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Amazon Pip Horror Story

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Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#341

Post by np- »

CPLNTN wrote: post #320
np- wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is that writing good code requires more time than writing shitty one.. and if there is a lot of external pressure to finish the project, it’s quite difficult for me to stay focused on quality

That's fair, and I'm not saying it's as easy as flipping a switch. We are all social human beings wired to easily get caught up in the day to day panic, especially when someone is breathing down your neck. But you need to consider that somebody breathing down your neck does _not_ have your best interests in mind. You are master of your own career, and any shitty code you deliver will have your signature on it. It's all about setting boundaries and being able to push back when people are unreasonable. This is where the "not caring" is an invaluable skill. You are an immovable mountain in the face of a hurricane.

At the end of the day, YOU are the professional. If an amateur decides that you are going too slow, that doesn't mean anything--they can feel free to hire more engineers or whatever needs to be done, but the onus is on _them_ to ante up. No matter how much you love your job, you're probably going to have multiple throughout your career so you need to focus on yourself first and foremost.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#342

Post by hughrr »

sp332 wrote: post #234
kitd wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why I think contract work is the most honest form of employment in the software industry. "Mission statements" and "customer zeal" are meaningless when you're having to do endless weekend and evening hours. If it means so much to you, pay me by the hour first, then we can talk about devotion to the customer.

If my health insurance weren't so dependent on employment, I'd agree more.

Happy I live in the UK when I see things like this posted. I was offered a job years ago in the US which I declined and would never want to be held to ransom over my health potentially.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#343

Post by grumple »

murderfs wrote: post #85

Stories have two sides, someone on blind posted the following, and no one's challenged it so presumably it's true: > The guy made 24 CRs in his entire career at amazon, all in just one CDK package. > 50% of his CRs are merged without approval. > So, yeah, there you go !

Is CR a merge/pull request?

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#344

Post by siva7 »

cletus wrote: post #254
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then senior management should be wondering why so many low performers are ending up with certain managers...

In my experience it almost never works like this. The fish rots from the head. I've found bad managers are able to exist, even thrive, due to a culture of loyalty. Having worked in several countries this is a very Corporate America thing (IME). Loyalty is the only trait that matters. Fealty might be a more accurate description. So that bad manager's manager looks at a situation where people are leaving. Those people…

That’s exactly how management usually works

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#345

Post by taneq »

alistairSH wrote: post #328
Jolter wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That’s roughly equivalent to 120,000 Euro/year once normalized for taxes (~50% for self-employed, ~30% for employees). I have no idea what typical salaries are in the EU, but that’s on the low end of mid-career for much of the US.

Is it low-mid for "much of the US" or for much of the Silicon Valley venture crowd?

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#346

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

hughrr wrote: post #188
greatpostman wrote: post #3

I’ve worked at Amazon. I made it a few years, but was almost pipped in the first few months. Management dropped a huge project on me, a brand new tier 1 service, with full dns resolution, api, database, distributed system, along with micro services. The deadline was three months. Brand new tech stack. When I was struggling to meet the deadline, we started having “performance conversations”. I ended up switching teams…

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.

> My interest stops at the pay cheque and by the clock.

That's why a PIP puts said pay checque on the line though.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#347

Post by hughrr »

ignoramous wrote: post #273
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…

> “Customer Obsession”. There are customers who depend on my team’s application — I can’t let them down! That is also: - Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility (We must begin each day with a determination to make better, do better, and be better for our customers) - Deliver Results (Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle) - Bias for Action (We value calculated risk taking) - Think Big (The…

Do these come with a sick bag?

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#348

Post by pc86 »

mikeyjk wrote: post #335
danjac wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's Linkedin level quality.

The "agree?" is quintessential LinkedIn. Such an utterly shallow pretence for engaging a discussion.

Keep in mind the only people using LinkedIn as anything other than "resume holder" or "mediocre job board" are also the type of people to think "Agree?" is some sort of enlightening prompt.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#350

Post by endisneigh »

ctvo wrote: post #311
praptak wrote: post #250

The pip quota is a HUGE perverse incentive here. Choosing someone to put on pip is hard because it is in manager's best interest to protect their core team from pip. So if someone is too good for your team, you put them on pip. They are going to leave anyway, so putting them on pip does the least damage to your team. The other pathological result is hiring dummies just to put them on pip, again protecting the core te…

> So if someone is too good for your team, you put them on pip. They are going to leave anyway, so putting them on pip does the least damage to your team. This sounds like a lie people tell themselves after being PIP’d. Engineers have an average tenure of 1.8 years. You can’t guarantee you’ll hold together anything. No manager PIPs someone for just being TOO good. It’s already difficult enough to find competent peopl…

> Engineers have an average tenure of 1.8 years. You can’t guarantee you’ll hold together anything. No manager PIPs someone for just being TOO good. It’s already difficult enough to find competent people.

Source?

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