A bunch of very different things conflated from perf reviews to tools for counting commits (i guess?).
Tools: sure, some metrics are either misleading or gameable to the point of being useless. But you'd imagine some tools might be actually useful for a manager? Then the perf reviews. Obviously everyone hates them. I hate them. But how do you keep large orgs of thousands of people with varying motives, moods and ability from descending into chaos?
Managers don't spike on technical problems of unpredictable depth and don't do code reviews. (I've seen wishful thinking that they did, but in practice, they don't). How can they tell if someone is genuinely stuck on a harder-than-expected problem or is simply full of shit? Verbally ask around for opinions from ICs closer to the subject matter? But that's the same or worse as an informal 360, or a perf review.
fwiw i'm currently and thankfully not a manager but i kinda see why they do what they do.
Tools: sure, some metrics are either misleading or gameable to the point of being useless. But you'd imagine some tools might be actually useful for a manager? Then the perf reviews. Obviously everyone hates them. I hate them. But how do you keep large orgs of thousands of people with varying motives, moods and ability from descending into chaos?
Managers don't spike on technical problems of unpredictable depth and don't do code reviews. (I've seen wishful thinking that they did, but in practice, they don't). How can they tell if someone is genuinely stuck on a harder-than-expected problem or is simply full of shit? Verbally ask around for opinions from ICs closer to the subject matter? But that's the same or worse as an informal 360, or a perf review.
fwiw i'm currently and thankfully not a manager but i kinda see why they do what they do.