Microsoft Annual Review 2011
It has become a tradition for folks to share their review numbers to help get a sense of what's happening and how your numbers stack up. This year we have a new challenge of working through an entirely new review system and (for engineering) a pay-raise for the levels most at risk of departing for greener pastures. I know folks on the edge of leaving who have been willing to hang on to see what happens.
What's a good format? How about something like the following, obfuscated as you wish:
- L# (promo'd?)
- Bucket (1+, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
- Merit % (/Promo %) / Engineering?
- Bonus $K
- Stock $K
- Optional comments about Division / Group, discipline, impression of review
If you like the review system, I'd really like to understand why (something better than, "whee, I got a 1+," please) and I'd encourage commenters to not slam the positive perspectives. I'm not too pleased with the new system at all because I feel very good engineers in my org are getting lower results because of a very strict curve. I'm probably breaking the rules in that if an excellent person got a 3 I'm having my folks be truthful in writing review feedback that, yes, they did an excellent job, just when it comes to the 3 realize that more people did even more excellent work and what it is they need to do to step it up (or, you know, start connecting recruiters with all of those competing 1s and 2s). Same thing for 4s who are doing a good job and not really having any performance problem. HR would prefer me to write the text of the review according to the verbiage of the ranking system, but screw that. I did that years ago when people got a trended 3.0 and I'm still scrubbing those dark spots of demoralizing compliance off my soul.
How do you feel, whether you're a manager writing reviews this year and comparing results to last year, or an IC trying to make sense of your compensation and recognition?
1,309 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 401 – 600 of 1309 Newer› Newest»Yeah, We hire winners and make them loosers.
How about everybody who dislikes Microsoft's toxic culture, HR practices, and executive management vote with their wallets by not buying Windows 8 and Office 15?
Does anybody still buy those? When they were $8 at the company store I bought Windows and Office for myself and all my friends and family. When they were $30, I bought copies for friends and family as long as they paid me back. When they raised the price again I gave up and told everybody to just save their money and use OpenOffice--works just as well for regular user stuff.
Talk about being penny wise and pound foolish, Microsoft. Nickel and diming me for products that I worked on. Not a good way to engender loyalty.
To the M@#ru$^%t Board of Directors and the M@#ru$^%t Community:
I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as M@#ru$^%t’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know.
Unfortunately for you, that day has NOT come YET but don't loose faith !
I hereby do NOT resign as CEO of M@#ru$^%t and you better take seriously your Jobs !
Stephenson
L62 (mid-year promo)
Bucket: 2
Merit: 3.9%
Bonus: 13%
Stock: 130%
Was expecting a 1 because of the huge impact I made across the year (acknowledged at VP level of several cross-boundary orgs).
So I asked manager why I didn't make into the top 20% and pissed off by what he said. He said 2 was already top 20% and 1 was for top 5%! I was stunned and asked him again and again, even mentioning mini-msft (I was off corpnet and wasn't able to look up the official link on HRweb) and he insisted the ratios.
What a coward explanation!
I am wondering how HR feels about the validity of this calibration since manager didn't seem to get the ratios correctly!
In 2011 if you put your heart and soul into Microsoft, you are a class-A chump indeed.
Microsoft is a giant sow, and we're all piglets suckling at her money teats. Your goal should be to suck as much delicious cash milk as you can before you're eaten by one of the hungry hogs hanging around the slop trough.
It's an ugly image, but it's the world Steve and Lisa created. I've been there long enough that I've figured out how to game the system to get maximum cash for minimum effort, mostly because Microsoft stopped rewarding me for loyalty and effort years ago and we entered into a basically hostile arrangement... my employer is my enemy, but at the moment the stalemate is lucrative so I stay.
And yes, there are thousands of me at the company... and virtually every single Partner is merely a piglet with stronger suction than his brothers.
Best post on Mini all year. Truer words were never written. I've been laughing all day. Thanks.
Yeah, We hire winners and make them loosers.
Thursday, August 25, 2011 12:57:00 AM
You are kidding yourself. We used to hire winners. The rubbish of late certainly does not meet my definition of winners, just a bunch of me too's. At least they can take up the space on the bottom the curve.
"I'm probably breaking the rules in that if an excellent person got a 3 I'm having my folks be truthful in writing review feedback that, yes, they did an excellent job, just when it comes to the 3 realize that more people did even more excellent work and what it is they need to do to step it up (or, you know, start connecting recruiters with all of those competing 1s and 2s)."
Mini, you're not breaking the rules at all, you're pushing the exact bullshit HR wants you to push.
If this is the message you're giving your people, you're part of the problem.
The curve is a ghost throughout the year because you never know what it is until calibration -- so there's no way you can tell your people what they can do to get a 1 or a 2, since it's a constantly moving target until the numbers are actually assigned.
It's very effective for forcing people to do exceptional work the first one or two times, until they figure-out that "excellent work" is a constantly moving target with a meaningless definition. "yeah, I know I said you were a rockstart, but it turns-out everyone else is MORE of a rockstar! Surprise!"
Bullshit.
It's a fundamentally broken system, and there's no way to message the situation you describe in a way that's fair or just. "Yeah, I know you've exceeded all of your goals for the year, but it turns-out you didn't exceed them quite *enough*... of course I only found out this was the case during the calibration meeting, so there's no way you could have done anything about it."
It's a bullshit system, and it doesn't matter what you say when you deliver the message... it's a no-win game.
"Have you found honey? Eat only what you need, lest you have excess and vomit it." Prov. 25:16
Too many of us have found the honey of Microsoft money and keep eating and eating, even though it's making us sick. The culture has become toxic, the company's competitive prospects dismal, and most of us know the only reason we're really here is because we're too lazy or scared to find something else, and we're addicted to the money. I, for one, have had it. I ended up delivering two 4s and a 5 to people on my team this year--maybe one of the fours deserved, the others not. I feel like sub-human crap, but I "owned it" when giving the reviews, like the good corporate drone I've become.
This Sept. 15th, I'm out. I'd rather have my soul.
For those of you who want to transfer, here's the poop based on your review scores.
5 - Wipe off the dust from your resume, quick! You're being transferred out, start looking now.
4 - You're stuck internally. You can try harder for next year, but make sure your resume is up to date. You're going to need it.
3 - Make really good friends with management on other teams. The only way you can transfer is if you know someone of power in your next team.
2 - You're free to move about the company.
1 - Why do you want to transfer? You obviously have your nose up the correct ass.
Too many of us have found the honey of Microsoft
Honey? I thought it was "delicious cash milk"?
RE PMs - it is really tough job to be feature PM. In a word, a great feature PM is a "visionary" - they can define and sell a vision of a feature across a team of people and get built and shipped. Accomplishing this requires a broad set of skills - presentation & speaking skills, driving & planning projects, influence skills, understanding the competition & customers... Additionally, good feature PMs have really strong technical & decent coding skills - they can write a prototype, define an API surface, or dig into an existing product to understand its technical details.
In my experience, I've seen a lot of PMs lack the technical skills. In many cases, the "PM" title means different things, often more akin to a "project manager" than "feature PM". Given that the msft titles don't differentiate types of PMs, I've seen people qualified for the "project manager" roles move into "feature PM" roles, and the result is horrific.
I'll take a good feature PM any day. But all too often, we have a schedule pusher/note taker being asked to define a feature.
Massive waste of Microsoft's "delicious cash milk" (or is it "honey"?)
Plus one on request for list of non flattened orgs, please share...
Bucket 3 going up. Bucket 5 going down. Lead lied through his teeth and dumped all of his failures on me. Had no decency to own the message at all. Humiliating and insulting. After 10 years of hard work and loyalty I am being kicked out. Like another person said, I've brought it to myself by not following my interests sooner. Hope this is a wake up call for others not to make the same mistake.
Bucket 3 going up. Bucket 5 going down.
Nice. The person closest to evaluate your work gives you a 3 and some moron up the chain managing the curve gives you a five because you weren't pals with all of his butt buddies in the calibration meeting. Nice system. Screw them. Don't look back. Revenge is best served cold.
L65, was A/70 last year, getting a 4 this year after being told that I was tracking to a "solid 3" all year long.
Why? Damned if I know, according to my L67 manager the process was "patently unfair".
RE PMs - it is really tough job to be feature PM. In a word, a great feature PM is a "visionary" - they can define and sell a vision of a feature across a team of people and get built and shipped. Accomplishing this requires a broad set of skills - presentation & speaking skills, driving & planning projects, influence skills, understanding the competition & customers... Additionally, good feature PMs have really strong technical & decent coding skills - they can write a prototype, define an API surface, or dig into an existing product to understand its technical details.
I'm sure most PMs THINK they have these skills but the ones I've met who have any worthwhile understanding of the competition or customers or technology are few and far between. You might read the tech news about the competition but do you actually USE it? Do you have a Mac at home? iPhone? Android? Do you use Google Docs? PlayStation? etc. Because almost all Microsoft employees I know (including PMs) just use Microsoft stuff at home and at work and the only "customers" they talk to are already Microsoft customers. It's little wonder when the CEO goes around fake-smashing employees' iPhones and Bill Gates won't allow iPods at home, though.
Who in their right mind would compare Ballmer to Hitler? That's ridiculous and offensive! He's obviously Göring.
Or Wilhelm Keitel, (Lakaitel) The Nodding Ass.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/wilhelm_keitel.htm
"In India, Women are never given 4s or 5s as they are retained at 3s or higher ratings in the name of diversity. Also gender bias and racism is far higher out in India..Specially if you are non Telugu."
WTF? What is this got to do with Telugu or non-Telugu?
Bloody Indian mafioso. I left India about a decade back and managed to avoid Indian manager so far. My luck ran out recently. After a couple of years in Microsft, after the recent reorg I have an Indian PM and PM lead. (I am a dev)
In order to establish their territory they have already made my life miserable and we have not even started working yet.
This year I had decided to leave if I I do not get 1. Now I have decide to leave unless I get a 1+, it is just not worth it.
In the past, I used to be unhappy when my colleague used to talk about "Indian mafia" now I understand what she was saying :(
I apologize to everyone here for what I’m about to say. I just have to get it off my chest after the worst year of hell in my career. It’s aimed at Microsoft leadership along with my lying idiotic lazy pompous fuckbag of a manager and the clueless kool-aid guzzling head-in-the-sand chicken shit director he reports to.
FUCK MICROSOFT!!!!
Thank you.
I just sent out IRRs to my team. I'd say some 20-30% are not properly reflecting. My 2s got 3, my 3s got 4 and I had to give a 5 to a guy who is really 3 or 4 - but someone has to eat crap, right?
No I have to "own" the message and deliver it with confidence.
One way or the other, my confidence in MS is fading - money is good though and it looks nice on CV so I might stick around for a while. Just must remember to jump ship before I completely loose my soul.
I can't believe I gave 13 years of my life to this place. After reading through these comments, I thank GOD that I got out when I did three years ago. There are other jobs out there...you will be fine outside of MSft when you are finally broken and ruined. Keep that in mind.
L64
Bucket 1
Bonus $~20K
Stock $~50K
New base $153K
What's the comp ratio of my new base salary?
5s are used exclusively to deliver a "you probably aren't the right fit for Microsoft unless you dramatically improve in x, y and z areas" message...
Ba. Lo. Ney. Read the comments here. Some are made up, I'm sure, but plenty of them ring true with what I've seen happening.
That "you suck" message may get grafted on after the fact (depending on the level of weasel-ness of the managers involved), but it's a curve, pure and simple, and whatever wiggle room there was in the past was wiped out with the new system.
You can have a team of "rock stars" and the appropriate percentage of them, in their peer groups, are "5s".
By sheer luck some actual bad performers who shouldn't work here might be the ones receiving those low scores, but equally likely is they are going to people who, if they moved a few hundred yards in some random direction to another team, could easily have gotten a much better number.
This isn't a secret anymore. The new system makes this very explicit, and at least in the limited scope of what I could observe, it was enforced, and in some cases was brutal.
I want to say, to those of you who want to leave but are worried:
There really, truly is life outside of MS. My hubby was RIFed last year after over 20 years, and only after the escalating stress made him a very ill man (leaving us with a $2K/mo bill for COBRA's family plan and no income for quite a while to pay it with).
But you know what? Things got better. He's working again, making more than he ever made at MS. People see - and just as important - genuinely appreciate the skills he brings to his new team. Nobody is giving him inexplicable and sometimes insane "work" to do that doesn't match his skills or have anything to do with his job description, and then saying "You're a level 6X, you should be able to do this stuff." Nope. They're saying "Can you pull off this miracle?" And when he does, there is much rejoicing.
Life outside is so much better. I wake every day with a sense of gratitude - and with a happy, healthy hubby who enjoys what he's doing.
Is manager supposed to tell you the MY bucket as well? I was never told the results of MY review.
