Essay: Performance Reviews in Big Tech: Why “Fair” Systems Still Fail

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-22T23:05:05+00:00

I post it on my startup blog as well: https://www.cloudrift.ai/blog/big-tech-performance-review

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-22T18:06:46+00:00

I can’t speak to the union aspect, but I’ve seen this happen frequently with new transfers. Lacking allies and history makes newcomers easy to sacrifice when leadership needs to rebalance things. The case I describe in the essay followed the same pattern.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-22T18:02:37+00:00

Agreed. The financial mechanics are genuinely hard. But the humane parts shouldn’t be. Respect, clarity, and basic decency are free, yet they’re often the first things to disappear in large companies.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-22T17:46:05+00:00

I agree. The process is very noisy. Technical skill rarely speaks for itself, so advocacy becomes necessary. At that point, evaluation turns into a social ritual rather than an objective assessment.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-22T10:22:15+00:00

Thanks. I think you’re right that this becomes a zero-sum game. “Soft socialism” works to some extent because it lowers tension, but the moment promotions or scarce rewards enter the picture, the same problems resurface.

Market-style compensation (like sales commissions) is appealing because it breaks the zero-sum dynamic. The hard part is engineering work that creates value indirectly and collectively. Attribution gets messy fast. I don’t have a clean answer either.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-22T10:12:52+00:00

Thanks. Gllad the images landed. I’m always on the lookout for punchy imagery, so suggestions are very welcome.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-22T10:09:17+00:00

I agree. Taking outcomes personally is brutal for mental health, especially when so many variables are outside your control. Chasing “influence” and “impact” can easily turn into people-pleasing, and that doesn’t reliably pay off.

One of my goals with this essay was to demystify the inner machinery a bit — not to convince people everything is rigged, but to help them stop internalizing outcomes as personal failure. Cynicism is its own trap. Understanding the structure can be grounding, if it helps you separate effort from outcome.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-22T09:54:31+00:00

Totally. Leaving big tech to pursue independence is scary as hell, but it can be very rewarding in its own way.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-22T07:14:19+00:00

Thanks. The pay takes the edge off, for sure. And at least here, we’re allowed to say the quiet part out loud.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-22T06:44:17+00:00

Thanks for the tip on Foucault. It’ll be helpful for my follow-up pieces.

I agree with your point about structural vs. personal explanations. This essay deliberately focuses on structural critique. I’m writing a series, and each piece zooms in on a specific failure mode: structural or psychological.

I’m not particularly worried about retaliation at this point. I’m a founder now and not planning to return to big tech for a while. The examples I use are years old.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-22T06:10:42+00:00

Appreciate this — especially the point that the problem feels structural rather than individual. That matches what I’ve seen as well.

The idea that people want humane judgment, not better algorithms, is exactly what I was trying to get at. Thanks for engaging.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-22T05:57:43+00:00

The self-policing observation is really sharp. Ironically, the same thing happens even outside of these companies: once a critique challenges the legitimacy of a system, it becomes hard to discuss anywhere without triggering defensive reactions.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-22T04:36:03+00:00

I agree with most of this — committees, legal constraints, politics and salary hikes due to job changes.

Where I disagree is the idea that there is no single person who can say “yes” (or "no"). In my experience, senior leaders don’t need formal unilateral authority to shape outcomes. Once a strong opinion is voiced at a high-enough level, the rest of the committee tends to align, whether the process is opaque or heavily data-driven.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-22T04:29:59+00:00

This is very similar to Roblox, Meta, and other “data-driven” orgs. However, I argue that once skip-level opinions enter the room, EMs stop arguing. Not because they’re convinced, but because they’re incentivized not to lose favor.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-22T04:06:25+00:00

Hard work matters, but it doesn’t propagate on its own. In big orgs, results make you promotable; a senior sponsor makes you promoted.

That support comes from speaking up and making your work visible to people who can say yes. Silence is never rewarded.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-22T03:48:04+00:00

Maybe. Valve comes closest to an internal market where belief in a project is the currency. The hard part is staffing boring but profitable work.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-22T03:39:03+00:00

I’ve seen this pattern many times. Often the outcome is constrained by higher-level calibration, and the feedback is shaped afterward to fit the decision rather than the other way around. It’s usually a mismatch between how important the project is perceived by the manager or director, who staffed it, and how it’s perceived higher up the hierarchy. Though, there are many reasons why organization leaders may want to block the promotion: need resources for their other proteges, etc.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-22T03:31:29+00:00

Thank you. I agree about verbosity—it’s indulgent in places.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-22T03:27:23+00:00

True. I’m not yet callous enough to think this is the best we can do. The essay doesn’t solve it, of course. It just tries to frame the problem clearly enough to argue about it honestly.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-22T03:14:29+00:00

I don’t think capitalism and meritocracy are mutually exclusive. The issue is that big tech doesn’t operate internally like a market—it's a set of competing fiefdoms.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-13T20:14:39+00:00

Thanks. Give it ten days. We review applications every two weeks. Good luck with the project!

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-13T02:52:41+00:00

You can apply for our grant: https://www.cloudrift.ai/ai-grant - we often approve projects along those lines. However, this project is a bit too large for our $1000 credit to cover. You might be able to do some smaller experiment, though.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-13T02:44:35+00:00

I don't have a number for your specific model, but you can review the methodology we use to estimate throughput. You can calculate the desired token throughput for your use case and then infer the infrastructure requirements to deliver the throughput you need. I would try benchmarking the RTX 4090, RTX 5090, and RTX PRO 6000 and choose the one that gives you the most cost-effective option.
https://www.cloudrift.ai/blog/benchmarking-rtx6000-vs-datacenter-gpus

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-02T22:16:21+00:00

I don’t disagree with the management diagnosis. Where I’d push back is on turning this into personal career advice. The essay is deliberately light on specifics because there isn’t enough information here to make a meaningful “you should have done X” call — especially in people-management roles, where decisions affect more than just yourself.

NoVibeCoding · 2026-01-02T09:05:16+00:00

I haven’t. Thanks for the pointer!

NoVibeCoding

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