The WORST Performance Review Advice - MSFT Engineering Manager Reacts

your performance review is based on how happy you make your boss and how easy no no no no no today I'm gonna be reacting to a video and offering my commentary about what this Creator was saying now full disclosure I've already watched the video it actually prompted me to go make a full reaction slash commentary video about it I think it was polarizing enough for me that I had to go create something to respond to it and I just wanted to say one thing before I switch over to the video and that's that for this particular Creator my comments and responses here are nothing personal I want to be supportive of other people in the software engineering industry and people creating content but this is something I felt I couldn't be quiet about alright this video is from analytics mentor on Tick Tock and uh it's supposed to say it's performance review time so um that's what this video is about performance reviews for software Engineers let's see what he has to say okay my friends performance reviews are out there and you need to know this and be aware of this your performance review is not based on how good you are at your job or how well you perform throughout the year let's be clear about that your performance review is based on how happy you may make your boss and how easy all right I gotta pause it right there because this is already where I have an issue with what this person's saying now to be totally clear depending on where this person works it sounds like they work at Amazon all of their videos have you know 20 years in Tech Amazon and stuff uh captioned on them so I assume he's talking about Amazon experience in particular I honestly sure hope not but I just wanted to say that I cannot speak for where this individual has worked because he might be giving advice from his experience where he's saying this is actually the way it is but I wanted to talk about why I honestly really hate messaging like this so this kind of messaging in my opinion is actually really dangerous to be telling more Junior software Engineers now to be totally clear I actually don't care if this is how it works where you work because it's fundamentally not right and I think that if you start teaching people that this is the way that they're going to gain more experience in their software engineering role and assume that this is the way in fact it's going to perpetuate this problem and I think that that's the really dangerous part so this individual might be trying to help people by saying hey look you know just focus on pleasing your manager and that's the way forward and he might genuinely be trying to help people by saying hey look if you just want to make more money and get promoted that's all you have to focus on but that's not what being a better software engineer is about a better software engineer is not just about how fast you can get promoted if you can go sneak more money you can climb you know climb the corporate ranks and just get better and you know somehow one day you're going to wake up and be the best software engineer in the world no and I think what this guy is saying is actually not even applicable to software engineering but if you're working in places that are very political then sure maybe if you just people please your way to the top you know so to speak that that might work really well just to be able to get promoted but I think that this is really dangerous to tell people so let's go continue watching the rest of the video easy you make your boss's life end of story or most of the story right you can be the best in the world at what you do and be the smartest person in the world what you do but if you you are challenging or you are a tax this on you may not even know that you're a tax but if you are that or perceived as a tax in the organization you are not going to rank high that's all right we'll give it a pause there again because I wanted to talk about two things that he said here one of them I actually agree with um and that's the second part so the first part is actually just a bit of an extension of what he was saying before and that your actual performance and what you're doing doesn't have anything to do with your performance review um and just sort of just to continue that thought from before I just think that that's completely untrue I would urge you if you're working at a company that is like this you probably don't want to be there or you probably want to find better management seriously think about it from my perspective and engineering manager their number one responsibility is being able to grow the engineers on their team number one seriously second to that is actually the business part now some people might disagree with that and say business first employee second and sure yes they're both very important but from my perspective when you are growing going and building better Engineers when they are empowered when they are engaged they are going to do good work so I think it's critical that engineering managers focus on this with a priority so if this person is telling other Engineers that hey look just make your manager happy doesn't actually matter what your performance is like I feel like that's completely against my management philosophy I literally do not care how happy people try to make me on my team not that it carries any weight at all but I am truly happy when I have been able to help grow and Empower employees to deliver on the results and then I can see those employees do better in their career and deliver on the business goals that we have that makes me happy that's a side effect of what these people are doing and regardless of my own happiness here based on their performance I will take those pieces of evidence to go to management for their promotion so just to close that first part off I think that's completely ridiculous and I'm really sorry for where this person's working because I just don't think that that's right and I'm surprised that this person stuck around there for that long because I think that that sucks now the next part that he says I actually agree with so when he's talking about someone being you know air quotes a tax to the organization I don't think that he really off I mean it's a short video right I don't think he's offering a lot of context into what that means to be attached to the organization and I think he's also implying too that it's attached to the manager as well so like not only you're not making your manager happy but you're attached to your manager your tax to the organization you're not going to do well I want to separate out the tax part from the happiness of the manager part because I do think that there's a piece here that I agree with now to me it seems like in his presentation of this information that he's suggesting that you could be very good at your job but actually still be attached to the organization and this is where I have a disagreement with his presentation of this because in my opinion to be a good software engineer and to be good at software engineering related roles you need to have really good communication and you need to be able to collaborate really well as well that means that by definition you cannot be performing well if you are not communicating and not collaborating so by definition to be doing good you will not be attacks now he doesn't go into detail about it but let's briefly just touch on what attacks might mean in my perspective this could look like Engineers that maybe are hoarding work and not necessarily being able to you know play nice with other Engineers it might mean like say Architects that do work completely in a silo it might mean that you have more senior Engineers that are trying to take all of the big important projects and never helping and giving a chance to the more Junior Engineers to let them grow it might mean that you have Engineers that are constantly saying no we can't do that no we can't do that and never looking for a path forward so from my perspective and I don't know if this necessarily aligns with what this individual is saying but a tax is really just when you're creating resistance for the people that you're working with all right let's jump back over and see what he has to say went to rank high that's just the facts um and if you are not good at your job and people like you well guess what you might score really well and that's unfair but that's the way the world really works because people want life to be easy you were paid a salary not to just be smart and get stuff done as an engineer you are paid to make someone's life easier all right that's the end of that video and quite frankly that last little segment makes me feel pretty sick to my stomach he's saying that he works at Amazon I have not worked at Amazon I've had job offers from Amazon and have chosen to go elsewhere not because I thought Amazon was going to be a terrible place in fact I do hear great things about Amazon I have heard also some negative things about Amazon as well however I have never worked there so I can't speak from experience I truly hope that this person is not working in an environment where everyone is just trying to people please and you're not actually focused on the engineering work this is extremely dangerous for real career progression now based on what he's saying it sounds like he's acknowledging that this probably shouldn't be how it works it does seem like it's unfair but I want to call out that that is not the case in all of software engineering and I think it's really dangerous to be telling up and coming soft French Engineers that this is what they should be expecting in this video he is literally offering the advice that you should just go please your manager because that's all you need to succeed in engineering and honestly I just fundamentally disagree with this and I again I would urge people if you find that you're working in an environment like this you want to get out if you have the ability to influence it and improve it or perhaps switch managers so that you don't get trapped into a situation like this then please pursue that as well now again no hard feelings to this creator that made this original video but I just couldn't sit silent about this because I think that communicating this kind of thing to Junior software Engineers is really dangerous so thanks so much for watching I'd be curious to hear in the comments if you've worked at companies where you felt that you had to please your manager in order to make progress and what that looked like for you or if you've worked at companies that actually valid your performance and business impact if you enjoyed this please give the video a thumbs up subscribe to the channel and thanks again we'll see you next time