Performance Reviews and Feedback for Engineers

Review season turns a year of work into a paragraph and a rating. These episodes cover reading a bad review, feedback so vague it tells you nothing, how to give a peer something honest without wrecking the relationship, and what to do when the work you did never made it into the writeup.

22 episodes of Soft Skills Engineering, the weekly advice podcast where Dave Smith and Jamison Dance answer software engineers' questions. Every episode is free, and each page below has the listener's question in full.

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Every episode about performance reviews and feedback

  1. Episode 497: Patronizing perf reviews and can't get anything done as a tech lead
  2. Episode 487: My manager ignores me during 1:1's and I am required to work in an empty office
  3. Episode 466: Bad performance review and moving in to the caves
  4. Episode 447: Overleveled at FAANG and accidental draft feedback
  5. Episode 392: Old code and choosing my annual reviewers
  6. Episode 360: Mixing up names and improving without feedback
  7. Episode 349: Performance review dissonance and being a remote manager
  8. Episode 342: Losing my job to AI and bad review season
  9. Episode 315: Poor feedback recipient and rubber duck
  10. Episode 264: Finger pointing and getting recognition
  11. Episode 255: Only positive feedback and overworked and siloed
  12. Episode 223: Feedback rage and making up for lost time
  13. Episode 192: Giving feedback and messaging a team change
  14. Episode 189: Building relationships and handling negative feedback with speical guest Jeff Leiken
  15. Episode 167: Foosball culture and giving feedback to geniuses
  16. Episode 160: Non-manager 1:1s and throwing away dev learning
  17. Episode 146: What to do with sick co-workers who come into the office and dealing with weird performance review feedback
  18. Episode 142: Can I get hired above my level even though I look inexperienced on paper and should I be brutally honest in peer performance reviews
  19. Episode 138: Should I ask for a raise before my annual review and how to keep up with young, single, overtime-working co-workers
  20. Episode 117: Defense Industry Stigma and Responding to Negative Feedback
  21. Episode 64: Negative Peer Reviews and On Call
  22. Episode 39: Brilliant Jerks and One on Ones

Other topics

Browse all 527 episodes or ask Dave and Jamison your own question.