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These frameworks serve 3 purposes. The first purpose is to have something concrete to point at so your employees don't sue you over unfair practices - they crea

These frameworks serve 3 purposes. The first purpose is to have something concrete to point at so your employees don't sue you over unfair practices - they create a paper trail for management to operate and build evidence that what they are doing follows a meritocratic process (whether that's true or not is irrelevant, it's purely a legal concern). The second purpose is to motivate employees who want progression by setting up a goal posts for them to shoot for so that they try harder and don't leave, but vague and subjective enough to deny you the promotion for a least a cycle or two. The third is that there's all these bloody HR and middle management people hanging around and they need something to do. So the only way this process is relevant to you is that your manager might want to look good to their manager by demonstrating that they're "developing" your "talent". It's a nice favour to your boss to let them pretend their job isn't totally meaningless in this respect, but I'm in the same boat as you, I couldn't care less about progression.

sabellito 2y ago
I've worked in companies with similar frameworks both as a dev and as manager, and it was great. Everything has issues, but the framework gave useful guidance. Sorry you've worked for such terrible companies.
- LittleTimothy 2y ago
  I'm not saying it doesn't work. Especially for early careers people, it works absolutely fine because the requirements are reasonable and the scope is largely within the employees control. For later stage employees, it's usefulness tales off massively. When you get to senior levels your ability to fulfil the requirements gets further and further out of your hands and often if you want to pursue the promotional criteria you're actually going to have to deprioritize delivering value to the business to prioritize engineering situations where you can meet the criteria. A lot of the senior goals are basically politics.
0xEF 2y ago
I'm also in the same boat as both of you, but I'm not sure I agree with the idea that I need to do a bunch of extra work to prove some nebulous concept like "impact at the next level" or whatever buzzwoo we want to say in place of that. If the manager wants to develop my talent, then they need to get off their over-priced rear ends and do so. I feel like making everyone at the lower levels shoulder all of the accountability is the exact opposite of what we need to do when it comes to improving operations across the board.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  > If the manager wants to develop my talent, then they need to get off their over-priced rear ends and do so. You are responsible for your own career. When (hypothetical) you get ready to look for another job, do you really want to only be able to say that you were a ticket taker or do you want to be able to say you led initiatives? Even if you don’t really care about getting ahead, you still have to be able to stand out from other applicants
  - 0xEF 2y ago
    I never said anything about not being responsible for my own career. There was a previous implication that we need to help the boss look good, which is BS. If I want to develop myself because I want to explore different options or expand my skill set, I am free to and generally opt to do so. If a manager wants to develop my skills, then that is their responsibility. Again, let's not shift all the accountability to the guys lower on the ladder. It's a team effort. Perhaps I just don't understand your mindset because I do not define myself by my career. Work is just how I exchange some of my time and effort for money so I can focus my life on the things I actually matter to me, so the "weight" of my career is perhaps different than yours. Which is fine, btw. I don't really have any issues if someone wants to make their career their life, but I'll never align with that, especially not at this late in my adult life.
    - sillysaurusx 2y ago
      I’m super curious how old you are. I’m about to hit 37, so 40 is marching closer. Love your email by the way.

sabellito 2y ago

I've worked in companies with similar frameworks both as a dev and as manager, and it was great. Everything has issues, but the framework gave useful guidance. Sorry you've worked for such terrible companies.

LittleTimothy 2y ago
I'm not saying it doesn't work. Especially for early careers people, it works absolutely fine because the requirements are reasonable and the scope is largely within the employees control. For later stage employees, it's usefulness tales off massively. When you get to senior levels your ability to fulfil the requirements gets further and further out of your hands and often if you want to pursue the promotional criteria you're actually going to have to deprioritize delivering value to the business to prioritize engineering situations where you can meet the criteria. A lot of the senior goals are basically politics.

0xEF 2y ago

I'm also in the same boat as both of you, but I'm not sure I agree with the idea that I need to do a bunch of extra work to prove some nebulous concept like "impact at the next level" or whatever buzzwoo we want to say in place of that. If the manager wants to develop my talent, then they need to get off their over-priced rear ends and do so. I feel like making everyone at the lower levels shoulder all of the accountability is the exact opposite of what we need to do when it comes to improving operations across the board.

scarface_74 2y ago
> If the manager wants to develop my talent, then they need to get off their over-priced rear ends and do so. You are responsible for your own career. When (hypothetical) you get ready to look for another job, do you really want to only be able to say that you were a ticket taker or do you want to be able to say you led initiatives? Even if you don’t really care about getting ahead, you still have to be able to stand out from other applicants
- 0xEF 2y ago
  I never said anything about not being responsible for my own career. There was a previous implication that we need to help the boss look good, which is BS. If I want to develop myself because I want to explore different options or expand my skill set, I am free to and generally opt to do so. If a manager wants to develop my skills, then that is their responsibility. Again, let's not shift all the accountability to the guys lower on the ladder. It's a team effort. Perhaps I just don't understand your mindset because I do not define myself by my career. Work is just how I exchange some of my time and effort for money so I can focus my life on the things I actually matter to me, so the "weight" of my career is perhaps different than yours. Which is fine, btw. I don't really have any issues if someone wants to make their career their life, but I'll never align with that, especially not at this late in my adult life.
  - sillysaurusx 2y ago
    I’m super curious how old you are. I’m about to hit 37, so 40 is marching closer. Love your email by the way.