L65
2
Bonus: $38k
Stock: 51k
MBD
I quit.
So after some digging, I wonder if whole teams are on a curve against others. Looks like pure revenue - the groups that made money were allowed to hand out 1's, the rest not. I'm not certain of this, of course, but so far it's turning out accurately.
For instance, has anyone in Bing, Azure, O365, any online group gotten a good score? Would love to know that.
Some folks I've talked to have been told by a nervous manager "I couldn't get anyone over a 3" - and yes, that's a bad manager, but we seem to have a lot of those.
Problem is, once the 3 number is on your record, you're toast. It doesn't come off. Get out as quickly as you can.
Bucket: 5
Prettymuch broadsided me.
Midyear had a few areas for improvement, which were highlighted by my managers verbose comments as being addressed thoroughly.
Got more accomplished this year than in my three years here thus far.
My manager and skip-levels both said the same thing for the following question:
me: "If everyone fulfills their committments, then what are we judged on when stack ranked?"
both: "Well, the committments are very important, but there are also other factors."
me: "I want to find the path to 1 - how do I get there?"
both: "It is not possible to just tell you how, you have to just really be going places."
Ok, so go to my boss's BBQ next year. Don't skip the team bowling. Show up earlier, and still stay till 8PM.
Gotcha.
With the current review system, there is no big difference for 75% of people unless you got 1+ or 4, 5. So does it really matter to get that 18% of bonus and 180% of stocks, or being an average one and also get 10% and 100%? What's the big deal! I will have much more time to take care my family and stay healthy.
"along with my lying idiotic lazy pompous fuckbag of a manager and the clueless kool-aid guzzling head-in-the-sand chicken shit director he reports to."
Ditto, only need to substitue the director above to Windows PM GPM, how many are there? They are both male, I hope they figure out who they are, piece of sh*t. Let's be even more specific, "work" in the hardware area who will not be delivering the planned release at Build8! next month in L.A., I guess neither of them got a "5", they both should be fired on the spot! Look at what is not updated at W8 PDC and who are responsible, everyone can fugure out who pair of GPM/Lead are, piece of sh*t.
"I feel like sub-human crap, but I "owned it" when giving the reviews, like the good corporate drone I've become.
This Sept. 15th, I'm out. I'd rather have my soul."
Props for whoever posted above. Contrast s/he with the Windows PM pair below:
""along with my lying idiotic lazy pompous fuckbag of a manager and the clueless kool-aid guzzling head-in-the-sand chicken shit director he reports to."
Ditto, only need to substitue the director above to Windows PM GPM, how many are there? They are both male, I hope they figure out who they are, piece of sh*t. Let's be even more specific, "work" in the hardware area who will not be delivering the planned release at Build8! next month in L.A., I guess neither of them got a "5", they both should be fired on the spot! Look at what is not updated at W8 PDC and who are responsible, everyone can figure out who pair of GPM/Lead are, piece of sh*t."
Another clue: this pair of sh*t both drive German cars, hey, there are enough clues here right? StevenSi, do the names jumped out to you? What's our developer story? How much damage has this pair done? Please don't tell me that neither of them get a "4" or "5"! If you don't know their names, ask JulieLar, I hope you two can figure out who they are, better yet, you have fired both of them!
a 5 here, was RIFed on the day of the review.
Here is my experience of getting fired from MSFT after about 7 years of service.
Sharing it here because I think it will help others.
Last review : A/70
MYCD: lowest 10%. Said “ job is at risk”
Almost everyweek after that manager wrote in email - “ not meeting expectations”.
On the day of the review, manager said let’s meet in the conference room.
In the conference room, HR person was present.
Manager mechanically said that here is your review and today is your last day of employment at MSFT, you are not meeting the performance requirement of your level and hence we are terminating your employment. Please submit your card key, do you have any questions.
(very humane) HR said you will have your COBRA insurance if you get into an accident while going home today, and have surgery of say $50K. I asked for this information in writing, they didn’t have the paperwork.
I asked for the termination letter, they didn’t have that either, but they said they will print it out.
HR said that if because of this termination visa issue forces you to leave the country, then MSFT can arrange for the tickets.
Manager said how long will you take to pack your stuff, else if you want we can mail your stuff to your home address.
Manager asked, how would you like this to be communicated to your team members, by default we just say this person has left. or else you can add something like “person xxx left because of family/personal reasons”.
I asked can I meet my teammates to say farewell to them, manager said “no”, it may cause anxiety in them.
Then I packed my stuff and manager walked me off to the exit. Manager did mention that as per my HR file I do have the option of coming back.
"along with my lying idiotic lazy pompous fuckbag of a manager and the clueless kool-aid guzzling head-in-the-sand chicken shit director he reports to."
Was he an Indian manager?
I had an Indian manager who was more interested in promoting fellow Indians than citizens.
As soon as this country gets rid of the H-1B program, the better off we will all be.
I haven't had my AR meeting yet and I'm losing sleep over it. 61 PM, coming up on 3 years in level (ulp!)
My year was very mixed. The first half I thought I was doing well, but when we got a new GPM in the org he told me that my commitments were below level so achieving them was no good. I had had some mental health problems which eventually led to an "underperforming" message about halfway through the year. (Work environment certainly exacerbated them.)
At that point I took a 3 month STD leave to get things sorted out, and I did so. Came back and delivered 3 months of fantastic work on a whole bunch of in-team and cross-group projects with a decent (but not terrific) amount of visibility.
Are they likely to give me a 5 when my current performance is great? Wouldn't they have fired me already, or at least stopped giving me new projects? I look at the other PM2s in the org and I've got more done in 3 months than some of them have in a year..
At an all hands about a year back, JulieLar said that reviews should evaluate based on time in the office - i.e. I should be graded against expectations for 9 months work, not 12. But I have no way of knowing whether that will actually happen or not.
My relationship with my GPM is great - with the lead and Director have gone up and down over time. I have regular positive contact with my GPM's other directs.
Should I be packing up my valuables?
L62 -> L63
Bucket: 2
Merit: 4%
Promo: 8%
R&D: 5%
Stock2Cash: $7K
Bonus: 13%
Stock: 130%
Base: ~$130K
Dev, somewhere in Windows.
Many thanks to the "delicious cash milk" poster, I think this gem should be on mini's Hall of Fame.
a 5 here, was RIFed on the day of the review.
I keep seeing this RIF euphemism coming up. It's not RIF'ing, this is firing.
No WARN required, this is where the documentation trail comes in handy for the HR if legal issues arise.
I keep seeing this RIF euphemism coming up. It's not RIF'ing, this is firing.
Sometimes it's not "firing". Sometimes it's being given a choice of "if you choose to quit voluntarily, it won't go on your PERMANENT RECORD as being fired" and the poor ex-employee, in shock, nods and signs. It's still involuntary departure, but it's not necessarily firing. It all depends on which side of the coin you're looking at. Thus, perhaps, 'RIF'.
By sheer luck some actual bad performers who shouldn't work here might be the ones receiving those low scores, but equally likely is they are going to people who, if they moved a few hundred yards in some random direction to another team, could easily have gotten a much better number.
Yes. This.
There are many things about Microsoft culture and the MS review system that are maddening, but this is one of the worst for me; the pure randomness of it all. It's not deterministic, it's not even remotely predictable, and your results depend almost entirely on being at the right place at the right time (or not, as the case may be). If you're one of the "right place right time" folks then you probably don't see anything wrong with the system. It's working great for you! Then one of these years you'll accidentally be in the wrong place at the wrong time and oops, you got fed to the meat grinder. So sorry about your career. Oh well, there's lots more people waiting to take your place.
Level: 64
Bucket: 1
Merit%: 4.80%
Stock to Base: 1.09%
R&D Increase: 5.00%
Bonus: $25,000 (180% of target)
Stock: $45,000 (180% of target)
New Base Salary ~$154,000
Role: IC
Genuinely enjoy the work that I do; feel lucky to be rewarded quite well.
Sometimes it's not "firing". Sometimes it's being given a choice of "if you choose to quit voluntarily, it won't go on your PERMANENT RECORD as being fired"
Your record at MS would already be damaged by the time. There's no other "PERMANENT RECORD", last time I checked DMV doesn't keep track of this :) What other "PERMANENT RECORD" are you talking about?
RIF is also known as a layoff, the situation you describe is not even remotely it.
am i totally screwed if i get a 4 at L61 with all A70 in previous reviews. Can i move internally ?
I'm another one of those people who had achieve/exceeds at mid year, and got a 5. Was told by my boss that I got screwed in the calibrations. Joy.
As a jazz guy, here is my take on what Cole Porter would say to you losers:
Got a one
Got a two
Tell me just … what should I do?
Got a 3
Got a 4
Perhaps, I should look for the door
My God I got a 5
And yet ... I feel alive
My decision is made
I’m in ca-reer grave
Got a 5, got a 5, got … a FIVE!. ( We really mean it … he … got … a five)
Bah bah bah bah bah bahh … Oh Yeahh!
Let me know if you need the sheet music. It is in F major for all you horn players out there.
2 (well 3) words: Dunning–Kruger effect
L64 in Windows
Bucket 3
Bonus 100%
Stock 100%
New base $152K
I was expecting a 1 or a 2 at the least based on the impact I made. There is 0 appreciation for any innovative work in this team. My skip level is an expert in making you feel like shit when you try to promote yourself.
L61 - promoted at midyear
Bucket 3
Merit increase: 2.55%
Bonus $~9K
Stock $~6500
New base $98K
Total comp: ~$102K
I know mini doesn't allow any criticism of a particular ethnicity when he is moderating.
Can someone start a new blog where people can freely discuss complaints against various ethnicities and genders - Indian, white, black, Asian, women etc - and post the link here?
11:01 AM:
"I apologize to everyone here for what I’m about to say. I just have to get it off my chest after the worst year of hell in my career. It’s aimed at Microsoft leadership along with my lying idiotic lazy pompous fuckbag of a manager and the clueless kool-aid guzzling head-in-the-sand chicken shit director he reports to.
FUCK MICROSOFT!!!!
Thank you.
"
Whoever you are, I love you :-).
And +1.
Didn't get a 5, but I didn't deserve the rating I got.
I want to leave Microsoft finally. Didn't get a 5 but pretty sure I will get close next year when the 4s and 5s are gone.
But I don't know where to go! Facebook, Google - honestly who else? You work like an ass at Facebook. Google pays a 60-100% bonus. Amazon: not carrying a pager 24x7. Would love some solid advice on a company that will pay me relocation and pay me as much.
"Can someone start a new blog where people can freely discuss complaints against various ethnicities and genders - Indian, white, black, Asian, women etc - and post the link here?"
My God, that's horrible.
This is how Bell Labs did it in its last days. Every team had 4 people, they were stack-ranked, and every so often the last guy was let go. He could have been a solid performer, it didn't matter. You don't do global curving.
So team sizes went from 6 to 5, then 5 to 4, then 4 to 3. That's when I left.
L60
Bucket: 3
Merit: 5.5%
R&D: 5%
Stock2Base: $1250
Bonus: 10%
Stock: 100%
Was expecting a same 12% R&D raise of 59~60 band in Redmond. Didn't know this part would be different in other country.
me again (61) -
forgot to mention: protected demographic
RIF is also known as a layoff, the situation you describe is not even remotely it.
Then I have misunderstood the definition of RIF as used here. Someone who gets a 5 and is marched to the door the day he gets his review...this doesn't look like a 'layoff' to me, and it doesn't look like (and clearly in many cases isn't) being fired for cause. It looks like it's usually 'being managed out'. And I always thought layoffs had to do with money-saving measures taken by companies during slow seasons, where the person may be eligible for re-hire when business picks back up.
So what does 'RIF' mean, if it doesn't apply to the situation I describe: you got a bad review, 'quit volutarily or we fire you'.
Those fucking Indian fucks Microsoft keeps importing from India are truly the worst. I am an Indian by birth but I didn't do an inter-continental transfer. Do the morons not realize the standards in India are far lower and a 63 in India = 61 here? Why would you import managers and leads from there, specifically? The dumbheads don't have any manners, don't understand the culture, would do anything to promote a fellow Indian and are usually incompetent! These fools come on L1s and get queued for priority Green Cards.
Now, why don't we do things the right way? Interview whoever from whichever country, hold the same standards, bring him at the level he deserves and belongs to. Please please please - just don't import a lead from India as a lead at the same level here. I am yet to see one that deserves it.
I know mini doesn't allow any criticism of a particular ethnicity when he is moderating.
Can someone start a new blog where people can freely discuss complaints against various ethnicities and genders - Indian, white, black, Asian, women etc - and post the link here?
Ummm...have you used the Internet lately?
L63 Dev
Bucket: 3
Merit: 2.55%
R&D: 5%
Stock2Cash: $4K
Bonus: 10%
Stock: 100%
Base: ~$130K
No major surprises here. Would estimate that I was borderline 3/2 at midyear and near the high end of 3 at review. I get the impression that the calibration meetings in our group were at least somewhat reasonable.
