No one seems to train for this sort of career-self-management explicitly, and most engineering managers are actually not all that experienced or good at managing people. Many will try to make things more comfortable for themselves by being less confrontational and downplaying the negative things which will come back to hurt you later. As such, you should work to combat these anti-patterns, asking your manager on a regular basis questions like these:
- What are the company's objectives and goals for me if I am to remain in my current position? Am I meeting these objectives?
- How about if I want to advance in the company? Am I making progress on these objectives?
- Is there any feedback which I need to take into account which will affect my performance review?
- I have responded to earlier feedback; has my response been satisfactory?
Go over all of these regularly, especially the question of feedback (feedback is much more actionable if it's timely). When you're done, summarize to your manager what you heard, and your sentiment analysis of that. "It sounds like everything is on track for now without the need to make major changes, and I can expect a timely promotion; is this right?"
Take notes every time, noting the date. (They don't have to be long.) Keep the notes organized in one location.
100% agreed.
FAANG companies like to manage people without giving negative feedback. This can be very confusing if you are used to explicit feedback and come from a more direct culture. "Listening to your manager" can be difficult if you are not used to decoding the issues.
Coasting is often possible. But this is not a good strategy - you are throwing away a huge opportunity to excel, grow and take on more challenges and scale. If you are not having a great time with growth on your current team, it's not advantageous to do the minimum. Instead, look for more exciting projects!
Why do FAANG companies allow coasting? It means people can feel safe, find passions and ideally excel and uncover huge value in these growing industries. Rather than a visible stick, there are (invisible) carrots. Take advantage of these!
As noted, eventually, lack of progression will count against you. You will be overlooked when big chances come up and fail to build relationships that will aid you in your career. It's hard to hire people who find these tasks easy - showing your capabilities will open doors.
- Hey X, I brought you into today to talk to you about something I noticed. There is an issue/errors with your work, when doing Y[provide evidence of common errors/average errors of others], I just want to say you're not in trouble, but we want you to improve this area and wanted to make sure you were aware of it.
- I want to extend any resources I have available for you to improve in this area, and of course I have some ideas, I wrote everything down on this paper/email.
- You can come with a plan of your own. Or we can collaborate on it--if you're not sure why issues are happening. Take some time and think about it, and when you're ready to talk about how we might ago about improving in this area, please schedule some time with me and we can work on this together.
Stick to facts. Clearly state your expectation, and show how they are not meeting that expectation. Then place the ball firmly in their court. The goal is not fixing the issue for them, but getting them to take responsibility for fixing it themselves.
Refrain from creating a "shit sandwich" by putting the critique in the middle of praise. That makes the conversation ineffective. These conversations are never fun, but they are important to have, and you eventually get used to it.
It's not about berating anyone. It's about constant subtle modifications. They compare it to driving a car. Even if you're on a completely straight road, you can't just keep your hands off the wheel and expect the car to continue going straight. You provide regular nudges to keep the car on the road.
Maybe this analogy doesn't hold up that well anymore with auto-correcting cars :)
I think your concern about not providing stronger feedback is valid. Highly recommend the series of podcasts they have around this topic. You'll think about feedback in a much different fashion.
What degree of tenure do other people on the team have? If old-timers aren't on the team, or worse, if they leave the team for others within the company, they might be seeing writing on the wall that you can't. If this is the case, your future on this team, and likely with this company, might be in jeopardy when the reorganization comes.
Is the team just not important? Are you responsible for maintenance of some cost center that isn't worth high-level executives paying any attention to? If this is the case, your future might also be in jeopardy, but the reorganization might be multiple years away.
Are you just not listening to your manager? It's possible that you are going to be "blindsided" by a PIP due to the lack of output. This might happen if the actual output of your team isn't what you are thinking it is. Maybe the engineers who aren't outputting anything visible to you are actually outputting considerably to other parts of the organization. If this is the case, your future is in jeopardy and you'll find yourself out of the company within a year or so (yes, it actually does take a long time to fire people at FAANG companies).
It could be one of these or something else. Since you have so much extra time, it might behoove you to figure out exactly what the situation is on your team, so you can make the necessary preparations (to change teams, to get a new job before you're laid off or fired, to do whatever you think is best).