FAQ: It's (again) perf season at Facebook!
What the fuck PSC? It's Performance Summary Cycle: the (in)famous semi-year perf reviews at Facebook. Jan-Feb and July-Aug are the perf seasons at Facebook. So, you will hear a lot of cries and stories in Blind for the next month. Let me FAQ and demystify the PSC.
1. Why two perf reviews per year?
> Faster feedback. Twice promo and cash bonus events. But RSU refresher is only given in the first half. It's right this is an intensive process, but it's a necessary evil.
2. Why so many cries and noises?
> It's by design. Facebook pays the top of the market like 90-95%. This obviously means the company needs the strict bar and perf reviews to justify high comps. It might be similar with Netflix, but FB has much larger engineers. Sorry, you can't have both easy-going perf reviews and top of the market rates at the same time. Pick one or nothing.
3. What are MA, MM, EE?
> PSC has a 7 scale rating system. Each rating has a bonus multiplier, used for both cash and RSU bonuses.
- DNE: Does Not Meet Expectations, 0%
- MS: Meets Some, 0%
- MM: Meets Most, 85%
- MA: Meets All, 100%
- EE: Exceeds, 125%
- GE: Greatly Exceeds, 200%
- RE: Redefines, 300%
4. What are AE/DE?
> Additional/Discretionary Equities. They are for retaining a few high performers in your org. It's given like an additional RSU refresher, but the decision process is highly black box. Your manager (unless they're director) doesn't know whether or not your got AE/DE. Your director hands out to you.
5. So, does FB have many bad managers?
> Well, a tricky question. There's always two sides of the stories. It's true there's bad managers, but it's also true there's under performers. FB actively manages out under performers. That's the main reason you hear lots of dramas. At the same time, bad managers are also being managed out.
6. What's the formula of the cash and RSU bonuses?
> I won't describe the details of the formula here. But it's all transparent or reverse engineered, except for the AE/DE. We usually don't care base merit increases, but it's typically a 2-7% increase per year.
7. How many percent MM or PIP?
> MM is why PSC is notorious. Google has a wide band of CME (consistently meets), but it's not true in FB. For E3-E5, looks like ~10-15% people are getting MM or below. I have no idea of PIP rate. There's no strict rule of PIP, but if you're trending poorly with a MM rating, there's a high chance of getting it.
8. Strictly curved and stack racking?
> No. Especially if your team is small, no such enforcement. However, at your org level, like 100-200 engineers, you must see some curves. This is just a natural law.
Hope this post gives some clarifications of FB perf reviews.
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