Is it normal to be expected to set “ambitious” business goals as a software engineer?

Posted by tokyonian@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 71 comments

Hi everyone,

I recently joined a pretty big and well known tech company (not FAANG, but still quite prominent in the industry), and I was asked to set three personal business-related objectives based on my ambitions. These goals are supposed to align with the company’s direction and include a plan for how I’ll achieve them and what kind of impact they’ll have etc.

For example, I’m expected to come up with something like: “Build and launch feature X that improves user engagement by Y%,” and then actually drive that initiative myself.

Is this kind of expectation common in the industry? I assumed the main responsibility of a software engineer was to build the features we’re assigned, not necessarily to define product goals or business impact. I’m finding it a bit overwhelming and was curious how others have dealt with similar expectations.

FYI, I am a middle level