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Amazon Pip Horror Story

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Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#461

Post by deltaonefour »

deelly wrote: post #221
deltaonefour wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's true. We really need some service like blind where people can anonymously review and score managers. We need votes to prove that a manager is an ass hole. One anecdotal story isn't enough. Maybe the service leaves the manager anonymous until the review amount crosses a certain threshold... 3 to 4 guys calling him out? Submit this to ycombinator!

Honest question: how to prevent abusing this system?

So one email per company is allowed one vote. Similar to how blind allows one account per email. That prevents abuse. You don't like the guy, you can vote once because you have an email address at the company. If 3 or 4 people don't like the guy then the system assumes there is genuinely a problem with him and it reveals itself.

That means one person can't run a smear campaign. At least 2 or 3 other people have to agree with you, and if they do then it's legit. The system masks the persons negative reviews until that manager has accumulated greater than 3 or 4.

Three or four negative reviews from people in the company is NOT a minor issue.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#462

Post by Cthulhu_ »

zelos wrote: post #359
the_amzn_race wrote: post #353

I've been an Amazon SDE and an Amazon SDM. I enjoyed my time as an SDE, luckily free from these horror stories. After having been an SDM, I understand how these horror stories can form. Generally, Amazon has two minds about performance management. In written documentation, it's all about whether your reports meet the role guidelines. The written documentation is solid. They share how to evaluate people objectively an…

What's the justification for an attrition target? It seems such a weird thing to want your staff to leave.

I think at some point, which Amazon passed a long time ago, you become too big to be able to 'notice' everyone; there's plenty of stories where there's employees, usually white-collar office workers, that do nothing for years if not decades and still get paid.

This is just one (very depersonalized) approach to not keeping 'dead weight' around, or optimizing staff to always be on an upwards trend. It's like an evolutionary algorithm; trim off the worst performers and the remainder will evolve to higher levels. In theory.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#463

Post by mring33621 »

contravariant wrote: post #406
matthewowen wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The devils advocate answer: Statistically, some of your employees probably aren’t good enough to be worth employing. But managers are human, hard conversations are hard, there are lots of incentives to not manage those people out. By having an attrition target and forcing people to cut the bottom 10%, you basically skip over the soft fuzzy human factors keeping people around, and instead fall back to the statistical…

I can't really imagine a normal work environment where 10% (or any significant percentage) is actively harming the company.

try working at a big bank

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#464

Post by deltaonefour »

xerox13ster wrote: post #166
fortylove wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such a system is also likely to be abused, is it not?

It would be bought and killed by the capital system just like Glassdoor was.

Depends on who's running it. Like any other company, corruption can occur; but it can also not occur.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#465

Post by ignoramous »

hughrr wrote: post #347
ignoramous wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “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?

Don't blame the leadership, as apparently this is exactly what they need to be doing: To paraphrase [High Output Management], the job of an executive is: to define and enforce culture and values for their whole organization, and to ratify good decisions.

— What do executives do, anyway?, https://apenwarr.ca/log/20190926

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#466

Post by deltaonefour »

fortylove wrote: post #123
deltaonefour wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All we want is change in the industry. This is enough for that I believe. Your name on the internet, your employees calling you out (anonymously). It's social proof. That effects your awareness and also your future job opportunities.

Such a system is also likely to be abused, is it not?

I think if we do something similar to blind. One review per company email address it guarantees that each review is from one anonymous person in the company. This prevents smear campaigns and ensures that you get a clear and accurate picture of someone.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#467

Post by brimble »

tgv wrote: post #171
pm90 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s normalized on the platform because that’s how people higher up the food chain speak like. Eg when a VP switches companies. Most of the time these things are written by a PR person to be as grateful and inoffensive as possible. But then it caught on because everyone loves to humblebrag.

True. Reminds me of the time stackoverflow had hired someone for "developer relations". I think the title was "VP", and the recruit was described as "a veteran story-teller". Now having a VP send emails to developers is already a bit of stretch, and why you'd need someone at the level of Hans Christian Andersen to do so is anybody's guess, but the press release started: "We're beyond excited to ...". Was the CEO real…

Exaggeration, trying too hard to sound smart, and ugly euphemism are all hallmarks of business language. That's why it's so gross when it leaks into real life.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#469

Post by deltaonefour »

ajb wrote: post #235
MattGaiser wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could create a developer filibuster. Create lists of terrible teams and tell people that they are good for interview practice, but little else.

That's a really interesting idea, it would also be interesting to set up an experiment to see if you can tell the difference between good teams and bad teams by interviewing there.

Yes definitely. Though I see mutual ass hole manager buddies leaving good reviews for each other to help bump themselves up. As long as several bad reviews are in there you'll have an idea.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#470

Post by joncrane »

chronogram wrote: post #65
xorandor wrote: post #50

(dare I ask what a dev plan (pip) is?) quick google check... Development plan is a regular plan which you do with your manager, where you are focusing on your career progress. You focus on your strengths and weaknesses. Based on this plan you will get tasks which will utilize skills you are good at and also help you to improve skills you want to have improved. PIP is a plan which is assigned to employees with unsatis…

Performance improvement plan. Either a manager writes a plan of measurable goals focused on improving, or a manager and the target employee both work on the plan together. It can be used for actual performance improvement or it can be used as something the employee cannot meet as a way to fire them or get them to a different team.

Generally speaking, someone on a PIP is not eligible to move to another team, so the sole reason is to fire the person.
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