Getting to the top of the stack for L63 and up is definitely a different ball game from <=L62, but management is providing really good feedback and the opportunity for continued growth is there in my group, at least as far as L64. I will say that none of the ICs in our group have managed to succeed at L65, though.
+1 on "delicious cash milk". I still can't stop laughing hours later...
"Microsoft is a giant sow, and we're all piglets suckling at her money teats. Your goal should be to suck as much delicious cash milk as you can before you're eaten by one of the hungry hogs hanging around the slop trough."
My personal analogy has been that Microsoft is a rotting carcass. I am a jackal feeding of the decaying flesh. I will do this until the vultures crowd me out.
Sadly, it really doesn't even send a message. The poll is *totelly useless*, and execs just use it to navel-gaze. There are so many teams with poll numbers that have been in the toilet for years, and nothing ever gets done. Not worth the effort of filling the thing out.
Boy is that the truth. My manager and my skip had terrible poll numbers this year, especially WRT morale and intent to stay. They went on and on about how shocking this was and how fixing things was top priority. When I left the company, it was a chance for them to get honest, no-punches-pulled feedback from me and ... tumbleweeds. My manager said two sentences to me between my resignation and exit, and my skip was nowhere to be found. Busy writing me off as good attrition no doubt.
"My personal analogy has been that Microsoft is a rotting carcass. I am a jackal feeding of the decaying flesh. I will do this until the vultures crowd me out."
Have you had your review yet? Maybe the review vultures are already pecking at your eyeballs.
"Getting to the top of the stack for L63 and up is definitely a different ball game from <=L62, but management is providing really good feedback and the opportunity for continued growth is there in my group, at least as far as L64."
Is there such a big jump from 62 to 63? I thought people were promoted across bands only if they would be successful in the new band.
Cole Porter, American jazz icon, right here for your dining and dancing pleasure.
There seems to be a significant cognitive dissonance at play here. RIF means a 'reduction in force', meaning you are, well, FUCKED, as we used to say in the 40's before I was killed in an unfortunate plane crash. That is to say that your manager decided you are no longer required to hold up your end of the plank.
This is somewhat different to being fired for incompetence, malfeasance, or shitting in SteveB's hat. And why would a bald guy wear a hat? The prior question was rhetorical, thus not requiring an answer. But thanks for reading thus far.
Anyway my point, such as it is, is that if you poor unfortunate fucking bastards cannot understand that WARN is about mass layoffs, while getting fired is about MSFT's desire of getting rid of you for any reason or no reason at all, I am amazed. And the previous paragraph was intended entirely to sound like Michael Caine. Know what I mean, sunshine? :)
It simply can't fit any reasonable definition of 'Reduction in Force' if your group needs to fill your vacated spot with somebody - an internal hire, for instance, or barring that a new hire - because your group needs 10 (or 20, or 60) people. That's not a reduction, that's just rearranging the deck chairs.
Cole Porter, American jazz icon, right here for your dining and dancing pleasure.
There seems to be a significant cognitive dissonance at play here. RIF means a 'reduction in force', meaning you are, well, FUCKED, as we used to say in the 40's before I was killed in an unfortunate plane crash. That is to say that your manager decided you are no longer required to hold up your end of the plank.
This is somewhat different to being fired for incompetence, malfeasance, or shitting in SteveB's hat. And why would a bald guy wear a hat? The prior question was rhetorical, thus not requiring an answer. But thanks for reading thus far.
Anyway my point, such as it is, is that if you poor unfortunate fucking bastards cannot understand that WARN is about mass layoffs, while getting fired is about MSFT's desire of getting rid of you for any reason or no reason at all, I am amazed. And the previous paragraph was intended entirely to sound like Michael Caine. Know what I mean, sunshine? :)
Has somebody maybe had a couple of drinks?
L62 -> 63
Bucket 1
4.5% merit
5% promo
$6.5K stock to salary
$20K bonus
$20K stock
Kicked ass and took names last year and it came through in the review.
Cracked the corporate code to make this happen. How? Timed my deliverables to land right before calibration. Increased visibility up to and through calibration with weekly status emails to broader team. Went to meetings that were only tangentially related to my job but buffaloed everyone that I should be there and used every scrap of data I learned to gain an edge and cultivated the image of the well-connected expert. Did large parts of my bosses job so he didn't have to. Called bullshit where I saw it to peers but only sent sunshine upwards. Learned where my manager and skip-level had knowledge gaps and trained them to come to me for answers. Acted like I knew everything and that everything was under control, even when I didn't and it wasn't. I exploited weak partner teams and threw them under the bus as much as possible. I ignored my commitments and did what really needed to be done. I made sure my manager's peers knew who I was and what my accomplishments were.
I was able to do this in 30 hours a week on average along with 4 weeks of 60+ hours to "look super-busy" during calibration.
If it wasn't for all that circus, I could have had a much larger customer impact.
In my worldview, this is everything that is wrong with Microsoft. Employees spend so much time on and the system is overweighted towards the overhead of "owning your career" and politicking to try to do anything that really impacts customers, that the time to do the actual, real work that impacts customers is a very small fraction of total work hours.
Yes, there are a lot of smart people at Microsoft.
Yes, there is the opportunity for world-changing impact.
Yes, there are pockets of brilliance, efficiency and honest customer focus.
But overall, it's a massive sludge of corporate policy and ham-fisted employee management that stifles innovation and creativity, slows competitive reaction and demoralizes the capable.
The next two years are arguably likely to be the most treacherous the company has ever had to navigate, and the current meme among the Kool-Aid crowd is that with Steve Jobs not at the helm of Apple, our future just got a whole bunch brighter.
That attitude is so lost and such damning praise of our SLT, that it's incredible to me that people actually believe it. It shows how far away Microsoft is from defining its own destiny and indirectly shows how fragile everything is.
I'm job-hunting outside of the company with a vengeance now and can't wait to escape the black hole.
Honey? I thought it was "delicious cash milk"?
Maybe Microsoft is the land of (cash) milk *and* honey,
How are Amazon and Expedia in terms of work culture / performance management? Similar to Microsoft or significantly different (better?).
Looking to explore opportunities in those companies
-3 (moved down from 2 that my manager rated me as)
"Is there such a big jump from 62 to 63? I thought people were promoted across bands only if they would be successful in the new band."
At least in the Test discipline, they treat the promotion to Senior as if you need to be walking on water to get there.
The Directormof Test for the org made it apparent in a group meeting they have no clue what theyre doing. He said that during calibrations one thing became apparent...they dont know what it means to be a Senior SDET.
Great news for my future...
Timed my deliverables to land right before calibration. Increased visibility up to and through calibration with weekly status emails to broader team. Went to meetings that were only tangentially related to my job but buffaloed everyone that I should be there and used every scrap of data I learned to gain an edge and cultivated the image of the well-connected expert. Did large parts of my bosses job so he didn't have to. Called bullshit where I saw it to peers but only sent sunshine upwards. Learned where my manager and skip-level had knowledge gaps and trained them to come to me for answers. Acted like I knew everything and that everything was under control, even when I didn't and it wasn't. I exploited weak partner teams and threw them under the bus as much as possible. I ignored my commitments and did what really needed to be done. I made sure my manager's peers knew who I was and what my accomplishments were.
Ah grasshopper, you have truly excelled.
L61 SDE (no promo)
Bucket: 3
R&D: 8%
Merit: 2.55%
Stock to Base: 3.3K
Bonus: $9.9K (10%)
Stock: $6.5K
New Base: $113K
There seems to be an awful lot of "I got screwed!" coming out around here and I've heard a fair bit of the same from ICs I know personally - while I'm sure a lot of Microsoft is mired in politics and bullshit and a lot of people probably did get scores that weren't quite "right", I can safely say that among people whose review scores have been shared with me, 9 out of every 10 who got a 4 or a 5 landed exactly where they probably should have.
The thing about this company and really this field in general is that it welcomes in a lot of arrogant, cocky types, even ones who are otherwise timid and socially awkward outside of their computers. The kinds who spent most of their college careers skipping classes and blowing off assignments and then acing finals anyway. Then they get to companies like Microsoft and fail to realize that they lack work ethic, communication skills, product vision, or really much else that adds unique value to the company. They can code/test until they're blue in the face and they possess some degree of technical depth; hand them a well-designed spec and they'll bang out a project in a week. Although most still lack concept mastery and just know how to write things "to spec", not how to write it "so it's good" or "so it's even better." There are a large number of older industry vets who picked up programming as a hobby and fall into generally the same category.
Problem is that doing this sort of thing should be considered just barely average at Microsoft - not exceptional work, not promotion-worthy, not 1 or 2 (Or even 3)-worthy. Average. Yet a disproportionate number of people who perform this way expect to see those review scores because they "met all their commitments" and their manager said all year they were doing a great job. Yeah, you probably did do a great job, but great job should be the baseline.
So many MS employees lose sight of this and then it creeps into management and managers manage accommodating this and recruiters recruit to this standard and what it gets us is a company full of mediocre performers churning out mediocre software and feeling an over-inflated sense of entitlement from it. From all the managers I've spoken to, the easiest part of calibration was figuring out the 1's (And the 2's, for the most part) - they're obvious because there's such a massive pool of mediocrity surrounding them that their talents shine.
the current meme among the Kool-Aid crowd is that with Steve Jobs not at the helm of Apple, our future just got a whole bunch brighter.
Yeah, better not count on that. One thing that SJ never got enough credit for is recruiting: his executive team are each fully capable of running a multi-billion dollar operation themselves. This isn't like BillG handing off MSFT to Ballmer and the thousand poseurs. For a company of Apple's size, they have a shockingly low level of management deadwood.
Level: 62 Dev
Bucket: 1
Merit%: 4.80%
Stock to Base: $7000
R&D Increase: 5.00%
Bonus: ~$21K
Stock: ~$19K
New Base Salary ~$137K
The buckets are about distribution. So even hard-working commitment-exceeding fellows can get 4-5, and that's it. The HR buckets descriptions are not important, since it's all about the curve anyway.
This bucket system is not much different from the 20-70-10, except that before when in "70" you could hope (or be told) that you're in the upper 70s. Now 70 got broken down into buckets 2-4... so now you know better. And in most cases it hurts. Live with it.
Yeah, Now MSIT India has a blogger as its lead. He believes that blogging away and sharing emails on his blog is going to make MSIT India a better place to work.
The review system is definitely not working. It's subjective, inaccurate, and still only rewards people with so called visibility and who those managers like.
L60, MBD
Bucket: 1 - no promo :(
Merit: 5.25%
R&D: 12%
S2C: $1500
Bonus: 15k
Stocks: 8k
New base: 101k
Overall - Happy with the $$, but promo would have been icing on the cake since I worked my ass off this year. However, I guess it could be a lot worse. I like my manager and skip level, so I'm going to be optimistic till I have a reason not to.
L#: 60->61
Bucket: 1
Merit: 5.5%
Promo: 6.5%
R&D: 12%
Stock to base: $1550
Bonus: 18%
Stock: 180%
Dev in Windows. I am happy :)
"I know mini doesn't allow any criticism of a particular ethnicity when he is moderating.
Can someone start a new blog where people can freely discuss complaints against various ethnicities and genders - Indian, white, black, Asian, women etc - and post the link here?"
You are everything that sucks about being a human, rolled right into a single sentence, and you're the reason the world is a dangerous place.
Gross.
"The review system is definitely not working. It's subjective, inaccurate, and still only rewards people with so called visibility and who those managers like.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Microsoft's review system has never worked, and as the company hires more political sharks it continues to degenerate. At this point there is absolutely nothing that can be done -- the people running the show are corrupt, and there's no system that can be put in place that won't be corrupted by them.
So, if you want to continue working at Microsoft, resign yourself to the fact that there's a very strong chance that your review won't be a fair reflection of your work.
Other companies have this problem too btw -- but it *is* possible to find a company that's slightly less corrupt about employee evaluations and slightly less incompetent than Microsoft. If that's important to you then it's probably worth venturing out into the world to see if you can find something a bit better.
Happy 10th Birthday Windows XP! XP was the first thing that most folks anywhere used to access the internet! ~50% of 'em still us it today! Shame the second thing they probably use is something from Apple or Goog.
I am certain that decades from now (when MSFT gets acquired) that Wikipedia will reflect on MS emlpoyees as kind, gentle, good hearted folk for all the great work they did in opening up the internet to the masses.
Pretty sure the MS review system wont get a mention though.
Maybe try designing a cool OS, ditching all the other crap and get some cool going.
"Overall - Happy with the $$, but promo would have been icing on the cake since I worked my ass off this year. However, I guess it could be a lot worse. I like my manager and skip level, so I'm going to be optimistic till I have a reason not to."
