Is it actually a problem everywhere? I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not written about much on HN, but my guess is that at least some of the big tech companies will sometimes do large off-cycle performance bonuses. It may depend a lot on the work though, e.g. doing the thing the company actually cares about vs what they say they want or needing to fight one’s case a lot, or needing to have product focused improvements rather than some equivalent savings from efficiency.