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Amazon Pip Horror Story

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Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#501

Post by BeetleB »

ActorNightly wrote: post #167
amrocha wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would expect him to not have worked anywhere longer than 4 months considering he just graduated and those were internships

The Full stack developer and ML engineer seem like full positions, considering he listed internships specifically in his prior experience as explicit internships. Also he has a background in bio, and managed to land a full stack and ML engineer positions, implying he is self taught, and therefore should be already fairly intelligent...but he decided to go get his MS in CS, without even doing any research project and…

> but he decided to go get his MS in CS, without even doing any research project and just opting for the GTA instead of GRA route.

This is pettiness taken to the max.

Most research people do in grad school will not have applicable use to employers. And for an MS, people will simply learn more by going the coursework route. Going the research route is good only for PhD admissions.

And finally, many universities in the US do not even offer a research route for the CS MS. They tell you to apply straight for a PhD.

If you're going to ask tough questions, at least know your domain!

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#502

Post by AitchEmArsey »

camtarn wrote: post #472
snowman-yelling wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I’ve been here for two years, not a long time by any means, and I don’t personally know a single instance of anyone getting pipped. I’ve never felt pressured to work overtime, haven’t had to race to meet an unreasonable deadline, and I’ve been rated exceeds on both of the performance evals I’ve been though. The Amazon I’ve experienced is much different than the one I read about before joining.

It can be drastically different from team to team. After I joined Amazon in 2007, I referred a friend from Uni who joined a few years later. I had a fairly laid back experience - after a good start, I became depressed and burned out, but somehow none of my managers seemed to care all that much since I was at least getting some stuff done, until I finally got put on a PIP several years in - which I think was probably…

> evading blame for a disastrous project launch

Found the Timestream guy

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#503

Post by patch_cable »

makerofthings wrote: post #149
Morgawr wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obviously nobody survives the PiP because for an engineer not on a pip I can't speak for other companies but I work at Google and I've met several people over the years who've confided with me that they've been on PIP (either in the past or at the moment when talking to me). While (thankfully) I haven't been on PIP myself (yet!) so I can't speak from personal direct experience, I can confidently say that all the pe…

It was a bit of a blanket statement from me, I’m sure people do survive in good companies, but this is a genuine observation. I’ve never been anywhere near the bottom of the ranking. So I have, over the years, been dragged into a lot of conversations about the people who do end up at the bottom. I’ve heard “Don’t worry, we’ll PiP them out” more than once.

I worked with several people at Amazon that were on a PIP and were able to move past it. (They were also people that were both talented enough to be successful in their roles, but needed a nudge because they were not meeting expectations at the time.)

I think we generally do not hear about the cases where a PIP was used and the employee was genuinely not meeting expectations, or when a PIP was used and the employee course corrected and went on to have a successful career.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#504

Post by the_af »

coliveira wrote: post #437
duncangh wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lmao this is great because on my "virtual on-site" final round of interviews at Amazon, the fire alarm of the person who was interviewing me went off. She switched to audio on the call and continued to try to work through the little coding challenge as she was shouting implementation details above the echo-y wails of a fire alarm raging in a crowded stairwell. Baffled, concerned for her safety and bewildered by her p…

This was probably a fire drill. The alarms sound off, everybody leaves the building at the same time, but it is just for training.

Assuming it was a fire drill -- back in the olden times before the new normal, when I worked at the office, fire drills were mandatory exercises. That's the whole point of them: you don't get to ignore them. We were always told in no unclear terms that we were expected to take part in the drill, no exceptions, and people even got told off if they took the time to shut down their computers or go back for backpacks or whatever, because "in a real fire there's no time for that".

I suppose people working in critical positions were cut some slack. I can't imagine doing interviews is one of those positions.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#505

Post by CobrastanJorji »

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…

As it happens, many years ago I worked for Amazon and encountered a small microwave fire in the break room. I dealt with it myself, but I realized I had no idea what the appropriate way to notify somebody about a fire. I inquired and discovered that in the event of a fire, the correct behavior would have been to return to my desk and file a Sev-2 incident with the Facilities team. This should in theory page someone who could respond to the building being on fire. I asked if they meant Sev-1, but they said Sev-1 would be reserved for a fire that was impacting website traffic.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#506

Post by belval »

snalty wrote: post #261
danjac wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's Linkedin level quality.

I remember seeing this as a shitpost on linkedin

I like that we've come to a point where people are shitposting on LinkedIn as a counter-point to these insipid:

> "TODAY I interviewed a SINGLE mom that had her BABY on her lap and apologized when it started crying. I gave her the JOB on the spot because motherhood is HARD. Let's all give single mom a break and be more human in the process! :clap: :clap:"

I've unfollowed so many people at this point because I use it as an address book for coworkers and recruiters and these virtue signalling posts are not even trying to look human.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#507

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#508

Post by [deleted] »

rPlayer6554 wrote: post #415
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…

When I saw that on bind the follow up comment was. "He was then PIP'd for accepting the gift card and not being frugal"

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#510

Post by serial_dev »

gkop wrote: post #449
serial_dev wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things I surprisingly (?) learned at a small startup as the first employee. It was me and the two founders that I already knew from working together in the past. I expected that my opinion matters, I tried to improve the product, the service, the engineering, but anytime I recommended something it was ignored. After some months, I learned to just shut up and code. This experience taught me that no matter h…

Those cofounders are terrible leaders. Was the startup successful?

I don't think so. They didn't throw in the towel yet, it doesn't look rosy (at least to me). One of them is still a friend of mine. I learned a lot, so I'm glad it happened, but I'm also glad that I left.
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