Managing Growth and Expectations in Engineering Teams
Managing Growth and Expectations in Engineering Teams
A Guide for Leaders Without Structured Performance Processes
In the previous article, I shared some food for thought about Expectation Management—Compensation, Performance Review, Career Ladder.
Even though many organizations have well-structured leveling, compensation, and expectations management (visit progression.fyi for some examples), the reality of many tech companies—especially early or growth-stage startups—is different. Performance assessment and salary reviews are usually improvised, and engineering managers are often not trained or supported in these aspects of people management.
If you are among them and the only thing you get from HR is a reminder of the upcoming review process, I want to help you. In this article, we will explore some ideas and techniques for managing your expectations of your teammates and fostering their growth.
Here, you can find a PDF cheat sheet summarizing this article.
Illusion of High Performance
People management is complicated and very different from managing the tech stack (architecture, dependencies, tech debt, quality, frameworks, etc.). Every human is different; there is less predictability, and there is no single formula or framework to manage individuals.
Unsurprisingly, for many engineering leaders, people management isn't the most pleasant task. Their primary focus is technology. Once HR asks them to do performance assessments, they see it as a necessary evil. This was the most common feedback I got from engineering managers—they perceived performance reviews as bureaucracy and a distraction from "the real work."
At the same time, the performance review is probably the most important moment for individuals. There is always a lot of hope surrounding this time. People want to hear how they are doing; it's a time when the company focuses on them. And there are always big expectations related to compensation changes. Even if the organization states clearly that there is no correlation between assessment and raises or promotions ("taking money off the table" approach—you can read about it on Small Improvements blog), employees will use it as an argument anyway.
Avoidant leaders and hopeful employees often create a dangerous situation for the organization’s culture. To avoid difficult conversations, leaders tend to say what employees want to hear: "You worked hard and delivered all your tasks. Great job!" Individuals, in turn, take this feedback as a sign of high performance.
So if they do a good job, they deserve a raise, right?
Now, if they get a raise, it's a sign for them of what high performance means for the company. They and everybody else will move towards actions and attitudes that will maximize their chances of a raise. And this is how a company's true culture (and often an illusion of high performance) is born.
If they don't get a raise, it'll lead to frustration. If their direct manager says they do great work, but the company doesn't reward them appropriately, it'd bring a sense of injustice at a minimum.
Side note: I recommend reading an excellent article from , in which she says that “two-thirds of managers are afraid of telling their direct reports hard feedback for fear of how they’ll react.”
Read it here: Stop learning to give feedback. Learn to receive it.
Expectations Management 101
Let's take a step back. Assuming your organization does not have clear guidelines for managing individual expectations, you must define what it means to do a great job as a leader.
I wrote an entire article about it: Intro to Expectations Management, so here's just a TL;DR for you:
Three Critical Aspects
In my work, I discuss three fundamental aspects with individuals: their skills, attitudes, and impact. A great engineer should be a mix of all of these.
It starts with what they possess—hard and soft skills—which is what they bring to the table. However, skills only have value if allocated appropriately, hence impact. Finally, no one exists in a void. Every individual has a ripple effect. The last aspect—attitude—is also critical since it contributes to building a sustainable organizational culture.
Three Levels
Next to performance, there is also the seniority of individuals. It's important to have at least a basic interpretation of who Junior, Regular, and Senior in your organization is. Why? Because if you don't have one, individuals will take it from the Internet anyway. They'll use rules from the outside to define your internal culture.
Here's a baseline I use in my work:
Junior is fully focused on growth. Follows guidance and learns from more senior people. It's a temporary position—if a person is a junior for more than 12 months, there is no match between them and the organization.
Regular is an independent engineer who can deliver a product (not just code) end to end. A regular position can be permanent—no need to grow into a senior level (yet the salary will stay at this level too).
Senior is about impact and making hard things easy. A senior position comes from extra effort, not just extra time spent.
To get more details, read my article linked above.
You can also use materials from Practical Engineering Management’s Blog:
Progression Management
What if your organization has a career progression framework or some guidelines for managing growth and expectations? It doesn't mean there is no work to be done on your end. Actually, it's the opposite—as a leader, you should manage that within your team. The HR department won't do it for you; they are here to support you.
Side note—if you want to build your career progression framework, you can check my guidelines and templates here: How to Build Career Progression Framework
Developmental Leadership
So why should you bother anyway? Isn't it the individual's job to learn and grow so they can be paid better?
There are two styles of leadership: transactional and developmental. While transactional leadership focuses on acquiring more resources, developmental leadership considers how to grow the current team's creativity and problem-solving capabilities before asking for more hires.
By growing your teammates, you push the boundaries of what's possible to achieve by your team. If, for example, you work for a startup constrained by tight budgets, sometimes there is no other way. You cannot hire more people, so the only way is to upskill current staff.
To read more about transactional and developmental leadership, I invite you to check: Developmental Leadership vs. Transactional Leadership—Do You Need More Professionals or Better Professionals?
Are They Paid Fairly?
Compensation structure is a very complex subject. I wrote about it here: Expectation Management—Compensation, Performance Review, Career Ladder.
