[JustLurking2022]

At some point, the cargo cult are the promo reviewers and then the two become the same thing.

[Arainach]

The reviewers presumable have access to the true metrics.

[trelane]

What if I told you these are their "true metrics?"

[Arainach]

If a company doesn't have consistent metrics for performance reviews uniformly across teams, get out of that company yesterday. That's just a hotbed of nepotism.

[lupire]

Please give an example of a metric for performance review for software engineering.

[Arainach]

Conceptual examples (not looking to argue about the specific bar):

Senior engineers will:

* Design a significant project which lands with measurable customer impact

* Demonstrate expertise in at least one core skill outside of coding (test infrastructure, SRE, security, accessibility, etc.)

* Demonstrate leadership by either being a TL, owning and leading team pillar efforts (security review, etc.), etc.

* etc.

Mid-level engineers will:

* Own either a small feature end to end or a significant piece of a larger design

* Contribute to at least one non-coding pillar

* etc.

These generally have more areas and can be further granular such as "low-performing midlevel is X, satisfactory is Y, exceeding is Z"

[dpe82]

Those are requirements, not metrics.

[mewpmewp2]

What do you mean by "true metrics"?

[Arainach]

The metrics which determine if someone gets promoted. Those decisions are being made by some group, presumably with guidelines. If the process for getting promoted is "this group does whatever they feel like" that company is a disaster and you need to get out.

Thus, there are rules, and they are written down. If they're not visible to normal employees, they guess the rules based on who they see get promoted (cargo cult) while the committee uses the true metrics.

It's not like becoming a manager is a secret cult where you're dropped in and you suddenly have carte blanche to do anything. At established companies there are rules and procedures, and while you will likely have access to more information than individual contributors, you won't just be promoting whoever you feel like without having to go through others.