Best of Engineering Leadership & Wellbeing 🌱

From the Vault: Why Performance Reviews in Software Development Suck

Here's a post from my best-of series titled, “Why Performance Reviews in Software Development Suck.”

I had an epiphany a while back, realizing from past performance reviews just how much they can suck. They were dreadful because my EMs used developer metrics more as a tool of repression than empowerment. Each review left me feeling unhappy, partly because my EM didn’t know whether I was truly enjoying building technology with the tools we were using. This experience led me to fully understand how the focus on Developer Experience has grown over the years—driven by developers eager to become better EMs than those they had experienced.

I hope you enjoy this best-of post. Feel free to comment on how you've made performance reviews suck less. 😆