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Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

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Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#111

Post by lakevieew »

I had joined Amazon as my first job out of school. I was super excited and would not mind working the long hours as the project was interesting. I enjoyed working with my team and manager. Just near the end of the year, my manager quit. The new manager ran my performance review and assessed that my performance didn’t meet expectations. I was not put on PIP. Instead, there would be a development plan that I had to complete. I was shocked and tried hard to not cry during my review. I had never been told earlier that there were any issues with my performance.

This review crushed me. It destroyed my confidence in my programming abilities. To be fair, I had made some mistakes during my first year at Amazon - had fewer commits and SLOC compared to my teammates. Being on a work visa meant I could not quit immediately. I had to endure working there for almost a year before I got a new job.

I took me quite some time to gain back my confidence. To this day, my time at Amazon makes me dread performance reviews.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#112

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

nkssy wrote: post #52

If you can get fired because of some messed up policy like this then you don't need to take ownership for being fired anymore. Also, why show initiative if you're going to be fired randomly anyway? Why even work hard at all? Why show loyalty or goodwill? Just show up, do the work, participate in the general workplace nonsense purely for appearances and have your parachute always ready. Not sure I'd care if fired from…

I understand your argument and it is an interesting given the technical source of demoralization.

What I submit to you that this level demoralization already happened. He already has very limited good will ( won't do anything extra unless there is a clear benefit to him ). I won't touch loyalty, because I myself have been through rounds of layoffs and have long accepted that in a corporation, that is merely a 7 letter word with little to no meaning.

I guess what I am saying it is not a new trend. Just a stepping stone in corporate America. The only difference is now, we don't get Mr. Burns choosing this, this and this one ( keep the egghead ); this time is a blackbox algorithm that won't ever touch the real decision makers ( cuz someone with enough forethought will add an exclusion list :P ).

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#113

Post by EarlKing »

plank_time wrote: post #55

When the stock goes from 200 to 3500 in 10 years, and consistently goes up and to the right, you won’t find too many of the workers complaining no matter how bad the job conditions are. I have a friend up in Seattle who is suffering, to the point of being hospitalized for mental health issues, but refuses to leave. So HR and leadership believe that their system “works” but it’s really that their employees are willing…

> When the stock goes from 200 to 3500 in 10 years, and consistently goes up and to the right, you won’t find too many of the workers complaining no matter how bad the job conditions are.

Tell that to the guys in logistics who don't get any options and bear the brunt of Amazon's bad management.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#114

Post by slaymaker1907 »

nxmnxm99 wrote: post #108
plank_time wrote: post #55

When the stock goes from 200 to 3500 in 10 years, and consistently goes up and to the right, you won’t find too many of the workers complaining no matter how bad the job conditions are. I have a friend up in Seattle who is suffering, to the point of being hospitalized for mental health issues, but refuses to leave. So HR and leadership believe that their system “works” but it’s really that their employees are willing…

I have several friends at Amazon. They all love it. Mostly because they're workaholics. Most Amazon people you talk to will say the same things. However, you won't see that story featured on Hacker News because it doesn't fit the "bring down the bourgeoisie" overwork-porn yay-Sweden narrative that is HN/Reddit. My theory is it's because most high performers who work hard don't have much time for Reddit/HN and it self…

Ah yes, the imfamous antiwork news site controlled by a venture capital firm.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#115

Post by TameAntelope »

ipaddr wrote: post #91
sokoloff wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At Amazon*, the "bar raiser" has to approve the hire though, so there's a pretty mechanistic control against the worst form of this. * - as I understand it; never worked there.

At Amazon you still hire good people you just mark them poorly because you don't want to break up your team.

I get that Amazon is known for their cold, calculated workforce, but it really takes a special kind of person to execute a, "hire someone just to fire them no matter how they do" plan over the course of like, an entire year, and honestly it's not even in that manager's best interest if the new person is actually pretty good.

Are we really suggesting that's the norm at Amazon? Maybe, but wow.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#116

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

julianeon wrote: post #27

This rate seems high. They're pushing 1 out of 3 people (30%) out of their workforce every 5 years. Is that sustainable over the course of, say, 20 years? 1-2 percent, I could understand. But I would think the labor force simply isn't large enough for this to work, long term, at this high rate.

It is possible that you are missing the point of this. While it works, it is saving company millions in compensation and keep internal upward pressures low. It is absolutely not sustainable, but it ever comes to the point that it has to be adjusted, it can be. And changing those policies will be so much easier with extra cash in hand to 'attract' new workers.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#117

Post by dcolkitt »

HWR_14 wrote: post #96
dcolkitt wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, compensation is pretty closely tied to revenue per employee. Not always, but it’s a pretty good rule of thumb. Companies that can’t afford to pay FAANG wages, typically don’t have FAANG productivity levels. Productivity in software is closely tied to how effective the technology and processes are. Most of those factors are fairly portable across companies. So, I would say that an engineer working at a high…

> Generally, compensation is pretty closely tied to revenue per employee. Not always, but it’s a pretty good rule of thumb. I don't know of any theoretical reason that would be true nor see any evidence of that in practice.

In microeconomics, it’s a pretty foundational tenet that wages normalize to marginal worker productivity.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#118

Post by ndesaulniers »

renewiltord wrote: post #101
plank_time wrote: post #55

When the stock goes from 200 to 3500 in 10 years, and consistently goes up and to the right, you won’t find too many of the workers complaining no matter how bad the job conditions are. I have a friend up in Seattle who is suffering, to the point of being hospitalized for mental health issues, but refuses to leave. So HR and leadership believe that their system “works” but it’s really that their employees are willing…

That seems pretty well-optimized, right? The employees value the money more than they value well-being, and the company values the money more than it values their well-being. That is pretty good alignment. Also, why wouldn't you just work elsewhere and buy AMZN stock if that's all you want. Work at GOOG, sell your stock, buy AMZN stock.

Compare the performance of GOOG vs AMZN over the past 6mo, 1 yr, 2 yr.

Amazon's pandemic growth is leveling out.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#119

Post by ndesaulniers »

thebean11 wrote: post #107
renewiltord wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems pretty well-optimized, right? The employees value the money more than they value well-being, and the company values the money more than it values their well-being. That is pretty good alignment. Also, why wouldn't you just work elsewhere and buy AMZN stock if that's all you want. Work at GOOG, sell your stock, buy AMZN stock.

Because the stock comes in a 4 year grant. You can't trade your GOOG for AMZN until vesting.

Grants vest over a period of 4 years, with overlapping grants generally granted each year. So you don't need to wait a full 4 years to begin selling.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#120

Post by 0zymandias »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #39
retrocryptid wrote: post #16

This isn't news, but what they don't mention is managers will set up their own "private" PIPs to frighten workers into doing what they want. It's not news that the big-A wants its software engineers working 60 hours per week. I interviewed for a principle engineer role and everything seemed to be going well. But when the offer came it said "Software Engineer II." I asked about that and they said... "Oh, don't worry.…

> you'll get automatically promoted at the end of the next quarter Unless it's in writing, you should never, ever, ever take a statement like this at face value.

Another tactic that Amazon recruiters use a lot to convince you to take a shitty role:

"You are coming in at level X, but this role is actually scoped at level X+1."

In reality, it means nothing and you can get promoted in lots of different ways. It is just a trick that unethical recruiters and managers play.

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