You don't have performance reviews as a pilot? Maybe that should concern me next time I'm flying
For example at a previous tech company the levels were something like this (going by memory, not exact):
1 - Fails to meet expectations.
2 - Meets all expectations, delivers on time with only occasional mistakes.
3 - Exceeds expectations, delivers ahead of schedule with better quality than asked.
4 - Consistently invents new technologies and promotes them within the organization with demonstrable financial gain to the company.
5 - Invented the field (literally, that's what the description said!)
So unless you're one of a few people in the world (who didn't work for that company), it's impossible to be rated a 5. A 4 is also nearly impossible, sure maybe once a decade you might achieve that but nobody on earth does that every year.
Doing your job solidly well is clearly a 2, but a 2 is also seen as a straight road to RIF. In what other industry is that so?
So basically everyone is competing for 3 (mediocre bonus) or 2 (RIF). Sure, a few 4 and 5 get handed out to the friends of the VP but not for meeting that impossible criteria, only through politics.
Salary in tech are so high that even with a mediocre bonus, it’s still a good life.
For the last two years, I aimed for just meet expectations. Easy job, no stress, just taking some time to relax.
Last few months, I decided to continue progressing in my career so I started taking more responsibilities.
The point is that work is not linear, it’s fine to relax a bit or even downgrade your role.
Because if you do a solid good job that's a 2, but a couple 2s fairly quickly gets you on the RIF train to getting fired. Which is nuts. So everyone has to outcompete their team trying to get those 3s. And the manager is put in the nasty position of having to rotate the 2s (which they must hand out since there's always quotas) among the team so that hopefully nobody gets RIFd while still meeting the quotas.
(Assuming a 5 point scale here, which is fairly common, but I've seen other scales but the same principles apply.)
My partner was a manager at the G of faang for many years and twice a year the whole month was blocked off for 60-80 hour weeks just to fill endless review paperwork. And their employees spend all of the six months between reviews scheming ways to fill that next round of paperwork. It's all a monumental waste of time, effort and cause of unnecessary stress for everyone.
None of this nonsense exists in other industries, at least as far as I know from talking about it with my circle of connections in other professions such as law, medicine, accounting.
I used to dread every performance review in tech.