Ensure that you go out for lunch with your manager and skip level. Kiss their a$$es, you'll definitely get promo'd this mid year.
"Do the morons not realize the standards in India are far lower and a 63 in India = 61 here? "
There is an element of confusion over here. Most of the time, it is the mxxxxfxxxx who tend to get promoted, this is the cultural aspect.
Unfortunately I am not good at politics, got hired at a lower level overseas (like everyone else) and started getting promotions only after coming over to US.
Now it is a battle for me. I am told that my promo velocity is already high. There is no consideration that I started at a low level and was stalled for a long time in India.
I do agree with your comments about L1. I came on L1 as IC and it is painful to see other L1s jumping ahead just because they came as manager. The funny thing is that if they lose their job with MS then they do not have chance of getting a job anywhere else in US.
typo:
Please read "who tend to get promoted in India" instead of "who tend to get promoted"
I got a 4 . Can I try internally or would it be a No.
I got a 4 . Can I try internally or would it be a No.
Based on the several answers people have received to this same question earlier in this same thread, the answer appears to be:
Sure, go ahead and try. Nobody will hire you once they see your review score (no matter whether you deserved it or not), but it's not actually forbidden. Time to polish your resume' and start looking outside the company, unless you know how to pull yourself out of this hole in the same situation, with the same manager who got you the 4 in the first place.
I keep seeing this RIF euphemism coming up. It's not RIF'ing, this is firing.
RIF == "Resistance Is Futile"
I want to say, to those of you who want to leave but are worried:
There really, truly is life outside of MS. My hubby was RIFed last year after over 20 years, and only after the escalating stress made him a very ill man
...
Life outside is so much better. I wake every day with a sense of gratitude - and with a happy, healthy hubby who enjoys what he's doing.
Congratulations on your new life, both!
And Thank you! You've just shone a beam of hope into my dreary windowless morbidly stress-filled office.
I must admit that reading the review comments have validated my decision to leave the company and relocate my family... And like the other posters who have done the same, I'm happier, healthier and now work for an organization that truly appreciates my skills and talents (not to mention pays better).
If you're not happy at MSFT, don't get so addicted to the "cash milk" that you sacrifice "doing what you love..." Life is too short to spend 50-60 hours a week chained to a meaningless career that you hate. It's like that line from Up in the Air - "How much did they first pay you to give up your dreams?"
There are LOTS of other companies out there that are HIRING. Dust off the resume and get it in circulation. I was truly surprised at how fast I was able to find something else - and yes, there are still companies paying for relo's...
Move forward, and don't look back.
I must admit that reading the + must admit that reading the review comments have validated my decision to leave the company and relocate my family... And like the other posters who have done the same, I'm happier, healthier and now work for an organization that truly appreciates my skills and talents (not to mention pays better).
+1. I could not have said it better myself.
I left eight months ago and I am thoroughly enjoying both my new position (I relocated at company expense too) and my summer. It is nice being able to spend time with my family without having to worry if I'm going to be the unlucky one in this year's game of review roulette.
Sometimes it's not "firing". Sometimes it's being given a choice of "if you choose to quit voluntarily, it won't go on your PERMANENT RECORD as being fired"
Your record at MS would already be damaged by the time. There's no other "PERMANENT RECORD", last time I checked DMV doesn't keep track of this :) What other "PERMANENT RECORD" are you talking about?
So... are you still eligible to file for unemployment if you sign the paper and "leave on your terms"?
L60
Bucket: Received a 4
Merit: 1.15%
Bonus: $4,190
Stock: $2,250
Microsoft Services (Remote Worker)
I thought being a remote worker was bad last year - this year was even worse and the new system may just keep me from trying to get out of my existing team because I received a 4, instead of an Achieved. The simple truth is that a stack rank is always going to be subjective regardless of the amount or quality of the work delivered.
My story:
On a team of 6 people, I was responsible for 21% of the "normal" work and 100% of the "other" work, which was close to being an equal amount of work. After doing what was essentially two jobs for the year, I was told that the effort I put forward was not up to the level of my peers.
When I had my MYCD was told that I was an Achieved, trending up. I actually thought I would end up as an Exceeds (1 or 2) by the end of the fiscal. I had closed a major stretch project, was lauded with many compliments on all my work the last quarter - there was no messaging during weekly 1:1's that my performace was falling, relative to my peers, so what happened?
If my performance is not to the same level as my peers, why am I working on more projects than they are? Why am I working on more high priority projects? Why am I working on "Big Bets"? Why are you giving me additional responsibilities this coming year?
Does anyone have any advice on what I should do in this situation? It seems like a very real case of someone intentionally giving a bad review either because I am not liked, or because I'm not local.
For those of you (like the Azure team) whining about your "3", get over it. When I was at Microsoft the 20/A ranking meant "We think you'll be a keeper (the 20) and you're average (the A)". That's the new 3. You're average.
If you get your 3, try and do something visible, and stay out of trouble. You'll still be a 3 and Microsoft will keep you for a while. If you get a 2, you can look elsewhere in Microsoft. If you get a 1 or a 1+, consider leaving for a better company like here at Google, or if you're just pretty good you can go to Apple.
Either way, if you're good at what you do, get away from Microsoft as quickly as you can like I did. Your company is demoralized, you have no clear strategy, and you're run by a clown. Your career in tech is doomed if you stay.
"Sure, go ahead and try. Nobody will hire you once they see your review score (no matter whether you deserved it or not), but it's not actually forbidden. Time to polish your resume' and start looking outside the company, unless you know how to pull yourself out of this hole in the same situation, with the same manager who got you the 4 in the first place."
Keep in mind that a single 4 or 5 is a Microsoft death certificate when it comes to transferring -- most GMs have forbidden their teams from hiring anyone with an A/10 or U/10 (4 or 5) on their record.
If you get a 4 o 5 and want to transfer some day, you have a reasonable shot in the following situations:
1. You manage to get a 1 next year. This will get you past the GM "No 4s or 5s" rule. Note that the chances of this ever happening in the real world are slim to none.
2. You manage to remain at the company and get 2s for the next 2 or 3 years. If you have a 4 followed by a series of 3s you're still going to be up a creek. If you have a 4 followed by a series of 2s -- several years -- then people will forget about your 4.
In practical terms, if you get a 4 your team is telling you that they're not concerned about keeping you and they'd really rather you leave the company. Remember -- review scores aren't about your manager, who has virtually no ability to give you a score. Review scores are about people several levels up the chain who assign you a score based on how important they think you are to Microsoft. If you get a 4, you're not important regardless of what your manager says.
So... are you still eligible to file for unemployment if you sign the paper and "leave on your terms"?
As far as I can tell, that depends entirely on what MSFT tells the State Unemployment Office.
If they're going to fire you anyway, but offer you the option of quitting instead for (whatever spurious justification), they may well report they fired you. This is what they did with regards to my hubby. He was therefore eligible (after some delay).
If you pick a date to quit and leave before the day they ambush you and march you to the door, they probably report that you quit. If you merely quit, no. You don't qualify for Unemployment. This is why people here often advise waiting until they force you out, if your body and soul will take it. If you're not going to get a severance package anyway, then you don't want to mess up your chance to get Unemployment.
Best choice: start looking for new work NOW. Find local staffing companies, if you don't have another employer you'd especially like to work for, and keep at it until you find someone at a staffing company who will really, really work aggressively on your behalf to find skills-appropriate positions. They do exist. But don't tell anybody at MS what you're doing. Go about your daily work as if everything were normal. If you can move from MS directly into another job, you won't need Unemployment anyway.
So... are you still eligible to file for unemployment if you sign the paper and "leave on your terms"?
NO! Don't do it! Make them RIF you if you want to receive benefits.
Read Pages 11 and 16 of this:
http://www.esd.wa.gov/uibenefits/formsandpubs/claims-kit.pdf
So far in all these comments, I only see ICs talking about how their rank was lower than expected. How have the leads/managers fared? Any of those in 4/5s? Or is that score limited to only ICs (who are easy targets as they dont actively take any part in calibrations)
Q: Does anyone know if @L63 a move from IC to Lead after review come with any level / pay changes?
L63
Bucket: 3
Merit % 2.55
Bonus $10K
Stock $17K
Optional comments: Apparently i rocked in every area but only got Expected. When asked what i could do to improve, it was just keep doign what you are doing. Although i switched groups in this timeframe, and i think that is the real reason.
L64 (Sr. UX Lead)
Bucket 3
Merit 2.55%
R&D Increase 5%
Stock to Base $1,500
Bonus 10%
Stock 10%
Old base $133,500
New base $145,500
I actually found an interesting trend here. People who are not satisfied with their review results keep talking about how good they achieved and they were not evaluated correctly. However, I always thought that I can do better and achieve more but ended up with a 1.
My personal take is that you need to be eager and hungry all the time to push yourself to the next level. If you are satisfied with what you have done, it may indicate you not really get your best.
I may be just lucky but that is what I feel after reading all the comments here.
To - Friday, August 26, 2011 1:58:00 PM
If you notice, most of the folks who are surprised by low rating are saying that their MYCD was much better than this and it is very unlikely for someone to fall this low this fast. So it is not as objective as it may seem.
L61
Bucket:5
Merit:0%
Bonus:0
Stock:0
StockToCash:$3,300
Was told that I was tracking to a 2-3 till mid-year. Manager changed in Jan. Now manager tells me that she submitted 3 and it was finalized as 5 - sorry she says, just how the rating fell in the forced curve!
Review is full of good but....: does great work but, nice to work with but...looks like the review was written after cherry picking all the negatives to fit the revised rating. All of my co-workers tell me that I am great to work with and that I am pivotal to the service but then I get a 5!!
Promoted last year with Exceed/20 and now a 5.
Really demoralizing!! Really funny message - we want you to stay but we would not mind losing you?
-------
In practical terms, if you get a 4 your team is telling you that they're not concerned about keeping you and they'd really rather you leave the company.
-------
I disagree somewhat with the "they'd rather you leave the company" part. The truth is that they'd actually rather you stick around because now they have someone to keep giving 4's to. That's the real problem with having gotten a 4. In calibration meetings, past review scores matter. If you have history of 1s & 2s (or E/20s etc) it's MUCH easier to justify getting more of them. Vice versa, once you have 4s (A/10s, etc) on your record, you're automatically on the list of people to put in that bucket, even if the recent year you've performed at a higher level.
The unspoken truth is that 'good' managers @ MS >>WANT<< one or two 4 level people on their team. By 'good' I mean a manager who cares about delivering good software and tries to do the best by his people as well. This all may sound like a paradox, but think of it this way:
- all divisions tell their managers 'only take 3s and above' in internal transfers
- then at calibration they say 'give some of your people 4s and 5s'
Clearly that is a system that as written can't function long term. So the 'good' managers essentially have their 80% of the team they go to bat for, make sure they're covered review wise, rotate 1s,2s,3's between to distribute the wealth, and they have their curve anchors which get the 4s. They may have nothing against these guys, but they know that they have to have someone to give the 4s to, so they might as well have someone to draw the lightning away from the core team. The ironic thing is that they do NOT want these guys to leave the team. If they do, then they have to give someone from their core team the 4, and chances are if those guys will get a 4 they'll say 'fuck ms', leave the company, and in the process hurt the project.
It's a fucked up system, where the best a manager can do is protect most of this team if he deliberately chooses the sacrificial lambs. You can hate it, but realize that the managers who don't do this end up being completely walked over during calibrations, and then their team gets mostly entirely screwed.
I actually found an interesting trend here. People who are not satisfied with their review results keep talking about how good they achieved and they were not evaluated correctly. However, I always thought that I can do better and achieve more but ended up with a 1.
My personal take is that you need to be eager and hungry all the time to push yourself to the next level. If you are satisfied with what you have done, it may indicate you not really get your best.
I may be just lucky but that is what I feel after reading all the comments here.
Couldnt agree more. I wish people looked up what Dunning-Kruger effect and guard against it.
I see a lot of people trying to explain and demystify the review system from the point of view of the process. I feel the pain of the people going through the 4 and 5 because I was one of you who out of the blue got an A/10 with a manager on his way out. It tracked to mid year when the new manager told me that I was still in that bucket. You could invent the next wiz bang thing but it wouldn't matter. My last job there took a large toll on me and my relationships. Most people told me after I was "terminated due to performance reasons" that I seemed more relaxed and the old me.
In the end, the employees pain and suffering will come to an end. They will move on to a equal or better opportunity. They will be happier but always miss the good people you worked with at Microsoft. I don't miss Microsoft Technologies but still realize that those skills have some value.
The real issue here is that Microsoft will never be able to move on from this broken review system. They are now addicted to it much like every other broken part of their culture. It robs them of good quality people who just want to do a good job. Yes, Microsoft 100% needs this type of person. Everyone cannot be a rockstar. It leaves them with people who know how to play the system or new college hires who know nothing and have little passion.
