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Amazon Pip Horror Story

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Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#711

Post by DangitBobby »

ltfey wrote: post #688
ctvo wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole performance review thing feels like a proxy for something else I can't quite put my finger on, but feels creepy nonetheless. Stack ranking is one thing, but you're against performance reviews? How do you know if you're doing well or poorly in your job? Or does it not matter because firing is so difficult?

Performance reviews are garbage. They are not needed. They exist as a way for the capital-owning class to remind workers that they are seen as subhuman and will be thrown back on the streets the minute they are no longer seen by their masters as productive. If someone needs to be fired, you don't need to put them through a humiliating process. Explain what happened and why, give them a decent severance and a good ref…

> Performance reviews are garbage. They are not needed. They exist as a way for the capital-owning class to remind workers that they are seen as subhuman and will be thrown back on the streets the minute they are no longer seen by their masters as productive.

It really depends. I have never felt this way about a performance review. I like being informed about whether my manager and I both agree on what my job is. As an added bonus, the day after a good review is when you are least worried about losing your job and your livelihood. Honestly it seems like your beef is with the lack of social safety nets and not with performance reviews themselves.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#712

Post by shurane »

femto113 wrote: post #668
asdfman123 wrote: post #570

At this point, I'm not sure why anyone would choose to work at Amazon over other companies. What do they offer over their competitors? Same work and pay at other big tech, but you don't have to worry about potentially crazy hours or getting fired for no reason. Or any of the other great companies outside of big tech. Good pay, good impact, no PIP culture. Recruiters from AMZN are trying to lure me away from Google (a…

I've worked at Amazon, I won't work there again, but I have (and likely will again) recommend it on occasion for other people as a hugely valuable learning experience. The reason is that Amazon has a strong bias towards getting stuff done, and because it's Amazon that means getting stuff done at scale. You are extremely unlikely to spend much time there without participating in shipping something that gets used by (o…

Makes it sound like working in Amazon builds character, so you can know how good you have it elsewhere.

Which is a good idea in itself, but seems like it's best to just skip on that experience. Kind of like a type 2 kind of fun.

I've also heard of good experiences at Amazon, so maybe it's just particular organizations inside it that suffer a lot from this problem?

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#713

Post by DangitBobby »

noblepayne wrote: post #683
ctvo wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole performance review thing feels like a proxy for something else I can't quite put my finger on, but feels creepy nonetheless. Stack ranking is one thing, but you're against performance reviews? How do you know if you're doing well or poorly in your job? Or does it not matter because firing is so difficult?

> but you're against performance reviews? It may be useful to further refine what we mean when we are talking about "performance reviews". Are we talking about regular discussions between Managers (or skip-level, or product stakeholders) and their reports, or are we talking about an HR-driven process that happens every x months? Personally (for whatever that's worth) I find the former helpful and the latter to be mos…

I feel that a performance review cannot hurt you (unless they cut the worst n% of course). If they are giving you an honest assessment of how happy they are with you, you either know you're doing good and to stay the course or you know you're doing bad and to try something else. We've done yearly reviews in the last two places I worked (bonuses are also based on these reviews) and I like that cadence. It helps that I'm not too worried about getting fired without a fair shake, though.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#714

Post by mjrbrennan »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #174
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…

I mean, you even attempted it. I would've looked at it and told them their deadline or scope was unrealistic. I mean I don't want to do any project with a deadline, ever again, if possible, and I haven't even been exposed to the level of stress and pressure that people get at certain companies. I thought deadlines had gotten rid of a decade ago in software engineering with the rise of agile software development and t…

I’m in the same boat as you, haven’t worked on anything with a deadline for the past 2 and a half years and I never want to go back to it, totally pointless arbitrary dates that are never met.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#715

Post by schrute »

treyfitty wrote: post #11

People say that working for Amazon for a year is enough “training” to serve as a resume badge. However, I’d like to provide a counter to that: when I see Amazon on a resume, I actually discount the candidate. In my opinion, the branding has suffered tremendously and I view the candidate as a compensation maximizer beyond all costs- why else would you join Amazon despite the well known horror stories, as well as their…

> when I see Amazon on a resume, I actually discount the candidate

You're fighting ignorance with more ignorance.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#716

Post by AtlasBarfed »

ltfey wrote: post #687
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even worse than that. The Office at least had people do their jobs and keep their heads down, cooperate to get things done, ride out the management bullshit. Amazon management practices will breed sociopathy at the root worker level. I agree that is kind of the average-stage evolution of an enterprisey company. Amazon is worse.

