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Amazon Pip Horror Story

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Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#491

Post by cvhashim »

deltaonefour wrote: post #91
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.

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.

Regularly used ratemyprofessor back in college, years ago.

We need something like that. Rate my manager/head of engineering @ some large org. Also get a legal team ready for all the lawsuits that will come your way for whoever wants to pursue this idea. I'm all for supporting it though.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#492

Post by deltaonefour »

mFixman wrote: post #323
deltaonefour wrote: post #13

Why are people who do this never named? They should be named. This type of behavior perpetuates because despite this employee revealing a company issue.. the individual perpetrator can still hide behind anonymity. CALL these ass holes out.

(I didn't read the article; the page seems to be down). A lot of these cases end up with the manager not necessarily having a lot of blame since they might not have full information on what's happening. They might also be in a similar performance crisis of their own. If the entire company is having cultural problems and PIP horror stories are common, then the fault is from the people on the top and not from the M1 th…

That's like blaming your parents for you turning out to be an ass hole. I think the manager still needs to be called out regardless and if his boss is an ass then the boss needs to be called out.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#494

Post by potta_coffee »

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.

I've finally reached the same state of mind, and there's no other way to live.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#495

Post by BeetleB »

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…

> No manager PIPs someone for just being TOO good.

Eh, in my company, I've seen managers that will use tools to prevent people from leaving. Fortunately, they have tools other than PIP. But if they didn't, I'm sure they would wave the PIP wand.

One guy was senior and core to the team. When he wanted to move, his manager bluntly told him he needed him for another year so he would not let him leave.

One of the orgs in my company famously classifies all employees as "essential" (nothing to do with the pandemic). Because of that, any time someone wants to leave for another org, it has to be approved by the top staff of the org (this org has thousands of employees, BTW). Although they don't prevent everyone from leaving, they do often prevent people - to the point that during internal interviews some of them were dropped by the interviewing team as soon as they discovered the org they were currently with: "We've been burnt too many times going through the interview loop only to have your org block the transfer - we just won't hire from your org any more."

So yeah, I totally can believe someone would use PIP to keep a good performer in a team, if that's the only way they have.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#498

Post by BeetleB »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #184
HL33tibCe7 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second post in your second link is shocking too: > One night, when I was a dev manager at Amazon, another dev manager in Seattle sent me a 20-page design document at 11:30 pm and told me that he wanted me to get him feedback by 5:30 am the next day. How fucking rude is that? It’s indicative of an absolutely staggering level of toxicity. Honestly, what a waste. Imagine how much better Amazon could be if they didn’…

And I wouldn't be surprised if that Seattle dev manager got pressured from above themselves. But at some point, someone has to set boundaries. If that manager then got pissy about it not being finished, there's a few lines to be used. One is "I was asleep". Another is "Night shifts and overtime are not in my contract", or "I do not get paid enough to do night shifts". And another one, "A lack of planning on your part…

Honestly, in some orgs in my company "I was asleep" would be the only acceptable answer. All the others would put you on a path of getting fired. If the whole org operates like this, no one cares about your witty remarks.

If you really don't want to work like this (and I don't), have a 1:1 with the manager, discuss boundaries, and if you can't come to an agreement, change teams or jobs.

And better yet, ask these during the interview! One question I often asked:

"In my current job, I typically leave my laptop at work when I leave at 5-6pm (unless there's a genuine ongoing emergency). Would that work in this role?"

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#499

Post by altacc »

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".

Management would tell you it certainly wasn’t constructive dismissal as that’s illegal! ;)
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