When your coworker does great work, tell their manager
This is the biggest problem with stack ranking software engineers, the practice I had to endure while at a well known software company. All it does is create a zero-sum game, so I have no incentive to compliment anyone else. I needed to make sure that my rank was as high as I could make it, which really sucked during performance time. It was very stressful, even though I was a high performer, because it didn't foster the type of environment I wanted to work at, which is collaborative.I heard from my friends at Facebook that the environment there is equally crazy. Everyone knows that the performance reviews are based on lazy stats, so they game the stats. Every time someone requests a meeting, they are expected to give a "thank you" which is one of the measures for performance. Also, things like the number of reviews commented on could be easily gamed by adding a "+1!" as a comment which sounds like another undesirable place to work at. Maybe current Facebook employees can comment, however.