Review me?

Its that time of the year again...No I am not talking about your taxes. I am talk about what makes you pay your taxes at the first place. Your income and the process that determines your income: Performance Reviews.

How important are these anyway? John, a friend of mine, considers it as an opportunity to get exposed to a hodge podge of fancy HR terminology (which would help ultimately help him boost his Scrabble score). Well, that is partially true. HR's do like fancy jargon just like Software Engineers do. These reviews also give you a chance to discover fancy websites and perf review generator softwares. Yes I did have the same look like you have on your face now.

Pic 1: Snap shot of a perf review generator.

Well, I think to top five things a performance review is intended to do is:

1. Company's goals and principles: It makes you think about what your Company stands for and how your work aligns with the company's. Sometimes it is good to sit back with a Peppermint mocha and take a 50,000 ft view of your Company. If you think, you don't believe full heartedly in what the company stands for, please do yourself and your company a favor by switching jobs. This, in my opinion, is the single most important thing a performance review should do: To reinforce the company's principles and goals in what you do everyday.

2. Think about business value: Software developers have busy iterations and goals for each iteration that they get too wrapped in this world of code reviews, unit testing, deployment and the stuff. Remember, no matter how cool your code/feature is, as long as it doesn't add value, it means NOTHING. This is a skill that most lacks in software developers today and they definitely do not teach this in your "Compiler design" class.

3. Reflect on the year: Like anybody, you would've had a few ups and downs in your work life in the last year. Take some time to celebrate your success and analyze your mistakes. Everyone falls the first time(including Neo) but the important thing is figuring out how to stand up (and in Neo's case how to jump buildings).

4. Think about which peaks you want to climb: It is much easier to measure your success if you pick the challenges that you want to take on. And please be realistic. If you are starting with a 8-8 record, set yourself a goal to clinch the division next year (and not try to be the "Perfect season" Patriots) . I am not trying to discourage you, but small victories do more to your morale than falling short on a "Venti" goal.

5. Feedback: Nothing, I mean NOTHING improves you more than feedback from your peers and your Manager. If your company doesn't have peer feedback, please talk your HR and try to make it happen. It is your peers who see your work day in and day out and their feedback is invaluable. And please be honest about giving peer feedback. If you are concerned about your peer's well being, tell them how and which areas they need improvement. On the other hand, if you really liked them stepping up during your last vacation, add that to the review.


Well, reviews are time consuming and need a lot of thought. But they is important and need to be done the right way. Ooops...I need to start writing my reviews and they are due in a week.