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

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

#391

Post by notjoemama »

I’m going to rant for a sec…

Glad I’m not smart enough, nor care to put the work in, to pass a FAANG interview. I’ll stick to stupid crud land tyvm. This PIP behavior is just one more reason I consider their employment a kind of abuse. I’m human and I refuse to be compromised so easily. Pathetic (to me).

Closest I got was an interview at what I’ll call a molar company (want to be FAANG). I asked the HR screener if the technical code interview was based on real world code or just puzzles (I was going to walk if it’s just puzzle code, not good at fake stuff, haven’t practiced, and I wouldn’t be a good fit if that’s what they are looking for). She assured me the eng lead doing the interview used real code. So I call in, get on camera, where they used a coding interview website and it was a small sample with no context. It may have been from their code base but it was scrubbed and meant nothing to me. I asked for context but he said i don’t need it. I asked if i could change integer types to dates but he said no. Oh, and I was recorded but wasn’t told about that until I called in. So I was pretty pissed because I’m staring at a damn puzzle but this guy thinks the whole setup is a-ok. Well, fine. It might be. For them. I felt like I was lied to them provided no concession. So I hummed and hawed with no intention of solving his puzzle. I made him stick out the whole hour. I even explained at one point I wouldn’t write code like that because multiple conditions and multiple code paths converge on 7 lines. I explained the conditional logic was hidden and it would be better if it were more explicit, not just so it’s readable but because simplifying it by expanding the conditions makes it modifiable, supportable, and testable. Nope. I was told it was Ruby and it’s a Ruby thing to reduce logic in fewer lines of code. Yeah I get it. Inventing a complex trick makes you feel smart. I’m so sorry life is so boring to you.

I’m certain I looked like a fool to him. I don’t care. He had mannerisms that screamed “on the spectrum”. I think that’s fine…until smart people are put in charge and never get an ego check. Leading means leading people, not writing code more complicated than everyone else.

I’m obviously still salty about the whole thing. There’s another situation with people from a much larger software company came in and took a big dump at one of the smaller software companies I worked at. At this point I just don’t trust corporatized anything anymore. I think they’re liars. I think they chew up and spit people out. I think they put profit over humanity. I also think I need to go for a walk. Sincere apologies if I’ve offended anyone. Guess I just needed to get that off my chest. I do hope you have a good day.

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

#392

Post by goalonetwo »

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…

>> they have very high barriers to entry in the interview process

You mean ... Leetcode?

I would categorize it as an artificial high barrier to entry that is based on how much you study and a bit of luck. If anything, it is designed to make employees believe they are top-tier.

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

#393

Post by chadash »

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…

I'm gonna play devil's advocate even though I agree with your point.

Firing people sucks. As a manager, it's a terrible feeling to tell someone they are out of a job. Not only that, but often times my own pay might be tied to how many people I manage, so in some cases, it's better for me to have people around doing nothing than to let them go. By having a forced ranking/culling, you somewhat alleviate the tendency of people not wanting to fire non-performing staff.

Companies should have a culture where this isn't the case. It should be encouraged to let people go with nice severance. You should be judged on your teams' output, not on how many people you manage. You should be rewarded for doing more with fewer staff. But enforcing this is very hard in a big company while enforcing a 6% cull is easy, so that's what happens.

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

#394

Post by marcosdumay »

mjr00 wrote: post #271
steveBK123 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forced ranking in your use case doesn't work because it's generally firm wide cascade. Is 6% of every team in every department in every org unnecessary? No, in fact.. there's teams that should be 2x as big and teams that should be completely let go. Management actually needs to do what they get the big bucks for and make strategic decisions about what business lines do/don't need to be staffed rather than culling arb…

> Management actually needs to do what they get the big bucks for and make strategic decisions about what business lines do/don't need to be staffed rather than culling arbitrary %s everywhere. The performance management process and 4-6% "unregretted attrition" (to use the technical term) target at Amazon is totally independent from figuring out project resourcing and headcounts. An employee who is fired for performa…

Do hairless employees in a vacuum interfere with each commutativelly or anti-commutativelly?

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

#395

Post by resolutebat »

belval wrote: post #371
linster wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Canadian, “better than Exceeding” sounds like an American construction. I’d imagine the scale to be: 1. Not Meeting Expectations 2. Meeting Expectations 3. Exceeding expectations

It is probably a way to give workers fake kudos without actually giving them anything. A lot of north american modern management theory seems to think that praising your employees is the best way to get them to perform. By telling someone who's good but not great a "You got exceed expectations!!" they'll feel like they are valued.

Quite the opposite: getting into the top brackets is directly tied to large pay increases, larger bonuses and stock grants, and puts you in line for promotion.

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

#396

Post by Aurornis »

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…

> here are industries & companies that have grown fat & lazy and could use a few annual 6% culls, but you eventually run out of fat.

I've worked on many high-performing teams where you couldn't find 6%, or 1-in-18 of people who shouldn't be there.

