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A comment on What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry. Parent comment

Re:What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry by mathattack on Wednesday January 06, 2021 @11:27AM (#25659155)
Yes. The challenge is how to measure individual contributors. It’s easy in Sales, which is why salespeople can do very well without being managers. Harder with engineers, whose work is very interconnected.
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Re:What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry by cmrdporcupine on Wednesday January 06, 2021 @11:31AM (#25659197)
For sure. And it's why frankly in my opinion it's very hard to scale software development effectively beyond 25-50 engineers. After that politics and faux-meritocracies take over as people lose personal touch with each other.

Not that small companies can't be hell, too.

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Re:What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry by mathattack on Wednesday January 06, 2021 @12:12PM (#25659695)
Yes. Most good people know who the other good people are, but it’s hard to turn that into a plan fit for large companies.
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Re:What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry by guytv on Wednesday January 06, 2021 @01:36PM (#25660679)
Team mates, usually know who is a good engineer, and who's not - much more accurately than management. When I was in Google, Perf process was based on peers feedback, and it worked well.
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Re:What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry by mathattack on Wednesday January 06, 2021 @03:01PM (#25661539)
How much variable in rewards and comp are based on the peer reviews?

Another challenge with large firms is the overall lack of variance.

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