Receiving feedback is hard. Here's why most engineers get it wrong.
And the difference between those who turn it into growth and those who don't.
In 13 years of managing engineers, the most difficult part of the job has always been hard conversations: PIPs, final warnings, exits. They are never easy, no matter how many times you’ve had them.
I once knew someone who was exceptional at these conversations. Precise, composed, never rattled. That is not the norm, though. For most managers and engineers, performance conversations are genuinely hard. Nobody wants to have them. Which means they get delayed, softened, and sometimes delivered without enough clarity.
For the last couple of years, I’ve been coming back to two questions: how can engineers pick up the signals early enough to correct the course? And how can managers overcome the discomfort and deliver feedback that is timely, clear, and actionable?
In this article, I’m focusing on the engineer’s side of receiving feedback. Next week I’ll cover what good feedback looks like from the manager’s seat.
Before we dive in:
Performance management isn’t something that happens to you at the end of the year. It’s happening all the time - in every piece of feedback, in every 1:1, in whether you and your manager can build a real working relationship.
The good news is: no matter where you stand today, there are things you can do right now to change the trajectory.
But first, you have to understand what performance actually runs on.
It’s not always about bad code
The most common assumption engineers make is that performance struggles come from technical failures: missing a deadline, shipping something buggy, getting stuck on a hard problem.
Technical competencies matter. But you’d be surprised to know that they’re the easier ones to address. Technical failures are concrete: the code failed in production, you didn’t follow the rollout process, you skipped testing in lower environments, your solution is too expensive or technically flawed. Hard to hear, but easy to point to.
The hardest feedback is about behavior.
It’s much harder to land a point like: you come across as dismissive in PR reviews. You’re not being collaborative. You work in silos. You’re consistently solving the wrong problems - especially if you ARE solving problems. Just not the right ones.
Behavioral feedback requires more nuance to give and more maturity to receive. This is why it tends to accumulate quietly until it becomes a much larger conversation.
Two engineers. Same struggle. Completely different outcomes.
I’ve managed more engineers than I’d like through performance processes. But I always come back to these two examples.
Both were senior. Both were struggling. Both received difficult, direct feedback - but they each responded to it in a completely different way. And that difference determined who stayed and who left.
The first engineer was upset when they heard it. Completely understandable. But after sitting with it, they came back differently. Not to argue, but to understand. They asked the right questions: “What am I missing? How do I go from point A to point B?” Together we mapped out a plan, with milestones and clear checkpoints. The engineer put in consistent effort. Six months later, they were performing at the level expected of them and growing.
The second engineer was upset too. But they couldn’t move past it. Every word in the feedback became evidence of something unfair: the tone, the timing, the specific examples. Instead of looking inward, they went defensive and stayed there. Their blind spot never got addressed, and they were eventually let go.
Same starting point. Completely different ending.
The difference wasn’t technical skill. It wasn’t even the quality of the feedback. It was whether they could set their ego aside long enough to actually hear it.
Feedback is continuous. Your growth mindset should be too.
Here’s something I have seen over and over: engineers who ended up in a serious performance conversation had been receiving feedback for a long time before it escalated.
It was not one big moment. It was a pattern: feedback in one-on-ones that didn’t fully land, a comment in a code review that got brushed past, a conversation after a missed expectation that felt resolved but wasn’t.
Feedback is not a formal event. It’s a continuous signal. And when that signal keeps repeating - when the same gaps keep showing up - something is accumulating in your manager’s mind, and others start noticing, whether or not you’re tracking it.
The engineers who keep growing are those that treat every piece of feedback as real, even when it’s uncomfortable. They follow up, ask how they're doing against what was discussed, and make their effort visible.
How do you know if you’re getting good feedback?
This is worth naming directly, because it happens: not every manager gives clear, actionable feedback.
At senior levels especially, there’s an assumption that you should already know what good looks like - so the feedback stays vague. “You need more impact.” “I need to see more ownership.” Without specifics, that’s not feedback. It’s a verdict.
But here’s the honest complexity: feedback can feel shallow for two very different reasons. It might actually be shallow. Or you might not be asking the right questions to go deeper.
