Sr Swe Bad Review for no reason

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GoodishCoder@reddit

I don't feel like there's enough information here. Without knowing what the concerns are, it's entirely possible you're not hitting the mark for a senior engineer. Seniors are typically expected to be more than code monkeys and a lot of people fall down at first when they become a senior.

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TOO_MUCH_MOISTURE@reddit

Wow I must have the same manager as you.

Mid level engineer, 4YoE, been at my role for ~10 months.

I have WEEKLY one on one and I’ve only heard compliments and praises. I frequently try to ask what I can do to level up. I’ve been busting ass and even a different manager I had in the Europe region complimented me for how well I handled my first shift on production support.

My manager gave me a successful year review, and allegedly some higher up demoted me to a poor performance review so they don’t have to pay me a bonus.

I’m not really sure how to keep going honestly I’m so defeated. I’ve never been told in any job ever that I’ve done poorly. Let alone being told I’m doing well every single week and then having this sprung on me.

I’m really curious to know what you feel like your next steps are. I’m going on PTO soon but when I come back, I guess I’ll have to start the job hunt… which is so freaking depressing because I actually like my team, coworkers, office, etc :(

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Human-Kick-784@reddit

Confront you manager about that. Its total BS.

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TOO_MUCH_MOISTURE@reddit

I have already confronted and now I will be booking a meeting with my skip manager and possibly the director. So fucked honestly”

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noshitbr0@reddit (OP)

How did you find out about some higher up doing this? I know im paid the most because im outside their band (hired above the band offered) and paid a hefty signing bonus. Im aware my coworkers make a lot less (although I dont think they know this)

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TOO_MUCH_MOISTURE@reddit

On the formal performance review he wrote “I do not agree with TOO_MUCH_MOISTURE being placed in Challenging year (the bad bucket). I placed them in Successful year and my decision was overridden.”

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Ok-Chair-7320@reddit

Bring paid outside of the band might not be what you think...

Existing employees can also see the advertised band, therefore that might be an band that complies with some legal requirement. If you are in Europe there is the (new) transparency pay directive...

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noshitbr0@reddit (OP)

Coworkers hired after me and before me told me what they make and it is much less. I pretend like im in their bracket as well.

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Ok-Chair-7320@reddit

Your manager might be knowing about your salary for the 1st time (as salaries might not be visible for middle management). Not every manager handles well the fact their direct reports make more money than them

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dbell@reddit

My feedback to my team during the yearly review cycles is - if you hear something here, good or bad, that you didn't her during the year during our one on ones, you need to call me out because I'm a bad manager.

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noshitbr0@reddit (OP)

I'm not sure how to even call him out. I did tell him this was unexpected and I believe was doing a really good job. He does hate me coming late and leaving early - hes never expressed this, ive read his facial expressions. But, i just dislike being in the office hours so I do 5. I do work from home outside of these

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Mundane-Charge-1900@reddit

You call him out by moving on to another job. The only thing that matters to upper management in terms of bad management in my experience is when the whole team or at least many people leave. Then it can’t be ignored.

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Main-Drag-4975@reddit

There’s a “thin green line” effect where managers default to protecting one another over individual employees.

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AccountExciting961@reddit

Sorry for being harsh, but someone has to tell you. Yes, your boss fucked up by delaying the criticism, but your poor rating is a criticism and you certainly do not seem to be open to it.

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CodelinesNL@reddit

I'm not buying his story one bit. It smells completely off. People here are extremely sensitive to sob stories about bad managers but only 2 comments from OP in and he's contradicting himself already.

When someone claims their manager "hates" them, it's always a red flag.

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noshitbr0@reddit (OP)

That's fair. I'm open to improving if im told what I've missed. I wish it was told before so I could immediately act on it and not have my bonus affected

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AccountExciting961@reddit

That is very understandable. Well, in that case - I recommend finding out what they want you to improve, and once you find out what that is - point out that if you knew it sooner you would have addressed it sooner. Also, (a bit more advanced politics here) - you can ask other people about your manager to assess whether your manager genuinely does not understand the impact of such delays or does not care. If the former - point out to them how much it hurt you both emotionally and professionally.

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chikamakaleyley@reddit

eh, i wouldn't say not open, still seems like OP is in a state of shock

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CodelinesNL@reddit

He does hate me coming late and leaving early

In your post you "busted ass" so hard you didn't even have time to hit the gym, but in this comment you say this and go on about hating being in the office?

I'm not buying your story one bit. You're looking for validation.

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UntestedMethod@reddit

Manager doesn't like me and plays favorites. I still tried hard to impress him. I love the job and don't want to quit, but feel really hurt by this.

Social and office politics will usually come into play during a career, especially when you're looking for promotions and leadership opportunities. I've heard it said that "likeability is the most important ability" when it comes to career and personal success. Trying hard to impress is a lot different than trying to connect and build trust on an interpersonal level.

