Google is an American multinational technology company that focuses on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, and much more. It is considered one of the Big Five technology companies.
Performance Review
Evaluation
See relevant discussions involving Google engineers on Taro.
Compared to the previous PERF system, the manager's role in collecting feedback is elevated in GRAD.
Managers typically have personal plans setup with each report about the requirements to get an S rating. This plan is inputted into a tool called Better Work. This plan is then re-evaluated on a quarterly basis, adding and subtracting from it as needed.
Software engineers are evaluated based on scope and impact, which is broken into the following criteria:
Contribution
The business results you drove. This is measured through delivered impact, scaled per level (L3: individual, L4: project, L5: team, L6: org)
Challenge
Solving ambiguous, technical problems, anticipating future issues, and showing design judgment.
Influence
Leadership for project delivery, team health, architecture, or other initiatives with measurable impact.
Expertise
Being a trusted authority on something is an important criteria for growth.
In addition, every role has teamwork attributes. This is designed to capture leadership and community contributions such as helping with ERGs or internal groups. This helps but doesn't contribute to promo on its own merit.
Feedback
Self Review
Self reviews document the work you did through the performance review cycle. Your self-review should cover the following:
- Googleyness – Demonstrated adherence to Google’s values
- Execution - The ability to deliver high quality work in a timely manner
- Thought leadership - Leadership for project delivery, team health, architecture, or other initiatives with measurable impact
- Problem-solving skill – Using past experience and analytical ability to solve problems
Peer Feedback
Your manager plays a critical role in collecting and summarizing peer feedback. Make sure you're on the same page with them about who can speak to your work.
Reviews are 360, meaning you'll get feedback across multiple dimensions, from people at various levels and roles in the company.
After discussing your work and collaboration with others, your manager will send peer requests for you. Since your manager requests feedback on your behalf, it’s critical to let them know who can give you good feedback.
Keep in mind:
- You don’t see the peer feedback by default. Your manager must choose to share it with you.
- Your manager has to summarize the peer feedback for the calibration committee (the committee doesn’t see the raw feedback).
Calibration
One unique aspect of Google is that the promotion process is deliberately disconnected from performance review ratings.
Each level of engineer has a separate calibration (so L3s get calibrated together, L4s together, and so on). The goal of calibration is to (1) assign performance buckets for each engineer and (2) decide who should get promoted.
Unlike the previous system when your manager did not take part in the calibration committee, your manager is now part of the committee and discusses your packet. Your manager has to summarize the peer feedback to take to the committee (the committee doesn’t see the raw feedback).
Performance Improvement Plan
There is a high risk of receiving a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) if you get an MI (Moderate Impact) or NI (Not Enough Impact) rating. A PIP results in a formal meeting with your manager and the HR who will outline the milestones you need to hit in order to "graduate" from the PIP. Generally the timeline for this is 3-6 months.
A support check-in is the phrase used by management to indicate poor performance and a likely PIP.
Promotion
Promotion Guide
In general, Google is more conservative with promotion compared to peer companies (especially Meta). With the recent introduction of GRAD, the manager plays a much larger role in promotion than before.
You can self-nominate for promotion, but since your manager has to write your packet, your manager must be onboard.
In order to be considered for a promotion, your manager writes "next-level assessment" in your packet for discussion in the committee.
The opportunities for promotion are in March and September. The March promo cycle begins shortly after the GRAD process, which starts in December and concludes in March. September is considered "off cycle".
If you're going for promotion, ensure you have clear artifacts backing up your work and overall merits.
Some examples of artifact generation are:
Creating thorough, high-quality technical design diagrams for your projects Cleaning up old design docs Resolving open comments with thoughtful responses The quality of your designs and your evidence of solving challenging problems are key promotion criteria.
