alt Hacker NewsI've been working as a software developer for about ten years, and I've started to get a little annoyed when my manager asks me what I'm gonna work on improving this year. Like what can I say? That I'll try get better at coding? That I'll get better at project management? At some point the marginal utility is just not there anymore. Even if I did get twice as good (whatever that means) at systems design, it's not like there is _that_ much systems design to go around at work that it would actually be noticeable.
What do senior developers say they'll work on improving in their performance reviews?
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Is your manager really asking about your self-improvement?
Or are they asking about you improving what you can do for them, your team and your company? Your job description is a baseline but if you’ve nailed that, there’s usually more you can do that’s outside of that.
Or you can be content with doing your job well, and make up some bs so your manager can write it on a form. Both are valid.
Like all such metrics, the specifics don't really matter. All that matters is that you can tell a story, over the course of the year, on how you've "improved". The goal is to use the story to highlight the work you've been doing while passing it off as evidence. This kind of story telling is something people in management positions tend to be very good at but it's also a skill people not in management should have some proficiency in.
Your boss needs paperwork to justify pay raises, promotions, etc to their boss & HR. Isn't the whole purpose of that question to leave a paper trail that both you and they can point to?
That's what I've been told, and such I always answer those questions in a way that has a concrete 'goal' that I can point to and either makes ME more valuable to the company OR delivered some thing that is valuable TO the company.
That's the type of culture that made me leave my last job. Feels very inhuman when you see your manager every week, and they still make you fill in robotic questionnaires for potential salary raise.
It's deeply demotivating to learn that your manager doesn't know you all that well and cares more about filling in checklists, at least for me.
Like every other such question, simply make up whatever they want to hear
Soft skills, mostly - you just find things that you're weak on (since you know enough to know where you suck) and just work on those.
Instead of talking about skills, or personal efficiency, talk about technologies that you're going to introduce to your product, or some specific difficult problem that you're intending to solve.
Another next career step is to take ownership of things without needing to be asked or told, to create and execute plans, to raise and address problems pro-actively etc. And if your workspace doesn't give you opportunities to do it, and you want career progression, then go somewhere else.