Consumers, Enterprises and especially Developers are also starting the process of moving on from Microsoft technologies. If you don't believe me, you need to spend some time looking for a new job outside of Redmond/Seattle. I was recently in the south on vacation and saw billboards on the side of the road for PHP developers for six figures. The fact that Windows XP is still the dominant version of Windows in the market is just amazing. However, there is a subtle hint there that people just aren't interested in moving forward with Microsoft. Watching the Today show just yesterday, a guy was demoing an APC backup device for consumers. The demo machine was Windows XP.
All of this leaves Microsoft with a very large problem in the not so distant future. If they don't wake up to the brain drain out of review process, it will probably be to late to turn it around or take years. Microsoft rides today on a Monopoly of Windows XP. Will Windows 7 or 8 ever take it over? I guess we will have to wait till 2015 when it goes out of support.
Review is full of good but....: does great work but, nice to work with but...looks like the review was written after cherry picking all the negatives to fit the revised rating. All of my co-workers tell me that I am great to work with and that I am pivotal to the service but then I get a 5!!
Promoted last year with Exceed/20 and now a 5.
I would be curious to kmow how many past e/20's who were granted significant stock awards in the past have been walked to the door since 2009. From the accounts on mini, the RIF'd appear to be in three general groups: (1) sorry your whole team is gone, (2) you really do suck and we're taking the opportunity to be rid of you without hassles of firing, (3) oh s----t, we can't believe we gave you that much stock, which is waaay out of scale for your level, that you cost us 50% more than the average person at your level and we just do not want to pay you that for the next 4-5 years. The latter group being Team E/20, the ones with the luck that did not last.
I likewise wonder how much in negotiated severance Group 3 cost the company.
My curiosity about this was bolstered by the new and improved compensation plan which gives less upside to the top of the old e/20 band. Gut hunch is that there could be a class action opportunity here on behalf of anyone laid off whose severance was less than their pending stock.
On a team of 6 people, I was responsible for 21% of the "normal" work and 100% of the "other" work, which was close to being an equal amount of work. After doing what was essentially two jobs for the year, I was told that the effort I put forward was not up to the level of my peers.
When I had my MYCD was told that I was an Achieved, trending up. I actually thought I would end up as an Exceeds (1 or 2) by the end of the fiscal. I had closed a major stretch project, was lauded with many compliments on all my work the last quarter - there was no messaging during weekly 1:1's that my performace was falling, relative to my peers, so what happened?
If my performance is not to the same level as my peers, why am I working on more projects than they are? Why am I working on more high priority projects? Why am I working on "Big Bets"? Why are you giving me additional responsibilities this coming year?
Does anyone have any advice on what I should do in this situation? It seems like a very real case of someone intentionally giving a bad review either because I am not liked, or because I'm not local.
Why do people put up with this sort of nonsense? Why would you tolerate being shown such disrepect? Find a new job outside Microsoft, and leave the political sharks to stew in their own juice - you will be in the company of those who will have the last laugh.
satisfied...exactly what the HR site said would happen if I got a 1...
not sure if this really means I am getting "more, now", but I am lucky to be where I am at compared with others in the world, and not worried about a few K per year to keep a job that I mostly enjoy...
1+? hadn't heard of that before, but I am not surprised, there is always the "alum" crowd...I hope to be in the right place at the right time to cash in on my work in future and be one of them, even if only once in my career :-)
Couldnt agree more. I wish people looked up what Dunning-Kruger effect and guard against it.
That's all very well, but Dunning and Kruger worked at Cornell University, not Microsoft.
Does anyone have any advice on what I should do in this situation? It seems like a very real case of someone intentionally giving a bad review either because I am not liked, or because I'm not local.
I do. Move to where your team is.
I feel the same way about your sob story as I do about all the employees living in Seattle and wanting to WFH all the time because the commute sucks over the bridge to Redmond.
You're needed here. If you want to work where you live, then get a fucking job there.
Q: Does anyone know if @L63 a move from IC to Lead after review come with any level / pay changes?
No. Same pay, new headaches. :-)
Just kidding. If you have the opportunity to become a manager, and really care about doing the best for those who work for you, then definitely do it!
(but there is no change in comp)
Promoted last year with Exceed/20 and now a 5.
This should never happen. You're either ommiting something crucial to the story, or your manager(s) and team are completely fucked up.
-------
In practical terms, if you get a 4 your team is telling you that they're not concerned about keeping you and they'd really rather you leave the company.
-------
I disagree somewhat with the "they'd rather you leave the company" part. The truth is that they'd actually rather you stick around because now they have someone to keep giving 4's to. That's the real problem with having gotten a 4. In calibration meetings, past review scores matter. If you have history of 1s & 2s (or E/20s etc) it's MUCH easier to justify getting more of them. Vice versa, once you have 4s (A/10s, etc) on your record, you're automatically on the list of people to put in that bucket, even if the recent year you've performed at a higher level.
The unspoken truth is that 'good' managers @ MS >>WANT<< one or two 4 level people on their team. By 'good' I mean a manager who cares about delivering good software and tries to do the best by his people as well. This all may sound like a paradox, but think of it this way:
- all divisions tell their managers 'only take 3s and above' in internal transfers
- then at calibration they say 'give some of your people 4s and 5s'
Clearly that is a system that as written can't function long term. So the 'good' managers essentially have their 80% of the team they go to bat for, make sure they're covered review wise, rotate 1s,2s,3's between to distribute the wealth, and they have their curve anchors which get the 4s. They may have nothing against these guys, but they know that they have to have someone to give the 4s to, so they might as well have someone to draw the lightning away from the core team. The ironic thing is that they do NOT want these guys to leave the team. If they do, then they have to give someone from their core team the 4, and chances are if those guys will get a 4 they'll say 'fuck ms', leave the company, and in the process hurt the project.
It's a fucked up system, where the best a manager can do is protect most of this team if he deliberately chooses the sacrificial lambs. You can hate it, but realize that the managers who don't do this end up being completely walked over during calibrations, and then their team gets mostly entirely screwed.
THIS.
Clearly written by a manager who has lived it.
You're needed here. If you want to work where you live, then get a fucking job there.
On the other hand, I can't imagine why anybody with a life would want to uproot it to move to Redmond now. It no longer matters how talented you are, your career totally depends upon a spin of the toxic stack rank wheel of fortune. Working from home takes a lot of sting out of getting f'd over by a bunch of arrogant aholes.
If you get your 3, try and do something visible, and stay out of trouble. You'll still be a 3 and Microsoft will keep you for a while. If you get a 2, you can look elsewhere in Microsoft. If you get a 1 or a 1+, consider leaving for a better company like here at Google, or if you're just pretty good you can go to Apple.
Bwahaha. You mean the same Google that has already sucked up all the RIFd-for-good-reason ex-MS folks I know of? Yeah, a real good hiring bar there, no Bs hiring Cs, no sir-ee. Keep changing the world by selling ads though, good work.
Bwahaha. You mean the same Google that has already sucked up all the RIFd-for-good-reason ex-MS folks I know of? Yeah, a real good hiring bar there, no Bs hiring Cs, no sir-ee. Keep changing the world by selling ads though, good work.
And you keep changing the world by selling products like Kin. Uh no, by selling WP7 because it has *tiles*. No? Maybe by purchasing skype? How about a strategic partnership with Nokia?
We shouldn't worry though, should we? After all, W8 will run on ARM, and it's honestly, really, truly *awesome* - well I'm sure that noted technophile Steve Ballmer thinks so. Does he still "like [Microsoft's] mobile strategy a lot"?
Level 66 in field
3 after manager told me I was a 1. Changed above him by some very political vp's. Oh well.
Last day is a few weeks down the road. Found something I am more excited about that actually pays me better.
Few of the good people left are enthusiastic. Lots of deadwood clogging the system.
The culture is totally broken.
Death by MBRs in the BMO! Any bonus for going through the pain of 5 MBRs or prepping for them or the COEs or the grand finale MYR?
When I had my MYCD was told that I was an Achieved, trending up. I actually thought I would end up as an Exceeds (1 or 2) by the end of the fiscal. I had closed a major stretch project, was lauded with many compliments on all my work the last quarter - there was no messaging during weekly 1:1's that my performace was falling, relative to my peers, so what happened?
If you're so smart, why can't you figure out what happened yourself? Your management chain gave you the lowest score they thought they could get away with. They think you're too much of a pussy to quit the company and get a better job elsewhere. Are you going to prove them right?
@ Thursday, August 25, 2011 9:24:00 PM
Has somebody maybe had a couple of drinks?
Are you, sir/madam, suggesting I was under the affluence of incohol? Shame on you! George Gershwin here, defending Cole Porter, my partner in musical crime, who helped solidify the circle of fifths as the basis of all modern songs, including the Flintstones theme.
Cole, I can tell you, would never play the piano while drinking. He might spill some :)
And you Sir, with all due respect, might pull your finger out of your asshole thus gaining a sense o' humor.
Have anyone tried the rebuttal process before? I am planning to use it this year.
My review is not bad but some of the negative comments were totally ungrounded (and of coz I have a lot of email records to use to fight back). I am actually more concerned with these comments staying on the track record than the actual rating itself.
I take it that one should be more responsible for his/her own track record than anybode else. Thus now that someone tries to leave a dark spot on my record, I'd at least take the step to provide additional points to show more complete picture rather than let it go.
Not sure how ugly things will tend into after I fight. Although deep in my soul I think it's good to be able to leave such a toxic environment, getting mentally ready is always better than waiting for surprise. If any one can share some experience I'd really appreciate.
Got promoted this year. Made it clear to my managers that I would leave M$ if they refused to. I also told them that HR would come after me if they didn't promote me because I had been for too long at the same level (yes, there are groups like this, you move up or you move out). I'm very good at what I do and my team didn't want to lose me so they made it happen. My performance was just OK but they promoted me anyways. All my promotions happened when I didn't deserve it and the years I actually deserved it I wasn't promoted. This just proves to me that the system is broken and is orthogonal to merit. I just learned to take it easy and stopped working long hours. I despise the review system and minimize the amount of time I spend on it. A couple of years ago I started writing my reviews one hour before the deadline and it makes it much more relaxed. It is like a lottery ticket, you can spend a lot of time picking numbers or you can just throw darts. I don't have the inclination for politics. At the end of the day I'm happy I don't have to leave Microsoft, I like my job.
I actually found an interesting trend here. People who are not satisfied with their review results keep talking about how good they achieved and they were not evaluated correctly. However, I always thought that I can do better and achieve more but ended up with a 1.
My personal take is that you need to be eager and hungry all the time to push yourself to the next level. If you are satisfied with what you have done, it may indicate you not really get your best.
How many hours you work per week? I work 60-70 hrs/week, still got a 4, bureaucrap written all over MS.
How many hours you work per week? I work 60-70 hrs/week, still got a 4, bureaucrap written all over MS.
Working 60-70 hours/week doesn't automatically mean you should be rated higher.
I actually found an interesting trend here. People who are not satisfied with their review results keep talking about how good they achieved and they were not evaluated correctly. However, I always thought that I can do better and achieve more but ended up with a 1.
And you'll be fine as long as your team doesn't change. But if a reorg hits and you end up reporting to someone who doesn't know you or doesn't value what you do, good luck.
"So... are you still eligible to file for unemployment if you sign the paper and "leave on your terms"?"
Absolutely, 100% certain NO!
The WA UI rules are very simple, there are no small prints; if you check the "did you leave voluntarily?" check-box on your UI application, you're not eligible for prestations, period. No if's and but's.
It's worth repeating: unless you have something else lined up, don't voluntarily quit until they drag you out kicking and screaming. If you're over 40 or 50 it ain't as good as people would have you think out there.
Trolling and counter-trolling aside, I have to second what was said about Google having lots of bad ex-MSFT people. I interviewed in Kirkland and had a lot of ex-MSFT in my loop, and they were not people I'd like to work with. Simply put: they struck me as dumb.
I bet Mountain View is better. If you're interviewing with Google I would say shoot for Mountain View.
Does anyone have any advice on what I should do in this situation?
It's up to you of course, but what I'd do in that situation is walk. If you're good at what you do (and it sounds like you are), you can always find a better situation elsewhere.
OP here!
And you Sir, with all due respect, might pull your finger out of your asshole thus gaining a sense o' humor.
No not at all: I thought it was hilarious. The whole thing... I just was pointing out a certain tell-tale circumlocution. It wasn't a value judgement at all! The stuff was great. Apologies.
