To a point, but it's rarely the inability to code that is leading to lack of output. Output often means "did sufficient work that was seen, by management, as impactful enough". This has more to do with communication and task choice than anything. This is not really a skill that we even really attempt to measure in interview.
In my experience in high performing tech companies, I've seen about 40 PIPs. There are 'utter tech incompetence' PIPs in the world, but as far as I've seen, they are far less popular than 'thoroughly uninterested in working' PIPs, 'disliked by new manager' PIPs and 'person has a work unrelated crisis' PIPs. Those tech related PIPs will normally have all the symptoms already in the first review cycle. If someone made it to their 2nd year in the company, tech incompetence is not really the issue. It's just unfortunate that nobody provides stats for this kind of thing, so we don't have to just rely on "you have seen" vs "I have seen" arguments.
> This has more to do with communication and task choice than anything.
In some cases, task assignment instead of task choice. Sometimes by unluck of the draw, you just get assigned to a shit project with no visibility. You could be Einstein, write entirely bug-free code, and you’re not going to get rewarded for the work.
I’ve seen really mediocre people brown-nose and schmooze themselves onto a rocket ship project that takes off despite their mediocrity, and they get promoted to the moon. That’s how some VP’s and Directors are made. Meanwhile, a literal genius languishes away improving the performance of InvisibleInternalTool by 500%.
The older I get the more I realize how much corporate tech performance evaluation has to do with politics and bullshitting and “being highly visible” and how little it has to do with performance.
isn't output related with lack of tech skills?