[UseofWeapons1]

As you consider the decision to let them go, consider the impact on other people in your work place too. Other developers notice someone like that underperforming and getting overpaid, and it can hurt the good climate you aim for. It may feel bad to fire them, but it may be worse to keep them.

[ewoodh2o]

You absolutely need to consider how the rest of the team will interpret you actions. Most probably know this individual is underperforming already. Teammates usually have a sense before the manager does.

But the way you handle it will also be observed. Others need to know you won’t just fire someone on the spot if performance doesn’t match expectations. Life happens, people have personal life issues that may occasionally require attention, and you don’t want everyone else assuming they are one bad sprint away from unemployment.

In most of the US at least, start with a performance improvement plan. Ideally one crafted with HR’s help. It should lay out specific expectations for a Senior Engineer, and call for immediate and sustained improvement. Use that to initiate a conversation and clearly lay out that they are not meeting expectations for the level at which they were hired. Present meeting those goals as a requirement for continued employment. You may also present a severance option here if you want them to have an out.

This makes it clear to everyone that you treat all employees with respect, offer a clear warning, and then so long as you expectations in the PIP are clear, it’s a lot cleaner if you end up needing to part ways a week or four weeks later.

[czhu12]

As a counter point to this, I’ve witnessed the practice of designing these processes to terminate someone creates a ton of burnout for the manager. Expect to spend at least 20% of your time managing the PIP. Documentation, one on ones, babying tickets being assigned, etc.

On top of that I’ve never seen anyone get through a PIP successfully (n=6).

Furthermore, it can also create a culture of just dismissing any candidates who don’t come from the right pedigree because the risk of a mishire is way too high.

Its worth asking if it’s worth your time to do this for the sake of following process. Larger companies that need to standardize management for hundreds of managers have a greater need than startups do.

[taneq]

> I’ve never seen anyone get through a PIP successfully (n=6).

I don’t think they’re meant to succeed. If you want to keep an employee, you give them feedback and coach them. A PIP is used to document evidence that an employee is incompetent and is incapable of improving despite your best efforts, as a precursor to firing them.

[ewoodh2o]

It’s definitely not zero effort. But every time I’ve seen it draw out the timeline, it’s been because the expectations weren’t clear at hire time, nor in the PIP. You’re looking for a specific number of “significant PRs/week”, or story points, or something with subjectivity where you the manager still get to decide.

It’s a warning shot, and sometimes it only lasts a week.

BigCo HR can definitely make it take months, but the practice in general doesn’t have to be that way. We did this at startup size as small as 20 people, and I never regretted it.

[ethbr1]

Do you have thoughts on offering PIP vs demotion and salary adjustment?

If the individual doesn't have the skills (or seemingly temperament) for a senior role, I'm not sure PIP is setting them up for success.

Versus demotion with possibility of promotion allows them to perform at their level of competence, leaving open the possibility for them to chose (or not) to aim for promotion.

[ewoodh2o]

I haven’t personally seen that work in practice. I’ve been in situations where we considered it, but people usually have picked a role with salary considerations in mind, and often can’t really walk that back, and if they do it’s demotivating. And they may be able to perform elsewhere in a way that meets the need at your senior comp level.

I think it’s easiest to cut the relationship and let them start clean somewhere else.

[throwaway173738]

This 100%. Whether I would fire someone depends on why I thought they were underperforming. You should consider the first month on the job a work sample and if someone isn’t measuring up within the first week tell them what your expectations are and that they’re not being met. If they don’t remediate within a month let them go.

I kept someone for too long once and people on an adjacent team didn’t want to get stuck with that person during a re-org and were vocal about it. And that person bungled some important projects that set us back years on our ambitions.

Fire them and use this as an opportunity to address your interview process. The longer you keep them the worse it will be.

[bialpio]

How do you reconcile this advice with the fact that in both places I've worked at, the expectation was that just the onboarding takes significant amount of time (up to ~0.5yr)? Even if I personally didn't need that much time, it was nice to know that it's available -it's not easy to get into the grind and catch up to others that already have all the institutional knowledge when starting a new job.

[brokencode]

You shouldn’t need to be onboarded to basic development skills when you come in as a senior developer as the OP is saying here. Institutional knowledge specific to each company takes time to learn, but many dev skills should be directly transferable.

[1123581321]

Be sure that half a year is thought through. I’ve seen places that pay too little attention to new employees in the first few months and then surprise them with complaints about performance. Those first few months should be drilling specific institutional knowledge (through bugs, presenting on parts of the stack, talking to a variety of people, shadowing, studying certain tech/tools most people don’t know.)

You should be looking for the employee to be making good general efforts, just without taking everything into account yet. And the employee should see evidence that you are serious about helping them master specifics of their new environment.

[ratg13]

>“The fastest way to demotivate a good employee is to show them the lengths you are willing to tolerate a bad employee”

- a sheet of paper i found in a desk 20 years ago

[giraffe_lady]

From this post there's not really any indication they're a "bad employee" though. They aren't up to the needs of the team that hired them, but that was on that team to figure out before they hired them.

It's probably fine to fire them, but also everyone involved should be open about the fact that the hiring and so also the firing is the direct result of their own failure. The morale implications of this could be lot more nuanced than you're implying.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Well, not calling for help when needed makes them a very dangerous junior. I don't know by the post if they are a good person.

Could they have also lied on the interview?

I would consider personality as a strong factor in keeping them, and if the company has room for a junior.

Lowering the salary is a hard requirement though.

[surgical_fire]

> Could they have also lied on the interview?

Everyone lies on interviews. Especially interviewers.

[tkiolp4]

If I were working on that team, I wouldn’t like the company firing the senior dev. If they keep them, and train them, that would reinforce the idea that the company is taking care of its employees. That’s nice.

I hate this rat race of being a performant engineer. The moment your performance declines, your managers will let you know and you’re under the radar now.

[thunky]

> If they keep them, and train them, that would reinforce the idea that the company is taking care of its employees. That’s nice

I don't think so. A company is under no obligation to handhold their employees. It should be a 2 way street, beneficial in both directions. If it's not beneficial for one party, they should be able to be honest about it and move in another direction. We're all adults here.

[HenryBemis]

You are right in general, but in this case it is clear that the issue is not "guy has a tough break, going through a divorce, underperforming for a little while - let's wait it out". It's "we thought we got Messi and we ended up with Henry Bemis - which cannot be salvaged. Imagine the other top players on the team seeing Henry Bemis getting paid Messi-money.