He does hate me coming late and leaving early - hes never expressed this, ive read his facial expressions. But, i just dislike being in the office hours so I do 5h in the office. I do work from home outside of these

Fair but you gotta discuss that with your manager. Also be aware of how it looks to your teammates. A majority of people probably don't like being in the office and when they see you arrive late and leave early, it can be bad for morale. How much visibility is there that you're working from home outside the office hours?

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slopirate@reddit

Get in before him and leave after him. You say that you're busting your ass anyway, try busting it in the office and this will turn around for you.

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slopirate@reddit

woah woah woah what?? You said this came out of nowhere and was unexpected, but now you're saying that you only work five hour days in-office and you've known that he hates that??

You need to be honest with yourself about how your behavior contributed to this bad review.

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MountaintopCoder@reddit

I do the same, but I have asked my manager like 5 times if it's a problem

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lWinkk@reddit

You have a shit manager dude. Time only counts in jail.

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R2_SWE2@reddit

Hearing especially bad feedback for the first time during a review is terrible management. If a manager lets you do something poorly continuously for weeks or months without saying anything to correct it, then what are they even being paid for?

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pplmbd@reddit

I’ve been in both side of the same story, this is it.

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UXyes@reddit

You said it yourself that this manager plays favorites. Working yourself to death will not get you a promotion, being his favorite will. So either move on mate friends or start kissing ass if you can stomach it. But stop working yourself to death.

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spez_eats_nazi_ass@reddit

gonna guess he is getting pressure from his boss. All it takes is a nut job somewhere higher up in the chain for this kind of behavior to roll down hill. I’m seeing now at my own company. New ceo is a psychotic narcissist. Manages to usurp the old one who was responsible for founding the company and most of the success. Stock price stagnates- people are getting wild critical meeting phone calls at 5am on sundays, recalled from vacations, non sensical mergers. Pressure to “be visible” over output. I could go on. My boss had a meltdown about having your camera on at all times. After 7 years of “meh”. I told him to knock it off or (shut the fuck up reddit admin censor im not promoting violence) i would kick him in the balls in front of the entire team.

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Oakw00dy@reddit

You may just have a shitty manager but: Your success is not measured on how good you make yourself look but how good you make your manager look upstream. Have you been doing everything you can to help him reach his/her objectives? If so, then they're probably trying to smoke you out.

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noshitbr0@reddit (OP)

I will be totally honest here. There was apparently one instance I wasnt originally aware of. A last min feature i built before our product hit production. This feature was never originally promised; this was above and beyond. But since I volunteered and jumped ahead to do the work, apparently upper management gave him shit for not having that feature ready and expected it to be part of the first shipment. He told them that that was never expected to be part of it, but apparently somehow they gave him shit so it counts against me.

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Oakw00dy@reddit

Yeah that's an example where you made, albeit inadvertently, your manager look bad. That said, it's his failure, not yours, so that falls squarely into the shitty manager bucket.

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jmking@reddit

Sr Swe Bad Review for no reason

There's always a reason

New job, I'm one of the top paid employees on the team.

There it is. Company is probably forcing managers to stack rank and cut headcount for a round of layoffs/firings.

You cost a lot and you're one of the newest so you're the easiest to fire for the best recoup in budget.

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FetaMight@reddit

No offense, but your opening sentence drips of arrogance. Who introduces themselves with how much they earn??

I'm just guessing, but I'd wager you're doing fine on the job in technical terms but massive need to work on your soft skills.

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tiagocesar@reddit

OP's message history doesn't help either

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Andrea_Barghigiani@reddit

Man, I feel this. Getting "everything's fine" for 6 months and then a bad review at review time? That's not feedback, that's a setup.

I've been there...

New CTO joined the company in August. Three months of "all good mate" and even a bonus. Then, right before the new year, a meeting scheduled out of the blue. The classic "we don't need you anymore" speech.

It sucks.

On the manager side, document everything and consider a skip-level conversation. But here's the thing most people miss.

It's not enough to track what you did. You need to track why it mattered.

Most engineers I know keep some kind of brag document. The ones who actually get promoted? They don't write:

"Optimized the authentication flow"

They write:

"Cut password reset tickets by 50% by rebuilding the auth flow, saving the support team ~20 hours/week"

See the difference? First one is activity. Second one is impact.

There's actually a formula for this. Google's XYZ method: Accomplished X as measured by Y by doing Z. I wrote a full breakdown on how to apply it specifically to engineering wins, but the key takeaway is always this: impact is the only language that moves the needle in calibration.

The trick is doing it as things happen. Not 6 months later when review time hits and you've forgotten everything. Because you will forget. We all do.

I got so frustrated with losing track of my own wins that I actually started building something to make this whole process easier. But even a Notes file works. Start now, while your wins are fresh.

So when the next review comes, you walk in with evidence, not vibes.

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Jazzlike-Potato-8548@reddit

the spacing is kinda weird

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HoratioWobble@reddit

I recently had a similar experience, except I was fired (although I wasn't busting my ass, I was working normally)

They fired me because I hadn't upskilled the rest of the team on a project we started a week before I was fired.

I had no 1:1s or negative feedback and actually had a call with the CEO maybe a month before who said everyone was really pleased with me.

