Keep 2 days in a year, one in H1 and another in H2, where you review if

  •  your work excites you
  •  you respect and enjoy working with your peers
  •  your manager respects you and is helping you grow
  •  you are fairly compensated for your effort

If not, leave.

Doing this exercise is even more important in today’s mad world where you can jump and get a 50% hike. And there are founders DM’ing you every day.

Do not not tie this to salary and performance review cycles. Else you will be reactive instead of thinking long term.

This was an advice once given by a friend (and I know something he uses himself) when I was ranting about not getting the rating I wanted.

He was like ‘Fuck ratings. I don’t care what people rate me. I just ask these questions a year and I will decide accordingly. Keeps me sane.’

I think doing this twice a year is more appropriate as generally there are 2 performance review cycles too. There is a reason there are 2, not 1, or more.

Honest confession: I am vain and do care about finite game things like ratings; see my yearly review post. But my friend seemed genuinely above these things.