Diff aka PR count per week
Uber ceo has set a mandate of 5 diffs/PR per week. Same is now being enforced by Director and manager in team meetings and 1:1s. I am a fairly strong and enthusiastic L4 engineer who always enjoyed developing and delivering projects. Manager already informed that I am performing at L5 beginner level and will be out for promo next cycle. Coding is just one of the many things I do. I make sure our wiki / documentation is perfect. I do extensive code and design reviews. I help my new team mates in their understanding. I answer the query asked by our users. I try to learn new and interesting concepts of SW engg to keep me sharp and informed. Till now I have hardly delayed any project delivery and launched many projects with good quality. Coding is just one part of it. But now that’s the only thing that matters. Manager opened the diff count dashboard in last 1:1 and said your count isn’t good. While in my understanding I had a productive sprint where i delivered on each and every item. Manager even dropped to the level of saying that start refactoring if you have non coding items in sprint. Team mates already doing unnecessary splits in their diffs and manager said it’s okay to do like that to increase count. I used to like Uber as place for good technical work but as of now it feels like the worst place to be in whole tech industry. Anyone looking to join Uber, keep this in mind. For people who have been in industry for more ( I am 4 YOE and have not worked anywhere else), have you seen this happening anywhere else ? #coding #WTF #pullrequest #change
That sucks OP. Is the rule for all level ICs? Across geographies too? I’ve been eyeing Staff roles at Uber for a while. This sucks ..
I have seen some micromanagers in few other big tech companies doing this.
+1 to all the things op has pointed out. Now I feel anxious if I haven't raise a diff by EoD. That sucks
On a lighter note I'd say stop using 'git merge --squash', but honestly this is sad. An SDE usually puts on many hats and your contribution is a combination of all those roles and responsibilities that you perform - coding, reviews, wikis, design discussions, KTLO items, on calls, helping peers, x-team collab, addressing customer escalations and much more. You cannot index an SDE by the number of commits. That's like saying that the senior most ICs are least effective (since they usually take on a lot more responsibilities besides JUST coding). The success metric needs to be revised to include the overall impact of any individual.
I do all of the things you mentioned :( Prior to this rule, my manager used to encourage me to do all these things and not just coding as that can be done by juniors also. Suddenly with this rule, U-turn has been taken and only coding matters. I forgot to mention in post but it has started to affect my mental health severely. I am Checking my and peers diff counts regularly to see how they are doing.Thought process to solve a problem is now to move to coding part asap and not even think of possible approaches.Few days spent on designing / thinking on different approaches is now no more a thing to do.
I would still suggest you try and cut a deal with your manager as to how you and your team could get around this mandate. If he is technically sound, he would recognise the demerits of this approach and might suggest some way to make your life easier. Also a quick thought, while you work on wikis/design docs, see if an abridged version of those details can go into a readme file which can be constantly updated with PRs. These are just petty work arounds but if it helps you deal with the current situation, then great. If not, then perhaps start looking out.