanked my confidence in it, and Google itself has not impressed me with its recent direction. So like,  Not quite ready to talk more about it, but Ill say this. This isnt a surprise to me, because Ive been burned out for a while. And to be honest, Im upset because I know I can do better than this, not because Id lose a chance to be on this particular team.
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Jun 23, 2023 14:49
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StumblyWumbly posted:This is good advice, but, the helper needs to understand what they are getting in to. They are there to clarify and teach, not to do the work for the trouble person. I've seen surprisingly good results from over-explaining the problem and strategies for an extra hour before the work starts. One time at Experts Exchange, the very last developer we hired without any sort of basic "program this" test was floundering and constantly dragging people over to ask for help. The dev closest to their desk went over the task step-by-step and even wrote it out in pseudocode. A few hours later, that dev checked on the bad dev's progress and all they'd managed to do was delete the pseudocode. Soon after that, the bosses said, "Okay, stop helping them. It's sink-or-swim time." and they sunk.
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Jun 23, 2023 15:04
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Mega Comrade posted:Because their lack of productivity makes the whole team look bad and risks 5 jobs instead of just theirs. i learned to avoid firing or pipping devs unless their productivity was @ or below zero. if a dev can contribute competently but is slow about it, that usually means they're just not engaged, and that's more a management puzzle than a reason to fire someone. piping and firing also look bad for your performance review as a manager if you do it more than occasionally, there's no guarantee you'll get better resources by going through the interview process again, and it will definitely hurt a project in the near term to lose a contributor.
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Jun 23, 2023 15:57
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E: never mind, that was lovely of me.
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Jun 23, 2023 16:04
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Hearing these positive management stories makes me wonder if I just had no luck in the last decade of working in the US, or if I'm the proverbial rear end in a top hat. Moving away from profit-driven world changed that drastically, I have to be honest. I feel like I'd finally be able to dip my toes in managing others and actually be supported by my higher-ups. Instead, you know, getting fired for behaving too much like a union steward, as it would have played out in the previous job. Good luck, Pollyanna. I hope you find a nice way out of a lovely situation. Same for everyone else experiencing the pressures of EOL capitalism.
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Jun 23, 2023 16:25
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There are so many managers who limp forward by being marginally competent administrators so they can look okay for the higher ups while completely failing their team. It's very possible to go a decade or more without anyone showing any interest in your development.
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Jun 23, 2023 16:31
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Thank you, everyone. Im focusing on pushing some more work through, but frankly the damage is done and Im quite disengaged now. Im getting over the slight shock and getting used to the reality of moving on, which I honestly think is for the best. Its disappointing.  I really did hope this team at Google would be a good opportunity to grow my career. Maybe Im still an optimist on some level.
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Jun 23, 2023 16:34
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Ensign Expendable posted:There are so many managers who limp forward by being marginally competent administrators so they can look okay for the higher ups while completely failing their team. It's very possible to go a decade or more without anyone showing any interest in your development. It's very frustrating as a manager to work under a director who is uninterested in the development of the people you manage. But it's common enough that I understand exactly how this happens. It's very easy to fall into the trap of focusing on the short term goals your boss cares about rather than the long term health that will make achieving those goals easy.
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Jun 23, 2023 16:35
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Pollyanna posted:Thank you, everyone. I’m focusing on pushing some more work through, but frankly the damage is done and I’m quite disengaged now. I’m getting over the slight shock and getting used to the reality of moving on, which I honestly think is for the best. It probably has helped your career, you're just too close to it. You can now sell yourself as ex-google. Which shouldn't mean anything (because you've seen first hand what that bar actually means), but in practice means quite a lot.
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Jun 23, 2023 16:37
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there is absolutely a path of advancement through having no loyalty and just getting a new job every so often the totalizing extent of management is only for true lifers
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Jun 23, 2023 16:59
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Ex-Googler means a lot. Every startup loves writing something like we have employees from Google, Amazon, and Meta! in their pitch deck.
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Jun 23, 2023 17:03
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Bruegels Fuckbooks posted:i learned to avoid firing or pipping devs unless their productivity was @ or below zero. if a dev can contribute competently but is slow about it, that usually means they're just not engaged, and that's more a management puzzle than a reason to fire someone. piping and firing also look bad for your performance review as a manager if you do it more than occasionally, there's no guarantee you'll get better resources by going through the interview process again, and it will definitely hurt a project in the near term to lose a contributor. Oh if it was up to me I'd just leave him be. But if I do that he's gonna get the chop before the end of the year for sure. I'm fairly sure he's struggling. I'm just not sure how to best go approaching it without making him terrified he's gonna get fired and probably make his productivity even worse.
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Jun 23, 2023 17:13
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You cant do anything about that, because its not up to you whether he should be afraid or not. Its up to the company you work at, and since it is a capitalist company, he is right to be afraid.
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Jun 23, 2023 17:22
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^^^ sad that your google time is not going well. Kapost kinda went to poo poo (Upland's fault), so it's not exactly a bullet dodged, but now you can put google on your resume. I'm at JPM Chase right now, and I'm liking it pretty well. If you see anything there that you want a reference into, let me know, I'd give you a referral. Mega Comrade posted:I've only been a team lead for 4 months and probably have to do this for the first time next week. Guys throughput is just poo poo. You can't measure someone's complete performance via tickets closed but he's got half the number as everyone else on the team and most of them aren't difficult tickets, I've been trying to give him easy ones to sort of lift up his productivity. You've had lots of good advice already, but I recommend being straightforward with the feedback, but try to help them debug their workflow. I had this with one dev whose progress was near stopped, turned out that he just needed a better office setup. So I'd say something like, "Hey, we can recognize that you're struggling to complete work at the same pace as others on the team. Let's work together to find blockers in your environment that are slowing you down". Try to make it constructive. You're not their to police their productivity, you're there to let them reach their potential. kayakyakr fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Jun 23, 2023 |
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Jun 23, 2023 17:30
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Pollyanna, did your team and you just wind up being support and janitorial services for everybody else? Like, any SRE team for software engineering? I'm curious about how it all's gone to poo poo.
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Jun 23, 2023 18:49
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Thats a long one. After work, Ill talk about it.
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Jun 23, 2023 19:02
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Also at google and also burned out and frustrated right now. My psychological safety ends at like "my manager's manager". In the past, that would have been fine, because I never ever had to interact with people above that. VPs were just names in the re-org emails I'd periodically receive and ignore. Recently it has gotten more... micromanagery? Like, our VP wants visibility on task-level things, and at the same time there is much less freedom to prioritize the work important to our team. Unless something is part of a top-level mandate, we can't work on it. And the latest top level mandate is like... straight up a bad idea as far as I can tell. Part of me wants to raise the alarm and call out "hey, we can't deliver this on the mandated timeline without sacrificing quality and reliability. Is that the right call?" But I don't feel safe saying that. It feels like saying that will just make the wrong people learn my name in a bad context. Next layoff? Now my name is top of the list. Anyway, I'm just frustrated and venting. I'll figure something out.
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Jun 23, 2023 19:53
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