The Calibration Blindside
Why Top Performers Still Get “Meets Expectations”
Every year, if you work as an IC in a big tech company, you'll see something odd. All the managers disappear for a few days. Their calendars show big private blocks. They seem stressed and rushed before and after these sessions. Your manager may have asked you questions about your work during this time. If you wondered why, they might have given a vague answer like “to gain clarity.”
What’s this big event called?
The answer is Calibrations.
Calibrations are a process that ensures fairness, consistency, and objectivity when evaluating employees and deciding on compensation.
Gergely Orosz does a great job explaining the various procedural aspects of Calibrations in this article on The Pragmatic Engineer.
Today, I’ll share three surprising cases where Individual Contributors (ICs) aimed for Exceeds but ended up with Meets. We’ll go behind the scenes to see what happened in calibrations to cause these situations and how the ICs could have prevented them.
A few caveats before you read further:
Since there are so many different rating scales out there, I will use the following for simplicity. You can map this to your company’s rating scale pretty easily. Most companies follow a similar 5-rating scale with 2 ratings below, one in the middle, and 2 above.
I’m blending stories from many situations I've seen in many calibration sessions. I’m also using fictional names from a random name generator. I hope both will protect anonymity and still allow for real, nuanced conversations.
You might feel a strong urge to criticize the manager in each situation. Don’t. Today’s article is for all you ICs who are curious about how to improve your calibrations.
All my advice focuses on forward-looking prevention. It's very rare to reverse a calibration rating once it's finalized. Doing so usually involves a lengthy HR process, which only starts if the case is serious. If a situation has already happened to you, then I suggest letting it go for now but applying my advice for the next calibration cycle.
If you are a manager reading this and wondering how you can show up as a better manager for your reports in calibrations then read this article on The Pragmatic Engineer by Gergely Orosz.
Myrtle gets a Meets
Myrtle was a strong engineer who had worked hard the whole year. For the past 2 years, she received Meets since her promotion. This year, she felt she had pushed herself and achieved much more. She felt she was a shoo-in for an Exceeds.
To her surprise, her manager handed her another Meets when they had the performance discussion after calibrations!
Behind the scenes
Myrtle’s manager had 12 direct reports. He couldn't spend the same amount of time on each report’s calibration notes. Creating a quality calibration note takes about 2-3 hours of a manager's time. Managers usually have around 3-4 business days after reports submit self-assessments and peers give feedback to complete this task. They must also do this while keeping up with their regular tasks. This includes managing incidents, guiding projects, and dealing with any business issues that arise. Many managers, like Myrtle's, often spread their limited time unevenly.
He paid extra attention to the write-up of one of his reports who was going up for a promotion and was also a critical engineer on the team. He also did a fairly job with three others who had told him months before that they wanted to work towards an Exceeds. The team had one Does Not Meet case that needed special attention. This was important since HR would be reviewing those notes. After all that time, he only had a few hours left to finish writing 7 additional calibration notes.
How could Myrtle have prevented this?
Hope is a bad career strategy - Instead of hoping for an Exceeds in the next cycle, Myrtle can proactively tell her manager that she’d like to work towards it at the performance review 1:1 right after the current cycle. Check in every 2-3 months. Talk about how she is doing and what else she could do.
Advocate for yourself - Myrtle could put in extra care to write her self-assessment clearly. This way, her manager has all the data ready. He won't need to spend much time on calibration notes for her. In many companies, the calibration notes template is also available to all. Managers may also share it if asked. Myrtle could write a draft and share it with her manager. She can let them know that it’s only a draft and he can use as much or as little of it as he wishes.
Check out WriteEdge — a tool by Jordan Cutler and Sidwyn Koh to help engineers write better docs. I contributed a Calibration Notes template to this tool sometime ago that you can grab to write your own calibration notes!
Disappointment for Devin
Devin told his manager months ago that he was aiming for an Exceeds. He really wanted the Exceeds this time. It would help offset his upcoming compensation cliff. It would also keep him on track for a promotion in the mid-year cycle.
