Always been curious how “workload” is assigned and estimated for software engineers.
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Modern programming processes follow an Agile methodology, where you have a backlog of work and then perform the highest priority work during a set period of time. As a result of this, there IS an objective measure of performance. The individuals that can take on tasks from the backlog and consistently deliver them with the highest level of quality (passes the testing and definition of done), over and over.
With this approach, the consistence is the measure. The ability to complete more tasks per sprint is a measure. Consistent grooming of the backlog and management of the tasks, while minimizing rework, is also a measure. If you have 5 people who do all of this, consistently, over time, you’re very fortunate and each of them is an equal contributor to the team and solution.
That being said, the next measure for software engineers then comes to experience with languages, middleware, toolsets, data storage options, cloud services and applications, and other elements. If I have the ability to write a web application, using cloud storage, in a secure fashion, in a week, to demonstrate functionality for a customer/leadership, then this is going to be recognized as having greater inherent value. As a result, growing your skillsets and the ability to incorporate/cover more niche products and elements of a broader solution, without needing ramp time, is going to make you more valuable out of the gate.
At my workplace, we aren’t rewarded for doing our day job. Being a good employee is expected of us to get a paycheck and average bonus. What gives us a greater bonus and recognition consists of three things: Developing yourself, Contributing to the Business, Contributing to others. This means that you do your day job, but you should be working on yourself, doing something that improves our business, and doing stuff that elevates our peers.
So those 5 engineers would be seen as good workers, but meeting expectations of their day job. The engineers that have a measurable contribution to their peers (presentation, training, mentoring), or to the business (template creation, reuse, engagement expansion), or themselves (learning new X or Y for future use), would then rise above the others who are just doing the day job.
In short, there are objective measurements under the right coding conditions. If you’re just a warm body and developing software in an unstructured manner, then yeah…it’ll be pretty subjective.
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