Completed whatever manager asked for (before previous perf) and at the end saw some shitty rating. Weird thing is, manager says that i am on-track during every 1-1. Is this common at Google? Or just few managers are fools? I thought calibration ratings are in manager hands. What does manager gets if he slows down the employee growth? Completely lost faith in Google promo process. I learned a lot in my work, so I thought it's not worth to leave Google just because of this perf but if I move to different team I have to start again from rating 4. I cannot stay in the same team - foolish manager, no recognition, no spot bonuses, no peer bonuses. Now I feel like I don't have any other option other than moving to a different company. All my friends got promoted to L5 and during every family gathering they act as if L5 promotion is easy and they worked only for 4 hours/day to achieve that. They laugh at me if they realize that I worked on a weekend. This just make me think like I am a fool. Because of this work, I didn't even spend enough time with my one year old baby. FML! Role: L4, Software Engineer TC: 250K (Funny thing is my manager don't even give raise or refreshers, based on my rating, so peanuts) YOE: 11 (3 at Google)
Either leave or decide if your family is more important to you than this promotion. I think you're focused on the wrong thing here.
I thought only Amazon managers lie to their associates?
Nah, Amazon just gets a bad rap because there are so many engineers
What’s a spot bonus lmao
three things: 1. sounds like you have a bad manager, if they aren’t being truthful during 1:1s on performance 2. your friends are shit if they make fun of you for your effort 3. there are other jobs. you won’t get to experience the first years of your child ever again. spend time with your baby!
What was unexpected about the rating? What were you expecting and what did you get?
Promos have a lot to do with the team/org and the leaders. The difficulty can vary a lot from team to team. I've seen people get from 4 to 5 in 2 years and others struggle to get from 3 to 4 in 2 years. I recommend asking the manager plainly what you need to do and for how long to get to L5. It's probably easier to get L5 by interviewing outside.
Calibration ratings are NOT in managers hands, the sooner you realize that the better for you
If manager proposed L5 task is done and still if he is not able to convince the calibration team, does that mean manager is not capable of identifying the L5 work or does that mean he is not capable of convincing calibration committee?
Both more than likely
Make no mistake, a surprise bad perf rating is a manager failure
Not great comms from manager, Perf rating should be never a surprise, let alone a downgrade from previous cycle. The rating might be right for many reasons, the fact that your expectations weren't set is not. SEE at L4 needs either outsized impact (landings, DDs, above-average volume and quality) or decent leadership, which usually leads to good L5 attempt too. Calibration is in manager hands, but *you* need to get him good arguments. What inputs did you provide? Perf artifacts? Dozens of links with your docs, bugs, hotlists, other contributions? At least half a page of these? Manager might want the best for you, but if he hasn't that, he may be shot down by others at calibration. Moving to a different team does not mean CME. Actually, none of the people that I know who moved got one (conversely: if you're flat CME, you may actually have harder time to move).
Role, TC?
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