Yes, but there might be other downsides... Suddenly every developer turns into 'maintenance man' just refactoring existing code to make it neater without adding much.
The solution to this is more qualitative performance evaluations. People are really good at gaming quantitative systems, so once it becomes a rule that more releases == more promotions, people will prioritize that over actual value creation. Same for if maintenance work becomes the metric.
You need the people evaluating performance to really understand the work, and make informed, discretionary decisions about who to promote to maximize real value creation.
> You need the people evaluating performance to really understand the work, and make informed, discretionary decisions about who to promote to maximize real value creation.
I agree but for everyone working at / running a company without a money printing machine it is worth noting that this is really expensive. You need to take someone that’s a good engineer—-one with judgment and a modicum of people skills—-and give them mostly thankless, stressful work.
You need the people evaluating performance to really understand the work, and make informed, discretionary decisions about who to promote to maximize real value creation.