What is the most useful feedback you've ever gotten in a performance review?
Posted by worst_protagonist@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 62 comments
It's perf review season at my job. I am just wondering what's the most valuable thing any of you have ever gotten from one of these?
selemenesmilesuponme@reddit
You did a great job. Unfortunately we don't have much of a budget for a raise.
It is useful since I know it's time to find another job lol.
Humdaak_9000@reddit
I got one that basically said I was literally jesus but they couldn't give me a raise because the rest off management didn't know about me.
Isn't ... that sort of my manager's job?
Two months later I was making 1/3 more and living in SF and not the barren ice plains of Minnesota anymore.
opx22@reddit
Was 1/3 more enough to offset the COL change?
Humdaak_9000@reddit
Actually, I did the math wrong. It was closer to 50% more.
I never actually boiled down the numbers, but subjectively, I loved living in SF far more than Minneapolis. I wasn't hurting for money, but I was also single and my main expenses after rent were triathlon gear and beer.
Jestar342@reddit
your new salary is 50% more than your previous salary, but your previous salary is 33% less than your bew salary.
opx22@reddit
I can only imagine what that change was like. Sounds like you had a great time!
audentis@reddit
Welcome to office politics.
moremattymattmatt@reddit
I had that as well. The management the had the gall to claim that we worked in a meritocracy.
cryptopian@reddit
In one of our one-to-ones, my manager read me for absolute filth - "when you were young, did you tend to wait for friends to invite you to things?"
Now, I don't know that I've become much better at taking initiative to make things happen, but having somebody I trust really crystallise it was still very useful.
Real-Classroom-714@reddit
Savage
dazzwo@reddit
Damn
WeHaveTheMeeps@reddit
“Your work is good, but you have very poor focus.”
Went to a therapist diagnosed with ADHD.
Worked at a good company then. Work in a FAANG now.
Life changing.
He was nervous to give me that feedback as he figured it’d hurt my feelings, but I deeply appreciated it. We text daily.
HoustonTrashcans@reddit
What changes did you make after being diagnosed with ADHD that helped you?
m1nkeh@reddit
This is the real question!
galwayygal@reddit
“Don’t wait for work to appear, look for things to improve constantly, and create tasks to work on”. I was pretty junior at the time and realized that I’m supposed to identify gaps and things that need improvement, not just the manager/tech lead. I think it was also the culture of that first company I started to work in where the manager was micromanaging and I felt like I should wait for her guidance before picking up tasks. But it was good feedback that helped me progress in my career
Dramatic_Mulberry142@reddit
I got the same thing from a senior, but he didn't say this way. He said If you think this is a good idea, take the ownership and start it.
Ianxcala@reddit
At the beginning of my career, I was working at a bank. I got a task assigned that was broken down into 3 parts and was estimated 2 weeks. So, one and a half weeks later, I was ready with the task. My peers came to my desk, they looked at it, and were like. "You knew that the estimate was 2 weeks for each part, right? You make us look bad." Made me realize I should not finish tasks too fast. You only make everyone's job harder in the future, and you win to work more. Be only a little faster than others. :)
ThlintoRatscar@reddit
"I need you to read this before your next review. You're smart, but bad with people."
He then gave me an Intro to Psychology textbook, which transformed my behaviour and soft skills at work.
VerboseGuy@reddit
Which book please
ThlintoRatscar@reddit
I think it was this:
https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/48
agumonkey@reddit
What changes did you make in your work life since then ? thanks for the link btw
ThlintoRatscar@reddit
I had good charisma, but inconsistent. Under stress, I bulldoze and dominate to get my way with hyper rational argumentation. People didn't always like me, or like working with me.
What I didn't understand was why people didn't just do what I told them or why they got upset when I pointed out how their ways were wrong.
Especially when I'm right.
I learned about dissonance first, which led me to understand more about the ways that ego and feelings impact perception and how perception shapes facts.
I didn't truly understand how it was even possible for two people to experience the same event/data but come to wildly different conclusions.
I chalked it up to them being jerks.
That caused me to try to predict other people's behaviours, which led me to understand why they did what they did more.
It also caused me to increase my compassion and kindness. There is real hurt and pain when reality and ego don't align, and ego is stubborn. So, I was literally hurting people to get my way.
That was a hard realization, but it caused me to slow down and minimize the hurt I was causing with my unintentionally cruel behaviour. It helped me to see the courage in being wrong and to let go of my fixation on correctness in favour of kindness.
As a dev, I was discounting that what we do is ultimately social. That we build for people first, and with people in community.
That book, and that boss, started a lifelong attempt to be a better person by understanding the behaviours of the people around me.
I still revert, but at least I try every day.
Is that helpful?
agumonkey@reddit
Very much so.