However, I've never worked for an entire fast growing company where I couldn't readily pick out 1-in-18 people who were clearly underperforming and everyone knew it.

Hiring is far from perfect and these companies are growing quickly. Combined with turnover, you're bringing in a large number of new developers every year. Some people are really good at Leetcode and interviewing, but don't actually like to do work at jobs, for example.

IMO, the problem comes when these arbitrary thresholds are applied at low levels like individual teams. If you take a group of 18 people and declare that 1 of them must be fired every year no matter what, it's terrible. On the other hand, if you were to look at a large department of 1000 people and went through everyone's performance closely, I don't think it would be hard to identify 60 people who weren't working out.

The other problem is that some people have become really good at gaming this system. Every time I've worked at a company that does arbitrary culling of employees, there was always a contingent of old timers who had mastered the system years ago and never found themselves up for consideration to PIP. Either they were friends with management, had some arcane knowledge that they refused to let anyone else access, or they were really good at buttering up their manager come performance review time. I can think of one guy who was always fighting with everyone and refusing to do work, but would become the sweetest, most helpful hero a couple times a year when some high profile issue came up. He'd work 16 hour days for a couple weeks, emergent triumphantly with some solution, then disappear again for another 6 months. Untouchable, yet clearly the lowest net performer on the team.

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

#397

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

wickedwiesel wrote: post #276
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…

I know you are sharing some interesting observations, but can we all stop talking about employees as the "fat" of companies and firing of employees as "culls". > underperformers lying about to cull is not just bad wording. By definition, there will always be underperformers. A profitable company only has "too many" employees if you think it has to pay a larger dividend to its owners / shareholders or that future grow…

> "Why is it not fine when a company is more or less breaking even but paying good salaries to its employees?"

Do you have a retirement plan that contains stock or get any options/stock grants as part of your compensation? Those shares are your ownership stake in corporations and your retirement quite directly depends on those shares increasing in price faster than inflation.

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

#398

Post by nemo44x »

nine_zeros wrote: post #367
nemo44x wrote: post #164

Although I think mandatory rankings and assuming the bottom x% should be exited isn’t great approach, I also don’t think it’s a company or managers job to coach you into being a productive employee. Yes, they should have direct feedback but overall you are expected to be a professional. This means you are accountable for your work - you do what you say you will. That you express concern early and not late in the proc…

I know you are getting downvoted but the real question is: What is a manager's job? If it is not to code, not to understand systems, not to design, not to coach, not to help the team - what is it exactly?

"It depends". A managers job is to understand the business and what the strategy and ultimate goals of the business are and to direct their organization in such a way that contributes to this. This means staffing, equipping, training a team and then ensuring that the best possible objectives are being met that contribute to the larger organizational objectives. To ensure their cog is functioning optimally. That their KPIs are being hit effectively and that they make sense.

They should ensure the right code is being written and that it's of high quality and know who is contributing what. They should design and use metrics to measure this. They should nurture, yes, but they aren't a parent. But yes they should identify when a team member is coming up short and help them get on track but the contributor needs to come equipped with the basic skills - which is the managers responsibility to judge during hiring. To be sure, a manager who tends to have trouble with low performing contributors they've hired usually shows the managers is ineffective at hiring.

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

#399

Post by scarface_74 »

rvba wrote: post #370
scarface_74 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was peripherally involved in a project that was going sideways and I was an easy target. In hindsight, while the reason for me to put “on focus”, I honestly admit was maybe 70% my fault. I could have handled a horrible customer better. On the other hand, the PIP itself was a setup. During the focus period, I met all of the criteria and had perfect CSAT scores on two customer projects I led (Professional Services) a…

Were you close to vest your stock options?

My next vest would have been this month. My severance amount was more than my 6 month 20% vest.

I was still on my initial 5/15/40/40 initial offer.

For people who don’t know, Amazon’s offers are based on total compensation target with a schedule of:

- year 1 - base + large prorated signing bonus + 5% vest

- year 2 - base + smaller signing bonus + 15% base

- year 3 and 4 - 20% vest every six months + base.

I had two vesting periods left.

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

#400

Post by badRNG »

rgblambda wrote: post #196
risfriend wrote: post #69

I'm a manager and have been forced to apply similar PIP process to my team and it is truly horrible when the folks are forcefully put in the lowest performance just to satisfy the projected yearly budget. The 2-3 month improvement process is hogwash and hardly anyone survives it, PIP means they're 90% going to be axed.

I wonder if fired employees could take a class action lawsuit against these types of procedures. If acceptable performance is altered relative to how many people need to be let go, and there is data showing that few survive the PIP (Employers claim that the intended effect is to help the employee improve performance) then surely that's evidence that the so called Performance Improvement Plan is a sham.

There's no grounds for a lawsuit, not in the states. They can legally fire you for nearly any reason or for no reason whatsoever. All PIPs do is help the company fend off claims that the employee was fired for an illegal reason (e.g., for being a member of a protected class, retaliation, etc.)
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