The way I tell the difference is not by analyzing the feedback itself. It’s by looking at the relationship underneath it.
Is your manager willing to work on a plan with you? To sit down, name the specific gaps, and figure out together what the path forward looks like? Or are they pointing at expectations and leaving you to figure out the rest alone?
If they’re in it with you, even imperfect feedback becomes workable. You ask better questions, you clarify, you build the plan together. The feedback gets sharper through the conversation - and in my experience, you end up building trust and a healthier collaboration along the way.
If they’re not in it with you - if every conversation feels like a case being built rather than a problem being solved - that’s important information. Not just about the feedback, but about whether this situation is recoverable at all.
How AI is shifting what matters
Something real is changing with AI when it comes to performance.
AI can now ship code faster than any human, and in clear context, it produces pretty good code. The hard tasks in engineering are shifting - away from writing code and toward orchestrating it. Understanding which problems are worth solving, in which order. Knowing how to collaborate, build a team, and uplift the people around you.
When you look at it that way, soft skills don’t just matter more. They move to the top of the stack.
Technically brilliant engineers who are difficult to work with - dismissive in reviews, combative in disagreements, closed to feedback - are a harder case to make now.
For years, these engineers got away. They could do things others couldn’t, and companies accepted the damage. That calculus is gone. A solid engineer who collaborates well and uses AI effectively can now produce what the “brilliant jerk” used to be uniquely capable of. The output isn’t that special anymore. The behavior isn’t worth it.
What to do when you get feedback
So here we are. You received feedback. What’s next?
Receiving feedback is hard. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. You work hard, you put in time and effort - and being told that something you did, or the way you behave, doesn’t meet expectations genuinely stings.
I’ve seen engineers go three ways.
Dismiss it. They figure the manager doesn’t really know better, or that this isn’t that important. They sit through the conversation and then move on with life. This is the most dangerous path. If you want to stay and grow, avoid doing this.
Get defensive. And lean into justification. The truth is: nobody does things wrong on purpose. There are always reasons behind every situation, and many of them feel completely legitimate. But in most cases, the reasoning behind a behavior doesn’t change its impact.
My advice: avoid getting defensive. Let it bake if you need to. What you should focus on is the impact, the behavior, and the expectations - not the circumstances behind them.
If the circumstances feel important, bring them up as a follow-up. Something like: “I’ve processed the feedback and I understand it. Here’s the context I was navigating - how can I navigate it better next time?” That’s a much more productive conversation than going defensive in the moment.Own it. Process it. Set goals. Build a plan. Check in with your manager frequently. Ask how you’re doing against what was discussed. Make the effort visible - not to perform, but to close the loop. Do it for you. Trust me, regardless of the situation, this way of handling constructive feedback will make you better at self-awareness and emotional intelligence along the way.
What to do if you think you’re already at risk
This means, you are reading this, and you see yourself at the end of your rope. Either conversations with your manager are getting to a documented stage, or you have been told you are heading towards a PIP.
Two options.
Honest conversation: This is when you trust your manager. The goal of this conversation is to really evaluate where you stand. Show up human. Acknowledge the situation, ask how can you work together on a path forward and what options you have. If your manager names specifics and build the plan alongside you - that’s the path forward. Commit to it. Put in consistent, visible effort.
Honest decision: If you are passed point 1, I would encourage being honest with yourself and to consider your options. Maybe there is another role within the company, or maybe the current company is not the best fit for you anymore. It sucks, but being honest about your options is better than staying in denial.
The thing that protects you over time
After 20+ years in engineering, it keeps coming back to the same thing.
Technical skills are important. I can’t stress this enough. But your attitude and behavior go a long way.
Collaboration. Showing up curious. Being genuinely open to feedback - not just tolerant of it. Acting on it consistently, over time, earns you the trust of the people around you.
A strong mix of technical and non-technical skills is what makes you someone a manager fights for when a hard decision gets made. Someone whose name comes up as an asset, not a question mark.
In a world where AI keeps raising the floor on what individual engineers can produce, what makes you irreplaceable is not what you can do alone.
It’s what you make possible for the people around you.