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Notes -
To justify up or out a bit:
I've only personally seen it used on junior engineers. If someone is hired fresh out of school and is not progressing to full engineer, then they are a weakling and should be fired. But they don't do this to full engineers. You can spend the rest of your career not making senior engineer and they won't automatically fire you. And it would be an act of insanity to fire a well-performing senior engineer. No one "up or out"s people already in senior positions.
The US military practices some version of this for officers. If an officer isn't being promoted with some regularity then he is stuck at his position and blocking a more promising candidate from holding it and perhaps advancing further. Fail to be promoted in two consecutive promotion cycles, get kicked out regardless of ability at your current level.
But to argue against this justification:
Googling the military version of up or out shows people complaining about how it arbitrarily fires competent effective officers who perform great at their level and simply shouldn't be at higher levels. Should the Wehrmacht have fired Rommel because he'd never make a good general and was instead a great field marshal? How is that not like the insanity of firing a senior engineer for no reason other than he'll never be a director or VP?
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