We are a company of about 4000, our performance management is pretty shite. We essentially function as a company of middle managers with a software engineering department tacked on.
Getting promoted has very little to do with the role profiles of the above grade but instead involves doing some menial task, for example I knew a guy who was a total manchild and would smash the keyboard, groan and hide in the toilet if he encountered some difficult code, he would also never ask for help but because he did support he got promoted.
Also there's a limited number of slots, so you could meet the criteria of the above grade go through the process and still not get promoted. We basically lose all our developers after 2-3 years and most projects are composed of contractors. people who can't leave before 2 years and mediocre developers who are promoted way beyond their means and aren't good enough to work at other companies.
The worst thing is our clients usually have a high opinion of us so our competitors must be even worst.