L60 (promo'd at MYCD)
Rating: 4
R&D: 12%
Merit + Stock to Base: 3%
Bonus: 50% of target
Stock Award: 50% of target
New Base: ~98k
Very frustrating in that I was promo'd at MYCD, with a 4% bump. I find out I get promo'd (6 months ahead of several of my peers) because I'm doing well, and then I don't get the $ at Annual to reflect it, since now I'm stack ranked against 60s. If I didn't get promo'd at MYCD, I'd have an extra 5-10% base and an extra 10% bonus and an extra 10% SA. Pretty much missed out on 20k. Thanks for the promo boss! Frustrating because you're telling me I'm doing well by promo'ing me at MYCD, and then you're telling me I'm a 4. Which is it?
This was the year to make lots of money. Words of "encouragement" from my manager, "If you do well, your salary can catch up in 3-4 years."
That is not encouraging at all.
Always get promo'd at annual. period.
Time to look around.
L61 with 3 rating here--the numbers are in line with what's already been posted. I'm sick of all the crap and just want to be somewhere that appreciates what I do instead of how I play the game.
For people that have found better jobs and quit, what's some advice about delivering the message? I'm thinking of giving two weeks notice but taking the last week as vacation--bad idea? I plan to keep an 'I quit effective immediately' letter in my back pocket just in case any crap is pulled.
Give two weeks notice & go out like a mench. Your accrued vacation will pay out in your final check.
It's a small industry & a small town - you'll cross paths with everyone on your team again. Don't ruin your reputation or leave anyone in a bind. Microsoft isn't going to try to screw you over for quiting - ppl resign every day.
L64
Bucket 1
Bonus $~20K
Stock $~50K
New base $153K
What's the comp ratio of my new base salary?
1.1
Guys, I want you to value the company the same way it value you.
Regardless of what is your performance each team is fit to a curve. A team that deliver super product is fit to a curve and a team that fails to deliver is fit to a similar curve and get the same budget so it is not about your results or how you got them. It is about curve fitting and perception which is a totally different game from actual performance. That is why managers write their feedback after calibration results come to them not before because the feedback is just a way to make the result look like it is related to your performance.
Think of the yearly review as a gambling game where you have 20% chance of getting 18% bonus or more and 80% chance to get 10% or more of bonus and 20% chance of losing.
So Unless you figured out a way to cheat to get to the upper 20%, you better set your effort and expectation to the 80% chance and use your extra energy you will save to enjoy your life and learn new technologies and keep up to date with the world around you so in case you get into the losing 20% you are prepared to jump ship or even better jump the ship sooner before it sink.
Speaking of leaving... Have your stuff packed even if you want to give two weeks notice. Within one hour, they collected my badge and parking pass and escorted me out of the building.
Speaking from personal experience, here is some advice for all the 20 and 30 something folks who got a 4/5.
I know there is less than a 50% chance you deserved it. There are just too many ways the current MS management and review system can screw it up. Unfortunately it is nearly impossible for you to remove this blot on your review history. Maybe 5 years from now, a hiring manager might ignore it, but most likely not.
Instead, a hiring manager will bring you on with the express purpose of using 4/5 folks like you to protect their 1/2 "rock stars". Your manager will use this 4/5 as an excuse/evidence to stick you with another 4/5. Bottom line: you have a huge uphill climb ahead of you to get your career back on track, and the odds are heavily against you.
I was in this situation years ago and fought hard year after year to build a string of good review scores. But every few years, a manager would stick me with a bad rating, in part saying "your performance has gone up and down historically, hasn't it?".
I now realize I'm stuck with mediocre to poor review scores as long as I'm at MS. Unfortunately it's too late for me to look elsewhere. I'm in my 40s, and have grown too comfortable with the MS software stack to learn an entirely new one.
I wouldn't have hesitated quitting and throwing myself at new challenges at other companies a few years ago, so don't tell yourself "I can quit anytime I want". Your value outside MS diminishes as you grow beyond L63 or L64. The relevance of the MS software stack is diminishing dramatically every year.
And if you grew beyond an L63 or L64 as a manager, things are much worse. The new tech companies are looking for young energetic folks, and that means < 35, ideally < 30. L64+ managers are paid too much at MS to be a worthwhile hire elsewhere. Why would they hire you when they can grow or hire much cheaper managers? And we all know how great MS managers are anyway, right?
Incidentally, this is why all the L64+ managers stick around until they rot in MS management poison, and ruin careers all around them. How often do you see a 40 or 50 something manager move to another company? And even when it does happen, the manager often comes back in a few years.
So if you're confident you can succeed out there as well as you can at MS, I'd leave now before it's too late. Will you be giving up all the comforts of MS? Sure, but it'll get way more harder every year you wait.
Put all the energy that would be wasted at MS into building your career elsewhere. You'll almost certainly have a better career and make a lot more money (perhaps way, way more if you go that startup that hasn't IPO'ed yet).
I wish I had.
Only few people posted what mini requested and most of them are BS'ing on something else. All non msft'ies leave this page now as you have only read access morally to this posting
Only few people posted what mini requested and most of them are BS'ing on something else. All non msft'ies leave this page now as you have only read access morally to this posting
Mini isn't moderating this, so you decided you needed to?
Imagine me sticking my thumbs in my ears, splaying my fingers out, waggling my hands, and going "Pththt" at you.
A lot of people have posted their review scores - mostly real, and a few apparent trolls and bowl-tappers. But if you think the discussion of leaving Microsoft, and being fired, and finding a happier place to work, and not waiting until you're unemployable elsewhere isn't related to review scores? Or that non-MSFT people have no moral right to contribute? Please feel free to go start your own blog. The last guy who said he wanted to do that made one post, got about 30 comments, and the thing died. But good luck.
L64
Bucket 1
Bonus $~20K
Stock $~50K
New base $153K
What's the comp ratio of my new base salary?
1.1
Wow, way off. On the new FY11 payscale, $153K for a L64 is 0.95 comp ratio.
How do you guys know the comp ratio?
L63 dev lead
Bucket 2
New base 135k
When MSFT fires one, what all documents should the HR provide one with?
- experience letter?
- termination letter?
- cobra paperwork?
what else?
Every now and then I do enjoy a good read of Mini as it lets me explore my schizophrenic ways of "that's it, I'm quitting" through to "my God, there are some whinging losers out there who should quit". Today is no exception.
I am a manager (outside of the US) and just gave my team their reviews and would say that all of them were pleased. They understand the system and the calibration and I have never made promises I can't keep so although no system is perfect (and ours has been and still remains far from it) we get on with it and are mostly honest about our efforts thru the year.
PS A huge thanks to those that suggested reading about Dunning-Kruger. Particularly interesting was this from Wikipedia "studies on the Dunning–Kruger effect tend to focus on American test subjects. Similar studies on European subjects show marked muting of the effect; studies on some East Asian subjects suggest that something like the opposite of the Dunning–Kruger effect operates on self-assessment and motivation to improve". Mmmm,food for thought.
PPS I'm suprised more haven't called out Brummel's absence as being odd thru all this!?
> How many hours you work per week? I work 60-70 hrs/week, still got a 4, bureaucrap written all over MS.
You are seriously doing this wrong. "Work smarter, not harder". I'm in the office maybe 7 hours a day, 5 days a week. Of that time, I probably spend 4 of it really working most days. Yet I always get my shit done on time, without obvious sandbagging on my estimates. If you're really putting in 60/70 solid hours of work in a week, figure out how to delegate, manage expectations, or otherwise get some of that work off your plate (hint: delegation looks good at review time. "X really helped out his teammate Y on project Z", when you dumped the pile of shit project Z on teammate Y and then acted as an "adviser" while teammate Y worked the long, unnoticed hours that you would've done otherwise).
There's nothing wrong with playing the system sometimes. Get the work done that you can do in 40 hours. Manage away the work that you can't do in 40 hours. Get high review scores.
> If I didn't get promo'd at MYCD, I'd have an extra 5-10% base and an extra 10% bonus and an extra 10% SA.
You didn't mention your discipline, but given that you got the R&D bonus I'm going to assume it's on a product team in one of dev, test, or PM. If so, at 59 you're calibrated against 60s. That's the SDE/SDET/PM I level band. Yes, more is expected of a 60 than a 59, but not so much more that you'd go from trending to a 1 in 59 and getting a promo to a 4 after the promo. Either you're not telling us something, or your management chain really sucks. If you were trending to a 4 in 60, they wouldn't have promoted you because you would've been trending to a 3 or 4 in 59. 60 to 61 is a bigger jump, and 62 to 63 even more so. If you had actually crossed level bands, I could maybe see this, but even then I'd expect no less than a 3 if they thought you were ready to be promoted.
Or maybe you got your MY promo and decided to rest on your laurels for the second half of the year. In which case you forgot Rule #1: your achievements are inversely proportional to the amount of time they happen before the annual review calibration meetings. If you did something big in August of last year, too fucking bad. You should've saved that for May. Or if you couldn't push it out that long without looking like a loser, you should've been scrambling to find something with big impact that you could do by May/June right before the calibration meetings so it's fresh in everybody's minds. A MY promo is no time to take vacation. If you think you deserve a rest after a promo, only do that if you get it at the annual review.
PS A huge thanks to those that suggested reading about Dunning-Kruger.
You are welcome.
You are seriously doing this wrong. "Work smarter, not harder". I'm in the office maybe 7 hours a day, 5 days a week. Of that time, I probably spend 4 of it really working most days. Yet I always get my shit done on time, without obvious sandbagging on my estimates. If you're really putting in 60/70 solid hours of work in a week, figure out how to delegate, manage expectations, or otherwise get some of that work off your plate.
There's nothing wrong with playing the system sometimes. Get the work done that you can do in 40 hours. Manage away the work that you can't do in 40 hours. Get high review scores.
Good advice, but if you get off your high horse, you should understand that very few non-managers get to delegate anything, without getting punished at review time. Most MS managers are now "programmed" to overload ICs with work. If your manager doesn't do that to you, count yourself extremely lucky.
Or maybe you got your MY promo and decided to rest on your laurels for the second half of the year. In which case you forgot Rule #1: your achievements are inversely proportional to the amount of time they happen before the annual review calibration meetings. If you did something big in August of last year, too fucking bad. You should've saved that for May. Or if you couldn't push it out that long without looking like a loser, you should've been scrambling to find something with big impact that you could do by May/June right before the calibration meetings so it's fresh in everybody's minds. A MY promo is no time to take vacation. If you think you deserve a rest after a promo, only do that if you get it at the annual review.
You're right to game the system, but the above is just one example of everything that's wrong with the review system. Those who know how to game the review system get ahead, not necessarily those who did real meaningful work that contributed to Microsoft's bottom line.
Always get promo'd at annual. period.
Errm, no. Counter-example: in a single year I received a MY promo, multiple gold stars, the max stock award for my level at review time, and 80% of the max bonus.
This was under the "old" system with greater stock awards, of course. Does the current mix of cash/stock change things so that it really is not a win to be promo'd across level bands (rather than within one, where one wouldn't lose out on stack rank)?
So Unless you figured out a way to cheat to get to the upper 20%, you better set your effort and expectation to the 80% chance and use your extra energy you will save to enjoy your life and learn new technologies and keep up to date with the world around you so in case you get into the losing 20% you are prepared to jump ship or even better jump the ship sooner before it sink.
This is sound advice particularly since the big stock award wins have been removed by the new review system. If you put in the effort and hours and brain power, you might win the lottery and place in the top 20%, or you might not. After two years of winning the lottery, I was certain that I'd win a third year. I continued to go the extra 10 miles and generate results exceeding my previous year's. My theory was incorrect, and I was beyond disappointed at the results. In retrospect, I would have been much happier aiming for "average, resting and vesting". Not only are great results not a sufficient condition for achieving a top 20% rank, they're not even necessary!
I now work on *ix-based cloud technologies in another company. The Azure team declined to interview me due to the 10% I received on my last review at Microsoft. Their loss, and their competitor's win. (Remember COMPETITION, Microsoft? That concept you didn't have to worry about for a while, that now is a major business threat to you? You'd do well to consider that when shrugging off the departure of experienced staff.)
whinging losers
Followed by:
I am a manager (outside of the US)
You don't say, mate? For those who don't get the joke, "whinging" is local dialect in a particular part of the world.
MS Services in the field (groans) - 4th year at company after coming in as a college hire (big mistake)
L60, promoted at MYCD
Bucket 3
Merit Increase: 2.55%
Bonus ~9k
Stock 4500
New base ~$71k
MYCD indicated I was on track to be 1 or 2. continued to crush my metrics and work my ass off. met or exceeded all metrics by FY end. review read very positively and with no constructive feedback on what I could have done better or where I went wrong. Keep in mind that NEW college hires are coming in at my level band (59-60) - how these hires with <1 year experience managed to achieve the same rating or out stack-rank me is sort of a mystery to me at this point.
I have a very demanding customer set (acknowledged throughout my region and at the skip/double skip and even VP level) and made a lot of work life balance sacrifices over the last year. My marriage is in shambles and I came out of my review nauseated, sick to my stomach and ready to throw up in the restroom.
