A Guide to Writing a Winning Self Appraisal

What to highlight in your Software Engineer or Data Scientist performance review

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Self-assessments are an essential part of personal and professional development, providing an opportunity for individuals to reflect on their accomplishments and areas for improvement, take ownership of their own growth, and feel more in control of their careers.

They are also a critical factor in any remuneration discussions, allowing managers to ensure that their employees are appropriately compensated for their contributions to the organisation. In addition, by demonstrating their value through the assessment process, individuals can showcase their achievements and strengthen their case for recognition (pay raise, bonus, promotion).

With appraisal time fast approaching, a few of my mentees have asked me how to write a compelling self-evaluation. Realising that it is a recurring question, particularly among early-career IT professionals, I put together this quick guide with my thoughts on the subject. So here is what Software Engineers, Data Scientists and Application Developers need to know about writing a thorough and impactful self-assessment that demonstrates their strong performance while also touching on areas for growth to ensure a well-rounded and balanced evaluation.

Beyond The Basics

In this first section, I will discuss five crucial pointers to help you write a solid self-assessment that goes beyond the basics and highlights your strengths in a balanced way.

➊ — Track achievements throughout the year

Early in my career, I fell into a common trap of not thoroughly documenting my achievements over the course of the year, leading to a frantic search for records in February in time for the year-end appraisal. It was disheartening to realise that I could not remember everything and had to comb through multiple records, including Jira tickets, pull requests, emails, and design documents, to compile my review. This haphazard approach left me feeling demoralised, so I eventually started keeping a work log (aka brag document by Julia Evans). This simple habit allowed me to refresh my memory and minimise any guesswork as to how valuable I had been.

⭐️ Pro Tip: Keep the stories short and sweet when turning your work log into a self-appraisal. If you are reviewing your self-evaluation and feel the need for a “TL;DR” summary at the top, it indicates that it is too lengthy — you may need to consider using bullet points instead of writing an essay. Also, identify which accomplishments truly stand out — these could be instances where you went above and beyond in your day-to-day job (e.g. worked at the weekend to get a feature over the line; evaluated multiple options before implementation, etc.).

➋ — Backup contributions with measurable metrics

The Google X-Y-Z formula, commonly used in resume writing, can also be applied to writing self-assessments. It suggests focusing on specific accomplishments X, measurable metrics Y, and the methods used to achieve results Z, and by using it, developers can highlight their achievements, quantify their impact and support their contributions with concrete data.

“Accomplished [X] as measured by [Y], by doing [Z]”

For example, a full stack developer could state: Reduced the overall page load time by 80% (X), as proven by benchmark testing (Y), by implementing a caching pattern and simplifying the HTML DOM (Z).

The notable thing here is that the X-Y-Z formula is a data-driven method requiring appraisees to quantify their achievements (using numbers or statistics) in order to provide concrete evidence of their contributions. Metrics like lines of code, bug fixes, or SLAs are typical to demonstrate the effectiveness of their work.

⭐️ Pro Tip: The X-Y-Z formula is very “dry” and does not add “colour” to the context of the achievement. To make your accomplishments stand out, try to use descriptive adjectives and relevant keywords that emphasise their importance (e.g. instead of saying: “delivered the ABC feature”, you can add: “despite the increased scope on the ABC feature, the deployment went out on the committed sprint goals and timelines”).

➌ — Regularly check in with management

At the beginning of my professional journey, I would have regular 1–2–1 meetings with my manager, but our focus would normally be dominated by pressing work-related matters. As a result, performance feedback often fell by the wayside. To address this, I learnt to be more intentional and began scheduling meetings specifically to discuss performance-related topics. Consequently, I could receive feedback on progress towards objectives, and identify areas for improvement, avoiding any surprises during the year-end reviews.

Moreover, I had the opportunity to ask these three important questions:

• How am I doing in relation to my goals and expectations so far?
• Is there any additional support or resources that I can access to help me be more effective in my role?
• Are there any opportunities for me to take on new challenges or responsibilities within the team or organisation?

Let’s pause here to think about this last question: Projects do not always align with the start of the appraisal period; they can pop up at any time. Therefore by bringing this up in a frequent basis, I could ensure that I was aware of any current or upcoming opportunities and could take the necessary steps to position myself for them.

⭐️ Pro Tip: Connect your actions with what your manager needs to be successful. Do they write progress reports to senior leadership? — provide them with metrics and extra info. Do they negotiate timelines/budgets in case of scope creep? — give them enough notice so they can keep the project on track.

➍ — Consider the non-technical competencies

Successful IT professionals understand that technical skills alone are not enough to achieve career growth and advancement. It took me a while to recognise that by demonstrating a well-rounded set of competencies, I can position myself for a leadership role. Depending on your organisation, there may be specific HR competencies that are important for your job, but usually, these include communication, teamwork, critical thinking, proactiveness, adaptability, or leadership. Be sure to link the deployment of those attributes directly to the results you have achieved.

⭐️ Pro Tip: Include feedback you have received from people beyond your direct manager. E.g. extracts from emails you have received from internal/external customers or kudos from your peers.

➎ — Acknowledge the shortcomings

Appraisees often think that leadership is only interested in stellar successes and forget to address the challenges that impacted their performance. On the contrary, what management wants to see is how they were overcome, or how one pivoted in response to them, or otherwise what the lessons learnt going forward were. Acknowledging these obstacles is essential for personal growth and development, and this transparency and commitment to self-improvement will not go unnoticed. I used to say something along these lines: “I only achieved part of this goal because of {very clear reason}, and I am now working on {this new method} to overcome this”.

⭐️ Pro Tip: Do not be afraid to seek advice or ask for additional training when needed. It is necessary to recognise that you do not know everything and that there is always room for improvement. This is also an excellent opportunity to find a mentor.

Metrics-Metrics-Metrics

By now you may be wondering what kind of metrics technicians include to support their achievements, as stated in the 2nd strategy above and how they measure them. Using numbers to quantify contributions provides an objective way to summarise performance based on indisputable facts. Here is a list of measurable skills that you can include in your self-assessment:

Coding

‣ Number of PRs
‣ Number of code reviews
‣ Number of technical documents
‣ Number of tech debt tickets addressed
‣ Impact of refactoring on performance/code quality etc
‣ Test coverage increase by X%
‣ Number of reusable frameworks/libraries created
‣ Number of successful releases (i.e. lack of emergency releases after a release)

Reliability

‣ SLAs increased by X%
‣ TTD/TTM/TTR average times

Productivity

‣ Tools created to automate a repetitive task to reduce time by X%
‣ Number of tickets completed ahead of time
‣ Number of overtime hours worked

Cost saving

‣ Saved $$$ by using open source instead of paid library
‣ Saved $$$ by using cloud services
‣ Saved $$$ by implementing DevOps pipelines

People

‣ Number of people onboarded
‣ Number of people interviewed
‣ Number of people mentored
‣ Impact on the above in the team setting (e.g. faster delivery capability)

Learning

‣ Number of completed courses
‣ Number of new tech stacks introduced as a result of keeping up with tech

Other glue work

‣ Number of KT sessions organised
‣ Number of stakeholder meetings organised
‣ Number of process improvements implemented
‣ Acting as a liaison between cross-functional teams to facilitate communication and understanding
‣ Impact of proactivity to solving problems
‣ Design discussions that you have been part of

Undertaking a well-crafted performance self-evaluation can be one of the most effective internal marketing activities one can engage in. I hope you have found these notes useful.

Thanks for reading!

P.S. Have you ever tried hitting the clap button more than once to see what happens? ❤

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