After having worked for very long time(compared to people who wish to become managers just few years into the job) as a SDE & being managed by many different style of managers, I have found poor managers mostly are failed up engineers or those coming from non engineering background. Also, the tech rush has brought so many "managers" from outside the US who not only lack real management skills, but dont adopt to the US management style. I really worry for the future of the silicon valley if these sort of mediocre managers start to manage high performers in top tech companies.
Amazon Pip Horror Story
701–710 of 771 posts
Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story
#702Earlier quoted context omitted.
So firing someone for trying to switch teams is company policy? I doubt it. Many managers are ass holes because that's the definition of their personality. I feel ass holes should definitely be singled out so that they can't be managers again for the future.
(1) If the manager did PIP purely as a way to prevent team transfer, then yes I agree that it is clear bad behavior that should be punished. But I am not sure if that is the case. Say this guy was the lowest performer in the manager's team and was on track to being PIPed anyway. Should the manager now be forced to PIP someone else just because this guy is moving to another team? (2) There are way too many PIP horror…
I disagree. The executioner that carries out Hitlers orders should still be guilty of the crime.
I do agree that it is unfair. You have 100 axe murderers. You put one in jail, the rest get away with it. That is unfair.
Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story
#703While I feel bad that this guy didn't understand what he was getting into when joining Amazon, it is the middle manager at these companies that have the worst jobs. I interviewed for an Engineering Manager job at MSFT and they looked like they had about 35 hours of meetings a week. On top of that they are expected respond to urgent issues from their direct reports and respond from urgent issues from upper management.…
> it is the middle manager at these companies that have the worst jobs.
Uh. Seems like folks being potentially unfairly pushed out are the ones with the worst jobs?
Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story
#704Oh look, another PIP story. What is this, Blind?
This may have happened, but doesn't align with my experiences at Amazon. Maybe things are different based on what org you're in.
Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story
#705Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm suprised to hear Facebook is this way. Almost everyone in Facebook that I know is chilling 50% of the time :)
I'm at FB currently, maybe it's a problem on other orgs but my experience has been very good (2 years). It's not perfect but I haven't heard horror stories like this, and my manager and pms are happy to let eng set project estimates.
Hey so I have to ask, do you actually like what you do? I don't mean that in a rude way or anything. I just honestly don't know what people do at FB anymore. Do you work on the core platform or are you working on Mark's new idea?
Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story
#706Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue with Amazon is that due to its size, working on a team is essentially like working for a separate company. If you are moving across big orgs, you are just a blip in the system should something like this come up. And just like a group of startups, some are going to be run worse than others. Additionally, because of the internal transfer policy and teams frequently switching out members, a lot of work is desi…
> The issue with Amazon is that due to its size, working on a team is essentially like working for a separate company. Not really; esp when the processes and priorities are alike across the company (with exception of few organizations that are experimenting newer processes at any given point in time). > Amazon is the best company for finding that sweet spot of maximizing revenue/actual hour worked. I don't think a si…
How are other companies setup that make them distinct from Amazon?
Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story
#707Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm at FB currently, maybe it's a problem on other orgs but my experience has been very good (2 years). It's not perfect but I haven't heard horror stories like this, and my manager and pms are happy to let eng set project estimates.
Hey so I have to ask, do you actually like what you do? I don't mean that in a rude way or anything. I just honestly don't know what people do at FB anymore. Do you work on the core platform or are you working on Mark's new idea?
Yoooo, not offended at all. I work on the backend that powers navigation. I do like what I do. Of course it’s not as sexy as a 0-1 project at a startup but there are plenty of interesting problems and I really like the people. What makes me happy might not work for others of course. There are always trade offs
Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story
#708Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that he thinks LOC has anything to do with how effective he's been as an engineer is a huge red flag.
He didn't say exactly that, he said that he takes issue with his manager calling him the "least effective" person on his team. Which sure, there is some possibility that he wrote a lot of code, and it was all useless, but to be the _least_ effective while _presumably_ shipping at least some features... Either he's incredibly, incredibly bad at what he does, or he just had the misfortune to step into the bear trap tha…
Then, he should have mentioned something that he improved ... Anything.
The fact that he didn't is a huge red flag.
Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story
#709Sadly, there is no comeuppance in this.
The manager got what he/she needed, which is meeting the attrition target and thus will get a TT or HV and carry on, doing the same thing again next go-around. Amazon still carries its brand value and millions of CS grads will still be clamoring to join the company, or experienced SWEs looking to switch company and start the recruiting process.
Jiawei Wang is leaving a big tech company, which happens at thousands a day, and unfortunately he is looking to join another company as a 9-5er, fading into the oblivion of corporate history, like a single blade of grass in a million square mile field.
Unless of course Jiawei join/starts a unicorn and gets a couple Bs, then he will get a nice bio entry in wikipedia and do something like what Tepper did to Corzine to get his ultimate comeuppance.
Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story
#710As much as I feel sorry for this person and their experience, it seems to me this wasn't the best way to handle this situation. It would have been more pragmatic to fire up leetcode, take a few interviews, and leave the job professionally. This probably would have come with a small pay bump, even with this persons limited professional experience. Maybe I'm just lucky and I've never had a bad experience like this, but…
The reason this kind of bullshit continues to happen is because nobody calls it out. Calling it out and shaming it publicly is the only way to eventually resolve this problem. Someone in a position of relative power (being able to quit and publicly call out their employer) calling it out also makes the situation better for those that may not be able to afford that risk.
They should call it out. But bringing up the fact that he wrote 51k lines of code in one month is such a huge red flag ..