Before I start: I’m not directly involved in this situation, so please don’t reply that I’m jealous or similar. This is truly a situation I’m observing at work in another team. There is a team of about 10 people with 2-3 high performers and 7 very low performers: they have experience on paper but they are terribly unable to execute and solve problems on their own, they basically require so much handholding for everything that it was said to me the team would literally be more productive if those 7 people would just disappear and all the work was handled solely by those 3 productive people. The problem is that the manager doesn’t see it that way: he is incredibly supportive of the low performers, and actually warns the high performers to be team players and spend all their time just following the others. Whenever they try to make a comment about this, he says “I don’t want to hear complaints about the other people of the team, just make it work and properly mentor people”. During team meetings, the manager is so nice and empathetic towards the low performers, while being dismissive of the other ones. Mind you, these productive people are not jerks, I know them and they are really nice and approachable Senior engineers who enjoy getting stuff done. It’s as if the manager isn’t even contemplating the possibility that the other folks could really actually be bad performers and need to be removed from sucking everybody’s time. These high performers (my friend is one of them) are terribly frustrated by this and are looking to quit the company altogether because they don’t feel productive at all, they just feel they’re wasting all their time on these other folks. Situation hasn’t improved in 4 months. Has this happened to you? Do you think the manager is in the wrong here or not?
Time to talk to your manage's manager. Get your manager fired first
People leave due to bad managers. He might be good person but it seems like he/she doesn't have experience in managing a team. I have seen this it in companies new and old. Nepotism and also by seniority(time in service). Should promote by skill and merits but sadly the world is not like that. You need to be very good at politics and negotiations to make it.
That’s why sometimes, despite all the drawbacks, I love early startups: there’s chaos but you can be sure that everyone is pulling their own weight rather than thinking about how to be empathetic to the low performers. If you don’t get shit done after a reasonable amount of training and mentoring, you’re out.
In my case, my manager and skip don't like someone with backbone, as long as you agree with them but your product is crap, you are the favorite.
Shit that’s horrible. My manager LOVES to be challenged from all the point of views, which I find a really mature sign of leadership. He’s always quick to say “you’re right” while at the same time trying to challenge your ideas.
Most managers don’t care until it’s too late and all the real top performers leave. Usually managers don’t know who the real top performers are, just whoever sold themselves well. Might be different when the manager is more technical and hands on. 🤷♂️
I’ve been in this position before as a top performer. I wasn’t asked to mentor relentlessly, but I wasn’t a favorite. I still got promoted, but it wasn’t just handed to me. One thing I realized is that life isn’t fair. Some people who SUCK get lucky and find someone who likes them. Some people are super smart and competent, and yet, they get the short end of the stick. From what I’ve seen, there IS (sometimes unfortunately) something good in everyone, whether you see it or not. Sometimes, someone you see as being slightly below average in performance outperforms everyone in EQ. EQ is extremely important for team cohesion and relationship building. Merit is important, but imagine a world where we only valued intelligence or work output? The world would be very dull indeed. Your friend has every right to look elsewhere, but it’s not fair to assume that the lower productivity/competence people aren’t at least trying. Nobody wants to be bad at their job. You gotta assume good intent, and prove leadership through mentorship. Your friend shouldn’t think of it as punishment, but rather an opportunity to get a raise or even a promotion by demonstrating their leadership skills. What’s going to happen when your friend is a manager and had people who are just like those 7? Fire them? How many people can they fire? Will work be their life?
It’s all about soft skills and connections in this world.
Are the low performers appropriately leveled lowly? Two people performing vastly differently at the same level is a problem but if they are recent grads or otherwise low level they could probably use some leeway. Part of a tech leads job is mentoring the juniors, perhaps the tech lead is the one underperforming in that sense? Finally, the manager is generally not going to share if there’s a plan in motion to manage those folks out. For all your friend knows they could be pip’d or on the shortlist. If it’s affecting the seniors so badly they’re thinking of quitting they need to express that level of frustration to the manager. FWIW I was in that spot as a TL some years ago. Person on the team had literally no commits all sprint, sprint after sprint. Took a year or so to manage them out.
Sounds like the high performers need to move on where they can continue growing, contributing and driving results unhindered. Assuming they did not take those jobs to become on-the-job trainers, it’s a disservice to them to be held back by less skilled, under-performers. That entire team (especially the leader) is a detriment to their success.
Training and mentoring is part of a seniors job. The question is 1. What level are they, if they’re senior and need training that’s a no go 2. Assuming jr, what level of help they need. Nobody becomes a 110% performer after 4 months in a new company.
“Training and mentoring is part of a seniors job.” That’s not true across the board, especially if that is not the way the reporting structure is designed. Seeing as the leader of the team seems to be overbearing and isolating the two groups (according to this account), in such a predicament, the seniors couldn’t effectively influence the team if they wanted.
Put yourself in the manager’s shoes. Is he supposes to fire 7 people and have a team of 3 while upper management is budgeting 10 people? Not saying he is right, but what would you do in his place?
Fire them one at a time over the course of 12 months and try to hire better people, and share this churning plan with the high performers, rather than not appreciating them? Also, provide very clear feedback to the poor performers that it’s NOT ok to ping the other engineers all day and submit pull requests that just don’t work at all?
Not to mention the optics of having to manage out 70% of your team (especially if you were involved with hiring them) or if they have been giving out "meets" despite performance problems. But more likely they need to read "Radical Candor" and have some tough conversations.