“Outstanding.”
That was the mark on my performance review.
The text message version of the news was one sentence. Outstanding review. Raise. Sent from an iPhone.
It mattered enough that I sent the news immediately to somebody close to me.
The first nine months at Shutterstock had been busy. We had replaced network equipment, worked through data-center and storage projects, handled outages, and started connecting operations more directly to the rest of engineering.
Site speed, contributor uploads, API load, office systems, and storage could all become operations work. The job kept moving between planned projects and whatever needed attention that day.
I do not have a long explanation for why they chose that word. I do not need one today. The version of the news I wanted to share was much simpler: the mark and the raise.
That was enough for the message.
There were still systems to rebuild and projects that had barely started. An outstanding review did not mean the infrastructure was finished. It did not mean the next incident would skip us. It was one good piece of news in the middle of the work.
The raise made the moment concrete. I included the exact number in the personal message because of course I did. The useful part here is simpler: the company gave me a raise, and I wanted someone I cared about to know.
Nine months of work can become one word on a review and one number in a message. Neither captures the whole stretch. Together, they made for a good Friday afternoon.
Outstanding review. Raise. Then back to work.