I usually try to ask myself what went wrong with me and how I can improve - then I ask my peers if they can provide me with some candid feedback on what they observed and how I did. Either everyone is blowing smoke up my ass (which is possible) or I had a really stellar year and things just didn't align for me at review time.
This is my 4th year of being in the middle bucket. I was A/70 every year prior to this under a micro-manager who I had ad a serious personality mismatch despite crushing my metrics year after year and showing growth, increased responsibility, team leadership, etc.
To the seasoned 'Softies - what can I do? I feel really badly for the 4/5s out there who are in a much worse spot (being shown the door), but on a similar vein I feel as though I'm not there yet, but being am being handed my hat.
Of course my review itself was, "I know this isn't what you expected" blah blah blah.
What say you mini-msft readers? I'm cleaning up my resume right now and getting ready to reach out to recruiters outside of the company. I really wanted to stick out 5 years so I could get that coveted (please note sarcasm) trophy, but truth be told I'd probably just use it as target practice at this point :)
With a rating of 4, can one expect to be considered for other roles in the company? Again, this is the usual trash excuse of the stack ranking and nothing to do with performance rating.
I have a similar question as well. I got promoted at mid year (and it wasn't an overdue promo or anything, it was ahead/on time) and then got a 4 at annual. How does that even make sense? You're doing well enough to get promoted, and then you're at the bottom in 4 months?
Two questions, considering my promo then 4 situation:
- Am I black balled from transferring even in this case?
- What about if I leave msft, and want to come back? Can I forget about every coming back now with this black mark of 4?
Someone mentioned that you need pretty much a 1 in your next review, or two 2's in your next 2 reviews, to dig yourself out.
So ridiculous!
Same here. Multi-year vet, former HiPo. Got screwed. Exact same thing hapened to me. Integrity of the company has collapsed and they have no regard for tenure.
L65
Bucket: 5
Merit: 0
Promo: 0%
Bonus: $0K
Stock: $0K
Midyear was meet or exceeds expectations.
Looking for a job
No warning, no validation, No truth, No recourse.
All non msft'ies leave this page now as you have only read access morally to this posting
That's the richest thing I've read in quite a while. No one who is even remotely acquainted with Microsoft's history of business practices would have the bare-faced cheek to lecture outsiders on what is "morally acceptable".
What does all this annual review bullshit accomplish, exactly? The only thing I can think of is that it allows certain hr executives to pretend like they are executing something.
I was in this situation years ago and fought hard year after year to build a string of good review scores. But every few years, a manager would stick me with a bad rating, in part saying "your performance has gone up and down historically, hasn't it?".
This was my story, exactly. I had a "Limited" score, followed by an A/10 three review cycles later. The manager (STB division) quoted "the up and down performance line." I was 51 at the time. I was, fortunately, an L65 IC, who had gone down the lead path and decided it was hurting my technical skills so went back to IC. I studied my ass off to get current on non-MS technologies and then started looking, despite the dismal economy. It took 10 months to find a job, and as the OP said, it is much harder after age 35, but I did succeed. My pay increased slightly, 15%, but more importantly I'm now at a company that respects my work. In hindsight, I should have left MS when the partner system started -- that seems to be a turning point in terms of the toxic culture that now exists.
My advice -- study up and then get your resume out there.
i'm a new 59 (didn't go through the review process) and was curious if anybody knew if i should expect any sort of r&d or stock2cash increase? i only ask cause an intern friend of mine told me his offer from windows and that was about 17% more than my salary
For people that have found better jobs and quit, what's some advice about delivering the message?
I left in 2010 and my 10 cents worth is: Do give notice, but be prepared to be walked out (i.e., back up everything you think may be useful, including headtrax contact information, onto a hard drive at home). In my case, I stayed to the end of my notice period (3 weeks), had an exit interview with HR and turned in my badge to my group admin on my last day. I would strongly suggest you prepare a Transition Plan to give to your manager with your notice, it will reflect well on you and your manager will appreciate a detailed status report. Leaving like a pro is always the way to go, even if you'd rather vent. The OP is correct, the tech world is small in many ways and you will see some former co-workers again.
What does all this annual review bullshit accomplish, exactly? The only thing I can think of is that it allows certain hr executives to pretend like they are executing something.
Yeah, their employees.
I got a rating 4... and yet got promoted. my manager blames it on the 'curve', though i deserved a 3.
Damn stupid... but true. is anyone else one the same boat?
I am yet to sign the review. this is totally screwing my career here. i was always >= A/70 thru my career. curious, what are the options with me? Can I appeal and somehow get corrected it to 3? can i choose to sacrifice my promo and make my review 3?
or, revisiting resume is the only option?
If you want to passively keep and eye out for jop opportunities, put up a detailed resume on LinkedIn. I am not at MS but I have one up there and I get emails about jobs every week (a lot are from Amazon, home of evil pager duty, but still...).
I have been with Microsoft for many many years (probably too long).
I have had my glory days and bumpy days. If you get 1 or 1+, most likely you are in 59-61 or 66-70 range, all the mid range folks are usually screwed unless you are on the right team at the right time.
Folks, it is not about Microsoft culture, it's human nature. Nothing will change if you go to Apple (don't know for sure), IBM, or Facebook. If you have worked for more than one company, you should understand this.
Now, about the review system: It is not different from the older systems, except some number tricks. The company still wants to filter out "smart" people and give them brighter future so that they don't work for competitors. That makes perfect sense. If you are not one of them, you moved on and succeeded in another company, the likelihood is low.
Seriously, we have a lot of smart people in the company. Sometimes, I even wonder why they don't start something up themselves. Either they are too lazy (like myself) or they already have a good income from Microsoft.
Unfortunately, being lazy or earning high income have serious negative effects on people. I think they would be more innovative and productive if they have higher hope.
I still think Micrsoft innovates, but having so many people stuck with shitty work (high% time on process stuff) doesn't help innovation. Also, how many times your opinions are heard and seriously considered if you aren't a out spoken person?
I don't blame Balmer. Balmer isn't a techie, he is a businessman. He wants us to succeed. He just doesn't know how. It's up to our complicated management chain to figure that out. I think our management system looks more and more like an army, people get excited when they manage 100 people (yes, captain!). While, in the tech field, it's usually a one man show. I never worked for Apple, I really like to know how they work.
I don't have my numbers yet, I expect 3. Even though I have the skills and talent to do the high visibility work, I was denied. The reason? All engineers need to be more flexible. Therefore, I do some other work I've never done before. I don't complain. I like it. but the review score will hurt because people never mention my area in the hallway. That's life. In my glory days, I was the only person coding on the team, can you believe it?
One last word, if you truly think the review process sticks, how do you determine who gets a raise or a promotion? no, there is nothing better out there.
L63 PM in SMSG
Bucket: 3
Merit: 2.55%
R&D: 0% (WTF? Didn't know about this!)
Stock2Cash: $4K
Bonus: 10%
Stock: 100%
Base: ~$125K
I'd like to echo the "popularity contest" comments - the new system is just like the old system where the boss pics their favorites then backs in a reason. At least managers have to endure HOURS of monotinous training. While I don't begrudge the 1's in the croud I'd like to offer a warning: you did not earn it, you received it. The meritocricy is dead.
I'm very good at what I do, have years of mgmt experience prior to this team, thought I'd try IC for a year. At level for 3.5 years so expected promo. GM convinced me that it would be great visibility (yeah, I know, I fell for it).
On one hand it was a great year- I work about 20 hrs a week, and spend most of my time at work being collaborative and connecting one group of idiots to another. I've slowed down my deliverables considerably and am being praised for being a "true team player". Solved a big problem or two, made other's solutions look bigger than reality, and am now a crucial attendee at everything the group does. When not at work I'm NOT AT WORK, doing my own thing, so I figure my score and salary are fair for my investment this year. I'm willing to play some of the game, just not all of it. Hence, here I stay.
I've been on 2 external interviews last month - one was damn close. 3 more comming up in the next few weeks. This place spent a decade providing me with awesome experience and training and now some other company will benefit. Sad, really. I love the energy and idea of this place but am disgusted with middle management and their incompetence.
As a contrast to the MS review system ... my current employer has 1-5 review system, although reversed where 5=best. There is no curve. Goals are simple, max 5. Low stress and easy to understand. BTW this company employs 400k people. Why all this cloak and dagger @ MS?
Thank you to whoever posted about the Dunning-Kruger effect. I'd never heard of it before, and looking it up on wikipedia was really enlightening.
I am often/usually surprised when I get good reviews: I always feel I have so much to learn and that my skills and understanding are never complete -- or even "good enough" (I'm a principal dev). After a project I can see all the places where I made mistakes, and I'm acutely aware of the limitations of my energy and attention.
Could people post the new compa ratios for their levels?
For people that have found better jobs and quit, what's some advice about delivering the message? I'm thinking of giving two weeks notice but taking the last week as vacation--bad idea?
I pulled what's called a bye-bye bombshell late last year. Conditions were just right and offer from the competition was way too compelling to pass (even with the April increase MS announced). The folks making the offer did not mince words when they meant they wanted me there yesterday, while the management at MS had underappereciated me for two+ years with one or another lame excuse, and I had let that kind of crap slide for too long.
I took my vacations including the accrual, came back rejuvinated and acted very normal during the 1:1 about where things are and what needs to get done, and as I was done and leaving the office, said I had something else in the pipe which was too good to pass, out in two weeks, let me know on succession plans and walked away. The expression of shock on managers face said it all and was delightful to me. Counter-offers came but I was done.
Now I love this new place, the people & team especially. Getting up and going to work is fun again. My only regret is that I didn't walk away two years ago - would have made a small pile on the stocks. It's all water under the bridge now. Good luck to you folks who feel caged at MS. I hope my story inspires you.
"Only few people posted what mini requested and most of them are BS'ing on something else. All non msft'ies leave this page now as you have only read access morally to this posting"
Yeah. All contractors now please leave this meeting, as we're about to discuss the location and time of the annual company's picnic.
If you get your 3, try and do something visible, and stay out of trouble. You'll still be a 3 and Microsoft will keep you for a while. If you get a 2, you can look elsewhere in Microsoft. If you get a 1 or a 1+, consider leaving for a better company like here at Google, or if you're just pretty good you can go to Apple.
What an ass.
Google keeps hiring our flunkies. If you're a 1 you've got better things to be doing than going to work with them in cubicles under the pretentious has-beens who interviewed me there a few years ago.
So, I am being offered a SDE II L62 position at MS, and they are offering me $124,000 base and $15,000 worth of stocks vesting over 5 years. They also mention that since I am already in Seattle area I will not get any signing bonus.
The above figures are after 1 round of negotiating.
So need some advice here: Do you guys think its a good offer?
Guys, care to suggest a few great software companies around for devs? Google, Facebook - who else?
Anyone know what happens to Green Card guys if they (a) get fired (b) quit on their own?
Got my Green Card less than 6 months back.
Can my Green Card get revoked?
Could there be other issues?
Relocating to another state hopefully shouldn't be a problem either?
Have not receviced my review yet and is on vacation now. But manager did give me hints a couple of times since July that I will be either 4 or 5. I don't have much to complain because our team has been in constant re-org since a year ago, as a result some people like me got almost nothing (except some sh*tty stuff) to do for a year. So be careful after any re-org.
Engineering L63
Promoted to L64
New base - 132k
Compared to other posted base salaries here this appears to be pretty low.
Is there a guideline on min comp ratio when promoted ?
If comp ratio is very low can anything be done by raising with HR/mgmt or is it pretty much a lost cause ?
It wouldn't be embarrassing to have Partner Development Managers from Bing using Google+. That could easily be understood as market investigation, if not for their pathetic posts showing a mental age that results in an IQ of 50, what looks in line with their technical abilities.
The dark matter in Bing is easy to find: it is in the brains of all the partner-level managers that need to surround themselves with an infinite number of PMs to look smart. Prozac could make them go along the day resisting the temptation to sink into their ignorance. Yet, it doesn't change reality, and won't make Bing profitable any time soon. Will 7% of the partner-level morons in OSD get the boot?
If you are 4 or a 5, my suggestion is to start looking out, the axe is on its way..
Yes it is on its way, on Sept 7th to be exact. Massive RIF across the company.
L62
Promoted
Bucket 3
SDET
I m planning to move internally
would it be difficult to move? are managers discouraged to hire 3's?
For people that have found better jobs and quit, what's some advice about delivering the message? I guess it all boils down to how much you care. I was leaving a toxic environment, with a manager I was positive would have damned me at year end (a few months ago). Got a 40% raise offer so simply walked into my manager's office put my badge on the table and said "only one update for our 1:1 today - I quit, my stuff is in the office" and literally left the building (spent the weekend before taking what was mine, being in the middle of an office move helped). Got some interesting mail afterwards (do not show your face on campus again, remember you signed this non-compete) but not planning to deal with MSFT in the future I candidly didn't (and don't) give a %#%$#@.