It's common to become stiff under stress, yet it's still surprises me how quick one can switch into this mode. It is still very hard to work with people when point of view differ too much, you spend time reexplaining the same thing that you saw right from the start. That said it's also very helpful to discuss stuff slowly to avoid missing a spot and dragging people along in a dead end.
Thanks again
ps: i find you very self critical, don't hurt yourself because you were imperfect before :)
ThlintoRatscar@reddit
Ha!
Not just self-critical... my flaw and superpower at work ( and in life ) is being really smart, very fast, and very right. That comes off as critical, and we all love critics, right?
As a leader, it gets worse because "going stiff" means being cold and ruthless. Deciding to destroy lives with layoffs can be as logical as deleting a section of code to improve performance.
While that may be correct, it's good to have a window into the emotional and human dimensions as well.
Further, just because it's correct, doesn't mean it's right. And, aggregate human behaviour sometimes requires less logically correct decisions and more emotionally connected ones.
Hence my point about courage to be wrong. Sometimes, letting something wrong, or at least suboptimal, be done is the better way.
Ultimately though, psychology is like a human API and it's helpful to have knowledge of it.
Sea-Us-RTO@reddit
read the book and find out /shrug
agumonkey@reddit
Nice soft skills
SellGameRent@reddit
Wasn't a performance review, just normal round of feedback. They said I didn't take deadlines seriously. I said I felt they overassigned work. They said to provide a sprint plan that was a daily outline for what work I would do on which days, and I could reference that to push back.
The end result was that planning out my work on a day to day basis for a few days in advance heavily improved my organization/clarity for projects. Instead of spending a bunch of mental energy juggling plates, I documented those plates in OneNote and just focused on crossing items off the list.
Genuinely skyrocketed my accountability and reduced my stress, and yeah sometimes I did use my plan to push back on scope
magichronx@reddit
Huh, this was pleasantly nice to read. From my experience I've not spent time trying to schedule out "ABC is today, XYZ is tomorrow" etc... I feel like that level of granularity is too fine to really be useful
Maybe I'll give it a try and see how it goes
Fidodo@reddit
In a healthy org, deadlines are less about crunch and more about communication. Management needs to know how to plan things, so it's better to figure out the requirements and needs up front and present that so everyone can make an assessment and stay on the same page. Sometimes it might mean a project is too costly or risky to take on in which case that's more important to know before a bunch of sunk cost goes into it.
Lots of orgs get this wrong. Sounds like your org is one of the good ones.
SellGameRent@reddit
I am quite straightforward when interviewing to make sure they don't require overtime, and that has served me really well my whole career. Despite working for 6 companies in my 9 year career, I haven't been forced to work overtime once
RandomUsernameNotBot@reddit
Did you feel in the end that they were correct in their assessment?
SellGameRent@reddit
I think it is a fairly normal response to disregard deadlines when you dont see the workload as being manageable. To that extent, sure.
That said, my boss had a habit of scope creeping the shit out of me every sprint and when I finally called her on it and she quit doing it, what do you know I really turned myself around.
RelationshipIll9576@reddit
Manager gave me credit for work that my coworker had done.
Senior dev provided feedback that I struggled to understand an algorithm he proposed when in reality I was dumbfounded at how he thought it could even work. It didn't. I proved it via implementation, testing, and benchmarks. Then I went on to design a different solution that worked insanely well. He filed a joint software patent on it (the two of us) and took some credit for all the work I had done.
Learnings:
Managers can have no clue what they are doing.
Senior devs can be terrible at the job.
platinummyr@reddit
Those kind of senior devs are the worst
Sea-Us-RTO@reddit
its even worse when they're in an opposite timezone :upside-down-smile:
PositiveUse@reddit
„Learn to let others shine too“.
Changed my perspective. A lot.
pheonixblade9@reddit
I have the opposite problem. I like to make others look good and I think it has caused my career to not advance as quickly as it could have.
PositiveUse@reddit
I think this needs to be timed wisely. For a successful career, there’s no way around making yourself visible and present in the beginning I guess.
Frenzeski@reddit
I had a similar moment reading the book Staff Engineering Book, specifically the chapter Create space for others.
Something_Sexy@reddit
On this sub, this one needs to be the highest. It took me 10-12 years into my 20 year career to really let this sink in.
hopbyte@reddit
I got that one to in the form of “stop saying I and start saying we” when I became senior and started mentoring 10 years ago.
“It is about me!”
“This junior doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing!”
“Just make me an IC and leave me alone! I can code faster if I’m not weighed down by others!”
These were my initial thoughts when getting this feedback, but after letting the feedback sink in, I realize I was being a selfish brat in my 30s and I have to change or I’m not going to have a career.
