It still exists for the purposes of bonus and raise distribution (“rewards”) - and while the mandatory rank-and-yank policy has been removed, there’s still pressure within management to eliminate lower-performers.

A huge problem with Microsoft’s employee evaluation system (“//connect”) is the fact it’s still self-evaluation. If you’re too honest or self-critical regardless of actual performance then you will be pseudo-ranked lower than someone who knows how to bullshit their way through self-evaluations.

Let’s just say I learned the hard way. Being (constructively) self-critical in self-evaluations was drilled into me in Catholic school and it actually really helped me in university, but no-one told me it’s career self-sabotage when you enter the workforce.

I have ASD as well.