The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
I spent over 9 years at Google. Got promoted 3 times. Was a manager.<p>Google is absolutely <i>bonkers</i> when it comes to promotions. At every opportunity to provide feedback towards upper management, I had one consistent refrain:<p>Everyone needs to chill the f### out.<p>The stakes (seem) too high. The amount of time invested is too high. The amount of discussion, rehashing, tinkering, rejiggering, and calibration is just too high. It&#x27;s off the charts how obsessed seemingly <i>everyone</i> is about it. It&#x27;s off the charts how much company time was <i>blown</i> on it and psychological stress people were subjected to. IMHO, the process at Google doesn&#x27;t need to be readjusted or tinkered with, but somehow <i>de-escalated</i>; like it needs to not be such a huge f&#x27;ing deal.<p>One positive development ~5 years ago is that promotion to levels L5 and below were mostly moved out of the IC&#x27;s hands and into their manager&#x27;s. Despite being a manager at the time (and creating more work for me), I thought this was great. It reduced the bias in the system from ICs writing up their own packets, which disadvantaged poor writers and poor self-promoters less. It got employees thinking <i>less</i> about promotion, since there was less they could control or do. There were other biases that crept up, but it helps the psychology of day-to-day life to not be stressing over the frantic ladder climb.