Stack ranking is a poison - Engineer MicroStrategy Employee Review

I was quite surprised that MicroStrategy still uses the stack/forced ranking approach to review its employees that had been proven a failed system for performance evaluation by Yahoo, Microsoft, etc a few years ago. During the quarterly performance review process, managers use a number between 1 - 5 to rate the employees (1 being the worst and 5 the best), and they curve the performance ratings within each team, meaning that a small fraction of the team members get a 1 or 2, and smaller fraction get 4 or 5, while the majority get a passing score of 3. Almost all of us consider the following to be equivalent: 1 = F, 2 = D, 3 = B, 4 = B+, 5 = A Even if you are a new hire, your performance is reviewed without lenience. To be honest, I got a low rating three months after I joined the company. Never had I got a such low performance rating in my entire career or school life till that point, I was totally frustrated. I tried my best to learn the new gig, and yet the manager considered that to be NOT good enough. I feel like MicroStrategy does not allow the new people to take time for learning, instead the manager expects new hires to hit the road and start running on day one, which is unrealistic expectation for people who come from a different field than BI. As a new hire, your first 3 - 4 weeks are spent 100% on the bootcamp, leaving only 8 - 9 weeks for actually learning/doing the work. My first perf review results made me question whether the company is good fit for me, so I made myself back on the job market. A few months later, I quit and landed on a bigger company that offers a better compensation package and probably a better career path, too.