Devin made sure to get stretch assignments throughout the year and kept up his high PR count. He avoided glue work that might distract him. This included too many meetings and volunteer activities, like campus recruitment. He felt he was a shoo-in for an Exceeds.
To his disappointment, his manager handed him another Meets when they had the performance discussion after calibrations!
On top of that, his manager said it was a “High Meets." Devin asked what effect it would have on his compensation, and the answer was “a little bit." Enough to offset the upcoming cliff? Nope! Would this keep him on track for a promotion attempt later this year? Not really. He’d have to wait a bit longer and grow some more.
Behind the scenes
Devin’s manager was very well aware of his upcoming cliff and knew he was aiming for the Exceeds. He worked with Devin all year. They focused on solid project landings and good artifacts, like design docs and PRs. Devin’s manager felt he was definitely ready for an Exceeds.
In the calibration meeting, Devin’s manager got a surprise! A peer manager, whose team participated in a large project that Devin was also part of, spoke up. She said Devin hardly showed up to the project briefings, and it was hard to get hold of him for questions. This slowed down the project pace because Devin was off working on his own. Another peer manager mentioned that a new engineer on his team felt Devin left him to handle the project ramp-up alone.
The group agreed that Devin was doing good work alone. However, he wasn't showing leadership traits, like helping junior engineers or collaborating with others. They concluded that his case was at the higher end of Meets but wouldn’t cross over to Exceeds yet.
Devin’s manager wrote down “High Meets” in his notes to discuss with Devin later, but that isn’t an official rating. Devin’s pay might change a bit with the manager or exec level discretionary budget. But if his cliff comes from a big gap in his current pay, then a “High Meets” rating probably won’t help him keep his compensation.
How could Devin have prevented this?
How matters as much as What - Devin did a great job ensuring his own work was solid. However unless you are an entry level engineer, this is the very definition of Meets. To get an Exceeds you have to show solid personal contributions AND show that you are also upleveling others. Your leadership skills start becoming the differentiating factor for higher ratings.
Manage Outwards - Devin managed upwards by having explicit conversations about working towards an Exceeds with his manager. But he didn’t do much outward managing. In this case, the peer managers who spoke up in calibrations had only indirect interactions with Devin through their reports. Their impressions of Devin from those were not positive. If Devin connects with them and gets their sponsorship, he might find more allies in the calibration room to support his Exceeds case.
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Tina is not Technical
Tina is an excellent engineer who always has her eye on the bigger picture of business outcomes. This year she spent a lot of time filling the cracks to make sure launches happened on time with high quality. As a result, she has high praise from multiple senior peers and her manager wants to put her up for promotion soon. The annual calibrations are here, and everyone thinks Tina will get an Exceeds. These important projects wouldn’t have happened without her!
To her surprise, her manager handed her a Meets when they had the performance discussion after calibrations!
Behind the scenes
Tina fell into the classic glue work conundrum. She made a big impact on the business. However, she lacked enough engineering artifacts, such as PRs and design docs. This led to the dreaded “not technical enough” discussion in calibrations. Everyone agreed Tina had strong leadership, high ownership, and a great bias for action. But they struggled to see how she was at Exceeds compared to other engineers. Those engineers had many more personal technical contributions.
How could Tina have prevented this?
Make your work visible - Glue work is necessary work. It can make or break a project’s success. Tina can show her work using different artifacts. These include alignment meeting notes and debugging session notes. Tina can share other technical artifacts with her manager. These include snippets of comments she made on PRs or design docs that enhanced the design. Junior engineers' peer reviews can show that she helped improve the team's speed. She did this by onboarding newcomers faster.
Block time for deep work - If Tina’s technical artifacts are close to zero, she needs to focus on writing code and design docs. If her company values these artifacts, she must set aside time to create them. The best way to do this is to block large chunks of Focus Time on your calendar and be firm about protecting it.
Readers, what surprising calibration outcomes have you encountered?
Share your story in comments!
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This post has exceeded my expectations.
EM here. This post is so spot on. (Unfortunately… but this is the game)