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Comment by imbnwa | Hacker News Reader

I remember noticing this on my first frontend job 5 years ago. How are in hell are they accurately measuring any kind of performance? I'm sure it can actually be done but enterprise half-asses even that, likely because keeping it all slightly arbitrary allows for more ambiguity to leverage against workers (keeps them paranoid rather than certain, elites don't like safety amongst workers).

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> How are in hell are they accurately measuring any kind of performance?

You aren't, and that's the grift.

I force developers to do something they are bad at. They get better, but they're never 'great' at it. So I can withhold raises they deserve because I'm punishing them for what they're not good at instead of rewarding them for what they are great at.

It’s not a measurement tool though - it’s tool for self-calibration. If anyone outside the software team sees those estimates then the process is broken. Doubly so if they’re tied to any performance evaluation.

Well, but that's what actually happens everywhere. The estimates are not for the team itself, but used for managers and the company. Even in the comments here it was justified as "the company needs to know that to sell it to customers".

So reality trumps ideals.

> It’s not a measurement tool though - it’s tool for self-calibration.

This was my complaint of the term “velocity” because it sounds objective and absolute when it’s really much more arbitrary and not even comparable to the same team from year to year.

Exactly, and since there's no human whose job is to figure out the ontology of dev work...

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