Interestingly a couple of folks mentioned it was internally positioned as "an HR issue" - wonder if I should do something about that, though I candidly don't care.
I don't blame Balmer. Balmer isn't a techie, he is a businessman. He wants us to succeed. He just doesn't know how.
If Ballmer doesn't know how, he can't expect anyone else in the company to know how. Businessmen don't need to be tech nerds, but the successful ones figure out how to seize opportunities. Instead Ballmer is losing opportunities and scrambling, throwing billions of dollars after the missed opportunity to buy or make mega deals with other losers. Microsoft can't be what it used to be 10 years ago using this formula. It is lucky to still have massive profits from legacy businesses, but after 10 years of losing opportunities, the window is closing fast. Microsoft will wake up one quarter and find that sales of bloated software went down dramatically.
Anyone know what happens to Green Card guys if they (a) get fired (b) quit on their own?
Got my Green Card less than 6 months back.
Can my Green Card get revoked?
Could there be other issues?
Relocating to another state hopefully shouldn't be a problem either?
IANAL.
If the departure from MS is involuntary, your Greencard will be valid. You are now a free agent, so to speak.
In fact, you should personally thank Microsoft for the sponsorship as your future employer won't have to spend thousands keeping you in the country.
A voluntary departure immediately after approval may put your GC in jeopardy.
You are seriously doing this wrong. "Work smarter, not harder". I'm in the office maybe 7 hours a day, 5 days a week. Of that time, I probably spend 4 of it really working most days. Yet I always get my shit done on time, without obvious sandbagging on my estimates. If you're really putting in 60/70 solid hours of work in a week, figure out how to delegate, manage expectations, or otherwise get some of that work off your plate (hint: delegation looks good at review time. "X really helped out his teammate Y on project Z", when you dumped the pile of shit project Z on teammate Y and then acted as an "adviser" while teammate Y worked the long, unnoticed hours that you would've done otherwise).
There's nothing wrong with playing the system sometimes. Get the work done that you can do in 40 hours. Manage away the work that you can't do in 40 hours. Get high review scores.
> If I didn't get promo'd at MYCD, I'd have an extra 5-10% base and an extra 10% bonus and an extra 10% SA.
You didn't mention your discipline, but given that you got the R&D bonus I'm going to assume it's on a product team in one of dev, test, or PM. If so, at 59 you're calibrated against 60s. That's the SDE/SDET/PM I level band. Yes, more is expected of a 60 than a 59, but not so much more that you'd go from trending to a 1 in 59 and getting a promo to a 4 after the promo. Either you're not telling us something, or your management chain really sucks. If you were trending to a 4 in 60, they wouldn't have promoted you because you would've been trending to a 3 or 4 in 59. 60 to 61 is a bigger jump, and 62 to 63 even more so. If you had actually crossed level bands, I could maybe see this, but even then I'd expect no less than a 3 if they thought you were ready to be promoted.
Or maybe you got your MY promo and decided to rest on your laurels for the second half of the year. In which case you forgot Rule #1: your achievements are inversely proportional to the amount of time they happen before the annual review calibration meetings. If you did something big in August of last year, too fucking bad. You should've saved that for May. Or if you couldn't push it out that long without looking like a loser, you should've been scrambling to find something with big impact that you could do by May/June right before the calibration meetings so it's fresh in everybody's minds. A MY promo is no time to take vacation. If you think you deserve a rest after a promo, only do that if you get it at the annual review.
you examplify all that is wrong with the company.
can u questions your rating and go to HR if u got a 4
Andie said: I got a rating 4... and yet got promoted.
Are you familiar with the old robot saying: "does not compute"?
I am wondering if a rating 3 can be promoted? I was e/20 for 3 years, but reorg happened, I have been moved to another org just before review. I bet I will be 3, but wondering will 3 can be prompted.
"Competition is a by-product of productive work, not its goal. A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others." --Ayn Rand.
What all of you are doing wrong is focusing on your competitors instead of doing the best work you can do. Ballmer is far and away the worst offender.
There's a lot of FUD on this board. I'm going to try to bust some of it from the perspective of a 10-year Redmond R&D employee and manager. [fudbuster]
To: the person who said their manager thought 1=5% and 2=15%.
We all know that's wrong. 1=20% and 2=next 20%. The "1+/1H" is the top 1/4 of the 1s, or the top 5% overall, but it comes out of the 20%.
If your manager really said that, get him or her to put it in writing, and ask your skip or another manager if that's really true (and if your manager is that retarded, switch managers since god knows what other stupid things they're doing)
There's a lot of FUD on this board. I'm going to try to bust some of it from the perspective of a 10-year Redmond R&D employee and manager. [fudbuster]
To: L62, score=3, worried about moving internally
It's quite reasonable that you're concerned about your score impacting your internal career mobility. I'm sure there are some hiring managers who will turn up their noses at 3s and 4s, just like there are some managers who turn up their noses at people switching disciplines or moving form MSIT to R&D, for example.
With that said, however, I know that I and other managers are not turning up our noses at 3s, or even 4s. A 3 means you are at least a solid performer - the equivalent of a 70/A in the old model (in my mind, at least). I say "at least" since you might even be an "absolute 2" but were curved to a 3 because of the relative competency of the people you were calibrated with.
For that matter, I'd even look at a 4 - in that case, I'd want to talk to both the employee and their manager to understand the root cause of the 4 rating. Is the employee in the wrong team or role (if so, it makes sense that they are interviewing)? Are they missing core competencies or having trouble overcoming strategic obstacles?
to the guy asking about the $124K offer at L62 - that's about midpoint for L62 after the recent increases, so it's fair. $15K stock is also on par with what a good performer (e.g. score=2) would get at L62. Your timing is good since your vest date would be right around what you would have had if you'd been here in time for this year's review period... so you're not losing out on anything with your timing.
p.s. don't move to the east side
Admidst all the brouhaha about the new review model and stunning revelations that were all communicated a few months ago, I have what I hope is an interesting and novel question - to wit, what is the impact and future of compa ratios, given the new model?
the way I see it, my compa ratio will now only change due to 3 factors -- the merit increase due to my review score, the change in midpoint when my level changes (promo), and the change in midpoint when HR comp&bens periodically revises the midpoints.
there are no checks and balances to ensure max or min values on compa ratio, so it's possible that over time there will be significant drift. the new model also takes away the opportunity to "catch someone up" if they had a lower compa ratio (e.g. due to faster promo rate, lack of budget in prior year, etc.) - so your compa ratio coming into this review has a much higher impact on your future compa ratio (and compensation) than it would have in the old model...
[fudbuster] to the person asking about being curved to a 4, deserving a 3 (by manager's own admission), and wanting to dispute the review...
1) the model is locked, your review won't change. it won't.
2) it sucks that the curve impacted you in that way. if done correctly, your calibration group was sufficiently large (~50-100) so the curve was fairly applied. that's not necessarily a consolation, I know.
the fact that you got promoed speaks louder than the score - every hiring manager knows the struggle in balancing between 3s and 4s, so I don't think it's fair to say this is screwing your career.
my advice - take stock of your job in your group, see if you can have a frank conversation with your manager about what you need to do to stand out more (especially now that you've been promoted), and make a concerted effort. if by midyear you're not seeing the results or hearing the feedback you want, then look for a new job at MS.
[fudbuster] To: person asking how to "climb out" of a 4 after being promoted at midyear
I don't think you need 1s or 2s to prove you're doing well. You need a 3 next year to show you are performing well in the level, and a higher score (then/future) to show you are advancing to the next level.
think of a 4 as the lower part of 70/A in the old model
Worked for MSFT for 15 years until 2009. After repeated requests to relocate from field to Redmond, took a PM job in mid 2000s. I found many PUMs, GMs and Partners in my Division surprisingly ignorant about the real world, and what it's like to run a standard enterprise IT operation. I got laid off in Jan 2009. It was a blessing in disguise. I got snapped up by a well-known IT company, sometimes a MS partner and sometimes a competitor. Now I am better paid, work fewer hours, get more respect for my skills, play fewer political games, and work on interesting technology that customers actually want and use. Folks at my new employer grumble a bit about our review process, but it is light-years away from the MSFT disaster. I enter my 6 monthly review on a single web page. The review discussions with my manager are sincere, honest and useful. I get reasonably predictable rewards for the work I do. Oh and those oh-so-smart colleagues at MSFT? Well I did work with som pretty smart folks ... but there are also awesomely clever guys at my new place as well, I sit back and learn from them and feel the excitement of intellectual adventure all over again. MSFT does NOT have a monopoly on smart employees, in fact in recent years the brain-drain indictaes obverwise.
Back in Jan 2009, you would have seen me walking down 156th NE like a stunned ghost, envelope in my hand and mouth agape. I thought the world had crashed. Today I am far happier than I had been at MSFT for a long time. From 1994 till maybe 2000 it was a lot of fun. Since then, it's slid slowly and inevitably into chaos. I'm old enough to remember the dying days at Wang, Data General and DEC, and I saw IBM from across the river in the late 80s / early 90s. Microsoft in 2011 has very much the same feel. Anyway who is thinking of leaving: get out! Just do it. Anyone who is thinking of joining - don't do it!. Microsoft is at a technological dead-end - the afore-mentioned sow, feeding cash milk; nothing new is coming.
These days I run Linux on my laptop; not in protest, but because I work with Linux and Unix machines all day long. That's what customers want.
[fudbuster] General comment on RIF/fired/etc. from the context of Redmond-based R&D.
A RIF is a planned, strategic layoff. It usually involves a significant number of people in one or more business groups. We had some a couple years ago. My dad's generation called it a layoff. The criteria for who gets RIFed vary, but in the US at least they often include performance (last year, maybe historical). I have to assume there are defensible selection criteria, at a minimum to avoid losing any lawsuits.
Getting fired is a different matter. Assuming it's for performance (and not shitting in a bald CEO's hat), then it should not come as a surprise. you should be given written and verbal indication that you are not performing well. the words "not meeting expectations" will become a refrain. if you continue to not meet expectations, then expect that in a matter of weeks or months, you'll have a meeting with HR and your manager, and be given your walking papers.
This may or may not happen at annual review time (usually it's another time). A score of a 5 is an indicator - but not 100% - that you are heading in this direction unless you change something.
[fudbuster]
HiPo: (1) it's a flag on your record that indicates you were deemed to be among the highest potential employees. (2) for those individuals, it's a set of level-appropriate programs, some of which are called "bench", and usually involve extra training, talks by execs, maybe the occasional offsite. No extra $ or stock, but worth noting that someone in HiPo is likely a 1 anyway. (3) it expires each year, although some of the programs (e.g. bench) are multi-year, so even if you are not in hipo the next year, you don't get yanked from the bench.
"If you are 4 or a 5, my suggestion is to start looking out, the axe is on its way..
Yes it is on its way, on Sept 7th to be exact. Massive RIF across the company." From above.
PLEASE REPORT THIS TO THE GOVERNMENT. MICROSOFT DOES'NT HAVE THE RIGHT TO HIRE AND THEN RIF'S ENMASSE AT REVIEW TIME IN THE NAME OF PERFORMANCE BY PLAYING DIRTY POLITICS. THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT AND IN PUBLIC INTEREST. ALL OTHERS WHO HAVE A 1/2, DON'T THINK YOU ARE NOT ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK.
Washington, DC and Microsoft share the same problem -- "Lifer Politicians."
A MS Partner and a DC Legislator live for power and ego and have long ago forgotten about the job they are there to do. The result yielded is total corruption and a company and a government headed for bankruptcy.
I'll play pile on with my story, even though it's much like a lot of other stories. Long time employee, nothing but E/20s and E/70s and a 4.0 average under the older system. Up until June, heard I was getting a 2, and possibly a 1 depending on how the calibration meeting went.
Turns out our VP doesn't like me (and apparently was too much of a chicken shit to actually tell me). I ended up with a 4. This is, by far the worst review of my career.
Fortunately I have already found teams at MS that will hire me despite this score, but it's still a painful pill to swallow. And yes, I've ramped up my external job search as well.
I got a rating 4... and yet got promoted. my manager blames it on the 'curve', though i deserved a 3.
If managers can decide which bucket their reports deserved, 90% of us will be 3 or above.
I work about 20 hrs a week, and spend most of my time at work being collaborative and connecting one group of idiots to another.
I worked in the Windows client team about 5 years ago. This was truly a dysfunctional part of the org. One day I decided to do absolutely nothing for as long as I could. Most of the day I spent playing chess (Shredder). I attended mandatory meetings and responded enthusiastically to idiotic emails, but I produced absolutely no work output worth speaking of. This continued for about 4 months until I got a job with another group.
And nobody noticed. Which in itself was depressing.
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