| I did not care for the performance review practices at Apple (and it is probably similar in every other big corporation). We'll give you a 1 to 3 rating in three categories (it's been a while, something like: "Expertise", "Innovation", "Teamwork"). A "1" means you did not meet expectations, a "2" means you met expectations and a "3" means you exceeded expectations. If we give you a "1" in anything, you should probably start to look for a job elsewhere. We can't give you a "3" in two of the categories above however. Well, we can but then we have to go up the management chain — perhaps even to the director — because giving someone a "3" in more than one category means we have to raise your "grade". And moving up a grade is a Big Deal. We can only have so many top-tier engineers. Oh, and regardless of what your manager thinks of you, all managers have to report to their manager for what we call a "leveling session". Here your manager needs to defend their choices when compensating their direct reports in front of all the other managers and of course their boss as well. Something in particular we're looking to make sure of is that your manager rewards some of their direct-reports with bonuses, a raise, etc. but "punishes" others. Egalitarianism is frowned upon. |