Oh absolutely having an aggressive manager and skip will help you with bonuses and promotions. But they don’t force managers to give people low scores anymore.
While the management tool had a weird slider and score system (you could give a number between 0 and 1000 IIRC), the general terminology was you could get between 0 and 200, indicative of how you compared to the average person at your level. 100 meaning you did average per-say or completed about 100% of the work an average person could complete.
While not unheard of it was basically impossible to get 200% (required at least your skip/M2 and maybe your M3 to agree).
Last I heard (keep in mind this was 2023 or so) managers got around 105% or 110% of their bonus allocated for their team. Generally that meant you could give everyone “100” if you wanted, but practically it never worked out that way.
Also there were strict rules you couldn’t take from a more junior budget to give a more senior person a higher bonus. You could however take from a more senior budget and give it to a junior.
I. E. I couldn’t give two SWE1s 80 to give a SWE2 a 120. The reverse was allowed though.
Layoffs are generally done algorithmically. I’m not kidding. They don’t want to be sued. They follow all the legal rules otherwise (can’t layoff a US citizen without laying off a Visa employee first, etc).
Source: I worked there for 11 years, I was an IC but have many friends who are managers who would tell me how the system works, and have been laid off twice. The first time I found another position within MSFT but the most recent time, in December, I opted to take some time off and find something else.
JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Sort of. Managers still get in a room and decide how the bonus pool should be distributed by ranking people.
Having a more aggressive manager is important for getting a better bonus.
I could see this factoring into layoff decisions.
BlackAura@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Oh absolutely having an aggressive manager and skip will help you with bonuses and promotions. But they don’t force managers to give people low scores anymore.
While the management tool had a weird slider and score system (you could give a number between 0 and 1000 IIRC), the general terminology was you could get between 0 and 200, indicative of how you compared to the average person at your level. 100 meaning you did average per-say or completed about 100% of the work an average person could complete.
While not unheard of it was basically impossible to get 200% (required at least your skip/M2 and maybe your M3 to agree).
Last I heard (keep in mind this was 2023 or so) managers got around 105% or 110% of their bonus allocated for their team. Generally that meant you could give everyone “100” if you wanted, but practically it never worked out that way.
Also there were strict rules you couldn’t take from a more junior budget to give a more senior person a higher bonus. You could however take from a more senior budget and give it to a junior.
I. E. I couldn’t give two SWE1s 80 to give a SWE2 a 120. The reverse was allowed though.
Layoffs are generally done algorithmically. I’m not kidding. They don’t want to be sued. They follow all the legal rules otherwise (can’t layoff a US citizen without laying off a Visa employee first, etc).
Source: I worked there for 11 years, I was an IC but have many friends who are managers who would tell me how the system works, and have been laid off twice. The first time I found another position within MSFT but the most recent time, in December, I opted to take some time off and find something else.
JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Yes, but I’m saying the algorithm for layoffs factors in “performance”, which can be factored from past bonus allocations.
The algorithm isn’t going to lay off 150’s, but might preferentially select 100’s.
I don’t have inside info, I’m just making assumptions that the data has to come from somewhere.