I now go out of my way to bring others up and has turned out to be quite profitable!
Cyrecok@reddit
can you elaborate? it sounds interesting
PositiveUse@reddit
I love to take responsibility, take on new tasks, be the voice in meetings. And everyone appreciates that and knows this.
When you reach this point, where your peers, stakeholders, line manager etc are aware of your attitude, you have proven yourself. It’s not like anyone will forget anytime soon.
Now it’s the time to make sure that others (in your team) also get the chance to show who they are, what they can and if they also want to take responsibility and decisions.
They should not compete with you, you should empower them to shine.
Don’t worry, we know your worth, other people shining won’t take anything away from you.
hell_razer18@reddit
I also learned this similar trait 2 years ago not in perf review but in 1on1 that being a manager must also let someone underling be on the spotlight, at least in public.
While it is nice to take on new challenge and claim the reward, it is preferable to let someone else do it (delegate) and let them struggle, overcome and finish it. You still can also work on it together but let others know that this task when successfully implemented, credits should be theirs and when it fails, you should shield them or take the blame (because you assign to them).
Antique_Drummer_1036@reddit
Don’t wait for your manager to ask for a status update. Proactively communicating progress throughout the project makes managing you effortless.
JenovaJireh@reddit
Just a fly on the wall in this thread, reading these posts gives me hope that there are some amazing people out there.
No_Bed8868@reddit
You kind of suck at asking for help, if you start asking more you will get tasks done faster and with less effort
amayle1@reddit
When I was 23 I got an informal comment of “you’re doing great, now I just need you to step up.” And from that day on I offered my opinion in meetings more, gained the trust of my client, and eventually lead the SRE team of a 100M/year e-commerce site.
Sometimes it just takes knowing someone has confidence in you or validating the approach you’re taking to bring out someone’s potential. That guy was a good leader.
productiveaccount4@reddit
Be more aggressive in your career
agumonkey@reddit
What did you do since, and how did you career grew ? I'm trying to be like that
basskittens@reddit
I would say if you're getting new info in a performance review then something has gone wrong somewhere. You should be having regular check ins to make sure your expectations and management's expectations are in alignment. A review should just be "as you already know, this year you did x, y, z, showing these skills and these areas for growth. as such here is your raise."
Calm_Masterpiece3322@reddit
"You're doing a great job and have achieved all the agreed upon goals. Your reward is to have more responsibilities at the same pay. Congratulations!"
yolk_sac_placenta@reddit
Probably an apology. It wasn't exactly feedback but followup on erroneous feedback from a skip level. He chewed me out for "airing our dirty laundry" in front of a cloud vendor when I was asking questions about ways they could help with an immature deployment system and pipeline. He was a new VP-level at the time, and said I embarrassed the company. A month or two later after he was more familiar he apologized, said that he was wrong, and he realized I actually kept it entirely professional and fact-based and was actually tactful in not complaining about the real, ugly problems. I really respect him for owning up to it.
For the most part this structured feedback is not that useful to me and while I've received accurate feedback, it's never been news to me.
pavanayi007@reddit
Delegate tasks to junior engineers. Create space for others to succeed which will amplify your impact as their lead.
EirikurErnir@reddit
"You're inflexible."
hopbyte@reddit
“Bet I’m flexible enough to kick you in the head”
flowering_sun_star@reddit
I got feedback on why I missed out on a promotion - other teams felt I wasn't helpful when approached with questions about areas of the code I had previously worked on. I knew it was true - I'd been prioritising my team's work, and got frustrated by really hard to answer questions about areas I could barely remember.
I shifted my attitude, and made the change to prioritise helping others. Even if I didn't know the answer I'd at least try to dig out and explain what I did know. Got the promotion the next year.
DuffyBravo@reddit
I wrote this for fun: https://ihateperfreviews.com/Performance May help you with your Performance review season :)
bulbishNYC@reddit
Usually it’s not much feedback. Every once in a while it’s crappy feedback along the lines: keep your mouth shut in front of upper management; don’t argue argue with timelines that come from above, keep; don’t be too smart with Agile.
shifty_lifty_doodah@reddit
I’ve never gotten useful feedback in a corporate performance reviews.
Corporate performance reviews are a tool to advance people management likes and get rid of people they don’t.
Good managers don’t put negative feedback in official reviews. They provide little pointers along the way.
ZukowskiHardware@reddit
Basically just to “make an impact “. I took that as anything you are working on should be useful now and be noticeable immediately.
nebotron@reddit
Focus a bit less on my personal productivity and focus more on working well with others and being liked.
Create a vacuum that allows others around you to learn and grow. Step in if needed, but let them try and fail first.
Know which problems need my attention and egg can sort themselves out without me.