A semester on how tech companies rate, rank and cut their staff, taught as the survival guide nobody gives graduates. Learn the tricks, learn why they work and who pays for them, then design a review that can't be gamed.
What you will do
Learn how large technology companies decide who exceeds, who meets, and who is on the list. Then learn the tricks people use to move themselves up that list, one a week, and use each one on your own work. Then find out why each trick works, from the real case it comes from, with the sources to check, and who pays for it. In week 10 the tricks stop working, in week 11 they stop telling anyone apart, and in week 12 you sit on the other side of the table and design a review your week-1 self could not beat. You leave with that design, a brag document nine weeks long, and the ability to read any rubric as its author.
Who it is for
Final-year students about to start a graduate job at a company with a performance review. If you have ever been rated, ranked or calibrated and were not in the room when it happened, this course is about that room. No prerequisites. It helps to have been on a team of more than three people.
How the semester runs
The room
how the rating is actually decided, and by whom
Inputs you control
the self-review, the traces, the credit
- Two-week break
Inputs you do not
the packet, the presence, the reorg
The system fails
the layoff list, the rat race, and the design
a trick that week no trick15% an assessment falls due
Lectures are on Tuesdays, stand-ups on Thursdays. No trick in the course is invented.
A note on marks
- Stand-up attendance10%every week
- The self-review15%week 6
- The manager's case20%week 9
- Calibration15%week 11
- Design an ungameable review40%week 12
Marks in this course are calibrated to a curve you will not be shown. The policies page says so in full. It is the only honest way to run this particular course.
Where to go next
Lectures
Why each trick works, the real case behind it, and the sources.
Stand-ups
The trick of the week, what to bring, and what happens in the room.
Assessment
Five pieces of work, one of them every week, the last of which turns the course around.
People
One person who has chaired the meeting, one who is currently in it.