But before you dive into leveling and expectations management, you must do the homework that can save you from difficult conversations in the future. You should ensure that people in your team or organization are paid fairly according to defined standards. This includes checking inequalities, especially when you work with underrepresented individuals.
Once you find some discrepancies, you should demand explanation and alignment on compensation. This comes down to two critical aspects. First is the compensation fairness and related subjects of inclusion, diversity, legal risks, and company culture. And the second is your leadership—you will expect the same from everyone, with no shortcuts, nor turning a blind eye to rules.
I imagine compensation transparency is still a challenge for many organizations. Personally, I have never worked in any of the companies where these numbers were public. But even in such situations, the bare minimum you should do is to determine what the salary bands are for a given position (e.g., junior, regular, senior) and check if every individual is paid according to these bands. While exact amounts may vary depending on personal performance, contract type, impact, or seniority, the bands should be kept for everyone.
If your HR department cannot give you exact information, ask them for confirmation if every single employee is paid within the defined company's bands.
Then, whenever you face an accusation that a company is not paying fairly (because a person gets x% more), you can ensure everyone that, according to official information, the pay boundaries are kept.
What's an Expectation, What's Extra
Many years ago, a company I worked for organized a contest for its employees. Play with our product, and if you find a bug, you will be eligible to get extra cash or a prize.
An engineer asked, "So if I introduce a bug, find it, and fix it, I will get rewarded?" Management's response was, "Yes, you will be rewarded with your salary because this is your duty you are paid for every month."
This was an example of expectations management which stayed with me till today.
People will ask you for extra money because of inflation, a long time with no raise, or doing their job diligently. But you must remember that they are already paid for doing a good job in their position, and the company has no obligation to change it (unless it's required by law, e.g., when minimum wage changes).
Of course, there can be negotiations between employee and employer or extra gestures from the company (related to its performance, seasonal bonuses, etc.). But there is still no guarantee that every single person will get more by just doing what they are expected to do.
Set the Baseline for Expectations
And this brings us to your expectations management. Career ladders and other progression frameworks are exactly for that. They will help you to define what are employees' duties versus where they stand out.
These may vary between organizations but should stay at the same level within it. For example, in one of the companies I worked for, juniors constantly pushed changes to production. The tech stack and processes allowed for that, and it was their regular duty they were paid for. But in another company, in order to go live, engineers needed to understand many nuances related to deployment, which meant that once a junior possesses the knowledge on how to do this, it's a sign that they can be a great candidate for promotion to regular-level engineer.
If your organization has expectations for engineers written down in any form, you must ensure your teammates know and understand them.
During your 1:1 meetings, discuss all points from your framework and make it clear that your teammates understand all of those expectations. Their performance will be assessed primarily based on these criteria.
Keep in mind that this shouldn't be a one-time discussion, but an ongoing effort where from time to time (e.g., at least once a month), you share the feedback with your direct reports. You should always be very clear if they are meeting expectations or have some room for improvements in certain areas.
Performance Review
In such a case, where expectations are being discussed regularly, performance review shouldn't be a surprise for anyone. Instead, during assessment you should focus on two things:
Look back to summarize the journey you both went through. Feel free to use your 1:1 notes and review how your expectations changed over time and how much they improved in every area you discussed in the last months.
Plan the future. Based on performance assessment and the employee's aspirations, identify areas from your career ladder which require more investments and make sure you will both focus on them in the following weeks or months.
For the assessment part, you can use the template from How to Build Career Progression Framework. While you should be cautious with sharing such scoring publicly, doing the assessment diligently should help you with building a more objective opinion whether individuals do their job, outperform, or require performance improvement plans.
Goals Planning
The results of performance reviews aren't just about here-and-now assessment. They should also lead to an actionable plan for further growth.
At this point, you have quite a lot of information:
Feedback from the performance review
Individual's aspirations
Expectations from the career ladder and the current assessment
As a leader, you should also know:
Company's future goals (if not, at least check Four Factors Essential to the Success of Any Product)
Tech strategy (as you could build it based on Engineering Strategy Framework or at Tech Debt assessment)
This is already plenty of information. Based on such input, you can define a clear roadmap of success and growth for every individual.
Personally, for setting such objectives I prefer using the SMART framework (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound). In such cases, I come up with a few goals for the next 3–6 months and I ask individuals to bring their suggestions as well. Then, during our 1:1 meeting, we pick a few most relevant ones which we will focus on in our work.
If you want to know this process more deeply, I invite you to check my workbook—First Ten 1:1s, where I explore aspects like setting goals or tracking their progress.
End Words
Managing your team's growth and expectations is a critical responsibility that extends beyond performance assessments and salary reviews. It requires a proactive approach to setting clear expectations, providing regular feedback, and fostering an environment where individuals feel valued and understood.
Effective people management is not a one-time task but an ongoing commitment. It involves empathy, transparency, and a willingness to invest time in the development of others. By embracing these principles, you not only enhance the performance of your team but also contribute to building a positive and productive organizational culture.
Please let me know how you like this post. What do expectations and growth management look like in your organization? Do you have any experiences worth sharing?