The Office was utopian compared to real-life Corporate America. The kind of mean-spirited pettiness that drives actual post-2000 capitalism, and it gets worse the higher you go, is so depressing and repugnant that it can't be put on TV. Also, characters with no redeeming qualities are considered bad writing. But most coprorate executives are people with no redeeming qualities. You can't put them in fiction; unlike a…

And thus the "banality of evil"

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#717

Post by randomfool »

steveBK123 wrote: post #613
mistyislands wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hard to say. probably the people who are high enough to make any change are too removed from the action to see the problems. maybe stories like this going viral will change things (companies do anything these days to avoid bad PR).

As soon as the C Suite has the same PIP / stack rank / % attrition forced, the policy will be ended.

VP level often has fairly high turnover, maybe that's where this originates from.

In my experience at the VP level you have many highly skilled reports who are gunning for your job. Once you get the VP job then there may be many more enticing opportunities at other companies with just tough competition in the current position.

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#718

Post by wing-_-nuts »

anonymous8979 wrote: post #682
vvvnnnnvvv wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently left Amazon, and I don't think the stack ranking is to blame for the reduction in talent (which I also noticed). Amazon doesn't pay top dollar for engineers, and the delta between Amazon and other companies is growing every year. (The compensation ends up being competitive when you take into account stock growth, but the new hire offers are not attractive.) And it's a very results-driven, stressful work en…

The comp might be part of it as well, but at the end of the day, the only reason the bar is lowering is because Amazon is losing their good talent and failing to attract more of it, while also failing to have processes that create good talent (as in, if you weren't already great when coming in, Amazon won't grow you, but just spit you out). Yes comp could help to attract better talent, that's what Facebook is doing.…

>But of the about 150 interviews I've conducted for Amazon, 90% of almost all candidates always ask me: "So is it really as bad as they say working here?

Every time an AMZ recruiter tries to poach me from my current job, I consider replying back with links to the NYT article, the URA article, and various anecdotes from friends that worked there. Ending with a question of 'Why in god's name would I work for your company?!'

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#719

Post by wing-_-nuts »

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…

I'm surprised you were allowed to switch teams. Most companies explicitly disallow it for people under any sort of performance review (even informal).

Re: Amazon Pip Horror Story

#720

Post by autoexec »

ltfey wrote: post #688
ctvo wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole performance review thing feels like a proxy for something else I can't quite put my finger on, but feels creepy nonetheless. Stack ranking is one thing, but you're against performance reviews? How do you know if you're doing well or poorly in your job? Or does it not matter because firing is so difficult?

Performance reviews are garbage. They are not needed. They exist as a way for the capital-owning class to remind workers that they are seen as subhuman and will be thrown back on the streets the minute they are no longer seen by their masters as productive. If someone needs to be fired, you don't need to put them through a humiliating process. Explain what happened and why, give them a decent severance and a good ref…

> If someone needs to be fired, you don't need to put them through a humiliating process. Explain what happened and why, give them a decent severance and a good reference, and say goodbye.

I don't think performance reviews should have a part in firings, and the metrics they use to rank/rate people are generally worthless, but it's actually nice to get feedback from time to time on how you're doing. I've had managers who I never heard from at all and that's not ideal.

If a company is thinking they have to fire someone for performance reasons it's way easier for them to have documentation showing what has been going on and that they'd given the employee time to improve. It's better for the employee too to understand what the expectations are they're not meeting and to have a chance to explain what the causes are. I think most people would prefer that over being told out of the blue that they've been sucking at their job and escorted out the building.

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