About 3 weeks before, my manager started looking at my LinkedIn every few days. They were clearly looking for a reason to fire me and that's what they came up with.

Some companies and managers just suck, it's politics and honestly if that's their approach you should start looking for a new job, it's not worth the risk waiting another six months for feedback and getting fired.

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Illustrious_Car6641@reddit

reminds me of that one episode from black mirror where everything was just slightly off

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tankmode@reddit

your manager sucks and probably has some little mafia mentality going within the team, you being the newcomer/outsider, youre just tee’d up to be bottom of the stack for his favorites

youre not getting promo out of senior in 6 months. its probably more of a multi years long thing

overall this is a pretty dangerous situation and i would look to gtfo

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noshitbr0@reddit (OP)

Yeah. Do you recommend trying to move to other teams or nah?

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Inner_Butterfly1991@reddit

"I had been busting ass to the point there was no balance left in my life. Didn't even have time to hit the gym. I was working all the time."

This is never the reason for a promotion literally ever whether the company is good or bad btw, and honestly if the company is good this would be a red flag not a reason to promote you. This is called burning yourself out and you're helping neither yourself nor your employer.

The answer to your actual question is you need to understand why your manager doesn't like you and if that's something you can change. Regardless though, and I've learned this the hard way as well, you need to be more blunt in asking for feedback. It's human nature to not want to bring up problems, and if you have a good manager they'll give you feedback without asking, but my experience is you need to ask regularly and bluntly. So say you have a meeting and your manager says they have nothing for you. Your response needs to be "so you think I'm performing at the next level? What do I need to do for a promotion? What can I improve to solidify that promotion?" It doesn't matter how you ask but you need to be blunt and you need to make it clear that if they have no feedback for you, it means you're expecting that you're crushing it. Instead of assuming no bad feedback = you're crushing it, make your manager say it, make them decide between saying "you're crushing it" and "here's some feedback to improve on".

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noshitbr0@reddit (OP)

This is good feedback. I have been blunt and asked for improvement feedback. I've asked if theres something he'd like to see from me he isn't currently seeing. Never had anything there. I have asked him about next level but I can be more direct and blunt.

I've asked him when he will give me my own team. I want to lead and he promised me my own team too. A month later he changes his tune saying none of that is happening.

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HowTheStoryEnds@reddit

Time to get another boss.

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chikamakaleyley@reddit

hell yeah this is it, all of it.

its about really understanding what the expectation of you is, and if there's feedback that you don't agree with, you have every right to say, "I don't understand because i've been doing ABC consistently and every check-in we've had, i've been given no indication that it was problematic"

Right? because that's what you've shared with us in your post

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PM_40@reddit

Get another job, loyalty is overrated.

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chikamakaleyley@reddit

there's like, a lot missing here. Obviously you're not trying to reveal too much but...

there at least has to be some reason to rate you poorly, and i'd gather that you didn't agree with those notes - so, how did you respond?

The way the interaction is described it sounds like he just handed you a post-it-note

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noshitbr0@reddit (OP)

We havent had the conversation yet. Im just so upset at the rating itself. There are no notes describing what I was missing. I guess he will tell me more. He wants me to go and read his mind and be ahead of the curve re: whats coming next. But he doesn't keep me posted either on product changes. Its a high pressure environment. How am I supposed to anticipate things and prioritize work without being in the know?

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chikamakaleyley@reddit

per your other comment -

even if being present was an issue, that's only part of the whole review right? I wouldn't concern yourself with this so long as your work is getting done and delivered in a timely manner

I don't know anything about your MO at work and quality of it, I imagine you are what you say you are.

but based on what you just described it sounds like he wants you to be more pro-active and really, i don't think that's too much to ask of a Senior. Anticipation, prioritizing, those are traits that I think Seniors have in general

it sounds like even if you are that, he doesn't recognize it or its not meeting some standard, though its certainly your manager's fault for not communicating with you.

I'm leaning on the side of he's not good at managing & lack of communication. I wonder what the interaction is btwn him and other engineers

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noshitbr0@reddit (OP)

I believe I have been proactive. There are things I'm straight up unaware of because he doesn't include me in those meetings. I can certainly improve and be more proactive if he tells me what changes have been decided on

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chikamakaleyley@reddit

sorry what i mean is, it sounds like what's expected of you hasn't been clearly communicated with you

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GlobalCurry@reddit

> I'm one of the top paid employees on the team.

They're probably setting up to PIP you out even if you exceeded requirements

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paerius@reddit

I used to be like you where I asked for constructive criticism, hoping that it would show that I'm always trying to improve myself. Instead what it did was force my manager to find nitpicky things to laser focus on, rather than also acknowledging my strengths.

I hope this isn't the case for you, but I've seen managers do the "hire to fire" scheme, where they have a quota to let go and they hire a sacrificial lamb.

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noshitbr0@reddit (OP)

Wtf better not have hired me as the sacrificial lamb 😡

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Dialed_Digs@reddit

Why would he want to promote the guy doing all the work?

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The_Big_Sad_69420@reddit

one of the top paid employees

Hm. They trying to cut costs…?