> The second mistake they made is assume that companies would prioritize being lean and trimming the mediocre & bottom 5%. There are other considerations, combined productivity is more important than having individual superstars working on the shiniest features.
I'll add a perverse incentive too that I've talked about elsewhere – hiring is a goddamn mess right now.
If I trim the bottom 5% of my org (in my case, 2-3 engineers), I may not get a backfill for them. Or I'll have to drop their level from L5->L4 to make finance happy, or hire overseas or convert a FTE to a contractor.
I also have to be ready for the potential of RIFs happening, which means having an instantly identifiable bottom 5% puts me at the advantage of being ready when my boss says "give me your names".
So the time value of a staffed engineer is way higher right now than it might be in a few months. It'll never be zero, because proactively managing people out makes all of our managers happy. But for now, I definitely need my low performers.
I'll add a perverse incentive too that I've talked about elsewhere – hiring is a goddamn mess right now.
If I trim the bottom 5% of my org (in my case, 2-3 engineers), I may not get a backfill for them. Or I'll have to drop their level from L5->L4 to make finance happy, or hire overseas or convert a FTE to a contractor.
I also have to be ready for the potential of RIFs happening, which means having an instantly identifiable bottom 5% puts me at the advantage of being ready when my boss says "give me your names".
So the time value of a staffed engineer is way higher right now than it might be in a few months. It'll never be zero, because proactively managing people out makes all of our managers happy. But for now, I definitely need my low performers.