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I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

businessinsider.com

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Re: I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

#221

Post by dudul »

ftyhbhyjnjk wrote: post #203

The problem with people in HR is that they are highly disconnected from the people who actually build stuff, and are also highly arrogant.

100% of all the departments they seem to be the ones who have the least amount of clue about the business, the product, etc.

At my current company we had a massive, make-it-or-break-it deliverable for the spring. It was literally all departments coming together for a whole year and trying to get this thing done on time.

All, but HR. All HR cared about was to make sure managers would pester their report to put their 3 annual goals in [random HR system] before [random day in March]. HR like to see people as interchangeable cogs but that's because that's what they are themselves.

Re: I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

#222

Post by rawling »

kudokatz wrote: post #105
rawling wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read through the article expecting this, but... if this is the case, it doesn't feel like they tried very hard? > I wasn't put on Pivot. My manager wanted to work with me a little bit to see if I was going to commit to the job. So they sat me down and said I could go on Pivot and leave right away, or they would work with me. > ... > I played along, and I'm good at playing along when I have to be. So then the money…

> if this is the case, it doesn't feel like they tried very hard? I don't think you get it. The way this stuff is done is just as described - totally blindsiding, and potentially flat-out gaslighting. There's no actual metrics or data until they fabricate a paper trail and force you out. You don't win these things. Rather, you take your money and go elsewhere. Then turn down the subsequent job offers you get from the…

I'm specifically addressing the parent comment

> In this case it seems it was pretty clearly meant to push this employee out before their stocks vest

which if so it singularly failed at.

Re: I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

#223

Post by tcgv »

steveBK123 wrote: post #204

One underlying problem with these PIP type programs at FAANG seems to be that they have very high barriers to entry in the interview process, and then act like 30% of the company is underperforming and subject to an annual 6% cull. There are industries & companies that have grown fat & lazy and could use a few annual 6% culls, but you eventually run out of fat. If you have a very competitive interview process and hig…

Their interview process, while thorough, isn't failproof. Additionally, it primarily assesses candidates at entry, overlooking potential changes in performance that may emerge after a couple of years within the company.

Re: I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

#224

Post by nness »

ftyhbhyjnjk wrote: post #203

The problem with people in HR is that they are highly disconnected from the people who actually build stuff, and are also highly arrogant.

It's naive to think that these decisions are made by HR, and not, your organistion's leadership — your building stuff set by the leadership, and the HR team are executing policy as set by the leadership.

Re: I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

#225

Post by jameshart »

kortilla wrote: post #215
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

:x['a'] instead of x.get('a', {}) This seems like splitting hairs. Sure, maybe x.get is better, but would that be a deal breaker? Know you are just giving quick example, but this just struck a cord. Are jobs really so hard to get that employers can be that nit-picky?

It’s not nit-picky because the behavior of the two is completely different when ‘a’ isn’t present. If the assignment is dealing with dirty/partial data or implementing APIs with optional fields, [] can be a complete deal breaker.

Deal-breaker?

Is there evidence that programmers who use [] simply cannot ever learn to use .get()? Once they have picked up the incorrect approach, their brains are simply broken and they can never learn that a different solution exists that is better used in certain situations?

It would obviously be risky to hire someone who uses [] if that's the case.

If not, though, it seems like it doesn't provide much of a clue as to the person's ability to perform in a technical role.

Re: I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

#226

Post by steveBK123 »

tcgv wrote: post #223
steveBK123 wrote: post #204

One underlying problem with these PIP type programs at FAANG seems to be that they have very high barriers to entry in the interview process, and then act like 30% of the company is underperforming and subject to an annual 6% cull. There are industries & companies that have grown fat & lazy and could use a few annual 6% culls, but you eventually run out of fat. If you have a very competitive interview process and hig…

Their interview process, while thorough, isn't failproof. Additionally, it primarily assesses candidates at entry, overlooking potential changes in performance that may emerge after a couple of years within the company.

It's not failproof, but is it so fail heavy that 30% of employees are underperformers with 6% meriting being fired at all times?

Re: I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

#227

Post by maccard »

ballenf wrote: post #119
bsenftner wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How Amazon's behavior here, clearly mandated as official corporate policy, is not an instant class action lawsuit demonstrates how far we are in our "late stage capitalism" and economic slaves, not free, not by half.

In earlier times, they'd just fire you without any kind of PIP process. Are you saying that PIP vs. immediate firing is worse?

My dad had a government job where the move was to enforce all contractual obligations rigorously, remove any benefits provided, and give them absolutely 0 work to do.

He had a disagreement with his manager (let's leave it at that, heh), and over the next week, his arrangement to work from a different office (the rest of his team were based in this office too, just his department's office was technically somewhere else) was removed, his flex was removed, he was taken off all projects, and told that using his computer for non-work purposes was a disciplinary offence.

He had a 90 minute each way commute, was required to be clocked in between 9:30 and 4:30 every day (not 9:31, 9:30), required to work 37.5 hours, requests for using TOIL due to commute or other issues were immediately denied, no work to do, and not being allowed to use the computer in his office. The resolution was he found someone in a different department in the city we lived in that had the exact same thing happen to them, and they negotiated a swap with each other and things got better again.

==

Point being, these processes are a combination of ass-covering, parallel construction, and outright abuse. Nobody deserves to be treated like he was (or like people are being treated in these PIP programs), it would be more humane for everyone if we did something different.

Re: I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

#228

Post by steveBK123 »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #217
steveBK123 wrote: post #204

One underlying problem with these PIP type programs at FAANG seems to be that they have very high barriers to entry in the interview process, and then act like 30% of the company is underperforming and subject to an annual 6% cull. There are industries & companies that have grown fat & lazy and could use a few annual 6% culls, but you eventually run out of fat. If you have a very competitive interview process and hig…

> If you have a very competitive interview process and high compensation to attract the best talent It's a big assumption that the competitive interview process is sufficient to identify only the top talent. Every other week News@YC has posts complaining that every type of interview process doesn't identify talent well.

Sure, some people interview better than they work, and vice versa. But do a huge flood of bad employees really make it through these very difficult gates and merit 30% of employees being marked underperformers every year?

Re: I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

#230

Post by FirmwareBurner »

boffinAudio wrote: post #199
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could also be the cultural differences between companies that are engineering driven first, versus companies that are primary sales/management/consulting driven first and the engineering part is a distant second. And the likes of QCOM and all these international big-tech pay so much above the low Austrian market rates, that they can afford to treat candidates as disposable commodities as they have virtually unlimi…

>But how could you tell they weren't intending to hire anyone when interviewing you? I was told after the interview in two cases that they had to finish the interview process, but had a candidate already selected - and that I was 'on hold' in case they didn't accept the offer. I'm not saying Austria isn't without its glib bureaucracies and Kafka'esque recruitment nightmares - just that they are a little more empathet…

>I was told after the interview in two cases that they had to finish the interview process, but had a candidate already selected - and that I was 'on hold' in case they didn't accept the offer.

Ouch, that must hurt knowing you're just the reserve, but to be honest I wouldn't hold a grudge over this, I expect most companies in the world do this, as most candidates also do this with companies when interviewing. It's fair game and you hedge your bets.

> just that they are a little more empathetic towards workers than, in my experience (Australia, USA, Japan, UK), that of other nations ..

I have no idea what it's like in the US, Asia or Oceania, but compared to most of EU, including the UK, I haven't found any extra empathy to candidates or employees in the Austrian private sector, especially that here employment is basically at-will compared to the rest of EU so you're always an easy scapegoat to find yourself unemployed for some failing of an incompetent manager (and Austrian management is really next level Kafkaesque)

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