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Amazon Pip Horror Story

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Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#261

Post by snalty »

danjac wrote: post #143
sgt101 wrote: post #139

This comment killed me : Will Ye Will Ye Engineering @ Cohere (cohere.io) 5mo Back when I worked at Amazon as a software engineer, the CRAZIEST thing happened to me. Here’s the story… I was working from home with my girlfriend (at the time), when suddenly I get an urgent ping from my coworker: “Our service is experiencing a SEV 2! We need all hands on deck!” Uh oh, our team’s application has gone down! However, as I…

That's Linkedin level quality.

I remember seeing this as a shitpost on linkedin

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#262

Post by DarylZero »

BossingAround wrote: post #169
ngc248 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may/may not learn, but living in situations like the OP was put in is horrible. Every day feels like hell, and if you burn out it may take years to recover.

This is my personal experience, which is why I'd advise people not to go through with the above thought experiment. Then again, I keep interviewing people with 5-10 years of experience, who will go something like this: > How would you manage a server? (leaving out a ton of context about what it means to "manage a server") > Very easy, SSH connection is very fast, reliable, ... > Awesome, love me some SSH, how about 5…

You're confusing experience-time with working on big expensive things.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#263

Post by np- »

square_usual wrote: post #195
hughrr wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A side effect of working for asshole companies like that for years is I’ve slowly developed a zero fucks attitude and an immunity to threats and carrots dangled in front of me. I can sit there as a project is falling over the edge of a cliff with total inner peace. My interest stops at the pay cheque and by the clock.

> I can sit there as a project is falling over the edge of a cliff with total inner peace. This is what I'm (slowly) learning as well, even though I'm not entirely sure I want to. Working on projects where you care but almost nobody else does does that to you, but I'm afraid I won't be able to make it back to a position where I can care for projects.

What I’ve found is that you can care about things like craftsmanship, problem solving, and quality while not being bothered by the day to day short term project level thinking.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#264

Post by i_love_limes »

minxomat wrote: post #256
i_love_limes wrote: post #230

I have a question for other former/current employees of Amazon. I worked there for 4 years on the AIV / Prime Video platform across a few teams (2012-2016). Obviously we had performance reviews every year, and I did ok. I transferred 3 or 4 times (within AIV), never a problem. I never heard of mandatory quotas to fit in the under-performing category, I didn't hear my colleagues talk about it either, "under-performing…

It's pretty much standard practice: https://www.teamblind.com/search/amazon%20pip

This unfortunately didn't answer any of my questions.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#265

Post by DarylZero »

bregma wrote: post #239
altacc wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then either the people given the deadline are being "managed out of the business" or they should be managing their own way out And yes, I've been a manager in a company where the phrase "managed out of the business" was used. I no longer work there.

The term that is usually used in law is "constructive dismissal".

Yet you still won't get those unemployment checks if you were a new hire.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#266

Post by danjac »

goldenkey wrote: post #49
yrral wrote: post #8

Is it really so dysfunctional there that if this happens to you (manager puts you on PIP upon being notified you're doing an internal transfer) there's no one to talk to to make this right? Maybe his manager is a piece of shit, but I can't believe there's no one to report to above him that can see this for what it is and make it right?

HR at Amazon is a shit show. I had $100 of pizza stolen from the fridge at Amazon and I mentioned it casually to HR, as something notable but not too important. And HR then decided to tell my manager without my knowledge. The manager then berated me over communicating about a "trivial matter." So yeah, wouldn't put much stock in HR at Amazon.

$100 of pizza? Isn't that a whole AWS service's worth?

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#267

Post by np- »

DarylZero wrote: post #251
hughrr wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t sweat it; it might be healthy. I have made it a feature of my life that I don’t actually care about work and will not be changing it. It turned out that I’d spent at least 20 years being tricked into caring for things which ultimately someone else leveraged most of the benefit for with measly returns by proportion on that investment of time back to me. Never a thank you, always difficult to extract any entitlem…

But your life is spent at work, so if you don't care, your life is spent doing something you don't care about.

You can care about your career and your self improvement while still maintaining healthy boundaries around the mental effort expended for your job. We’re in it for a long time but jobs come and go

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#268

Post by Aeolun »

BossingAround wrote: post #169
ngc248 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may/may not learn, but living in situations like the OP was put in is horrible. Every day feels like hell, and if you burn out it may take years to recover.

This is my personal experience, which is why I'd advise people not to go through with the above thought experiment. Then again, I keep interviewing people with 5-10 years of experience, who will go something like this: > How would you manage a server? (leaving out a ton of context about what it means to "manage a server") > Very easy, SSH connection is very fast, reliable, ... > Awesome, love me some SSH, how about 5…

> Even with 500 servers?

Not sure what answer you expect here? Just because you have 10 years of experience doesn’t mean you’ve ever worked with more than 25 servers at a time (at least I haven’t).

I consider it a source of pride, I think. You absolutely don’t need mega scale for most things (or maybe mega scale, but still not many servers)

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#269

Post by tibbetts »

Jolter wrote: post #259
urthor wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

700 a day??? Why did you undercharge by so much. I know the EU dev market isn't great but those are rookie numbers for "danger money." Three of the "retired, then handed enough money to unretire" COBAL guys at my old place were doing 2500 a day.

Where do you live that 700€ a DAY is low pay? It’s, that’s MORE than 700$ a day, not less. Consider that most parts of the world have lower cost of living than the Bay Area.

I prefer to be paid based on how valuable my work is to the employer, not the cost of living wherever I happen to be or even my personal financial needs.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#270

Post by tyingq »

amrocha wrote: post #157

And in case anyone thought this was an isolated incident, I have heard from 3 different people about this happening to them. As soon as they try to transfer they get put on a PIP.

It seems like a loophole if there's a PIP quota. Doing a PIP on someone leaving means you don't have to use a quota slot for someone staying.

Though it may also be common to request a transfer when you sense your boss doesn't value you.

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