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I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

benadam.me

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Re: I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

#141

Post by mbfg »

dudus wrote: post #112
cjaro wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Performance Improvement Plan. It's basically the company's way of saying "We want to fire you, but don't have a reason on the books, so here you go. In six months, pack your bags and go."

I respect your view and while that may be true on a lot of cases that's not what the company represents a pip to be. A PIP is a situation where you are told you are not performing at the desired level and needs to improve. In a respectable company being on a pip can be good for you. In my personal case I was not performing well due to personal issues. Getting on a pip saved my job. It gave me the resources and attent…

the key words here are

"what the company represents"

of course they are not going to represent it as, "we are going to fire you".

Good for you to keep the job (if that's what you wanted) but in general it's a legal process companies do to easily fire people.

Re: I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

#142

Post by mbfg »

yonig wrote: post #136
netizen-936824 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does PIP stand for? I haven't run into that acronym before

Replies laid out what it means on paper but what is the employees actual best move? Sounds intentionally impossible to climb out of. Are they given a buyout option to leave or just sit in purgatory for 6 months?

As soon as you get a PIP, get out when you can.

Re: I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

#143

Post by peakaboo »

I glanced through the leadership principles and laughed a bit. I feel sorry for the people who think they have to put up with that bullshit.

It all boils down to making the employees working as hard as possible, that's the single reason those principles exist. To make specially young and clueless employees forget it's just a job, because hey, it must be an obsession!

If you are young, this may seem normal i guess but I would never ever touch amazon.

Re: I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

#144

Post by samspenc »

vishnugupta wrote: post #108
masterof0 wrote: post #17

Ex-Amazonian here, I agree with almost everything OP say. I have a few things to add in case HR is reading this: - RSUs vesting schedule sucks, fix it.(5% - first year, 15% - second , then 5% each quarter, i think...) - Internal tooling is pretty bad (frameworks, pipelines, ....) and the documentation is non-existent, and when it exists , is not very helpful. - Amazon has the least amount of holidays of all FAANG, wh…

> (5% - first year, 15% - second This is done on purpose because a vast majority of employees leave Amazon within 18 months or so. And those who can withstand that environment for 24 months and beyond develop thick enough skin and make enough internal connections to survive till 5+ years. (bit of a tangent) > in case HR is reading this HR's primary (perhaps only) job is to protect the upper management (execs and abov…

I heard that their (miserly) first and second year RSU vests are made up for with a cash component during those two years, or am I mistaken about that?

Re: I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

#145

Post by MattGaiser »

tablespoon wrote: post #100
chrsig wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the commenter was implying that their policy takes retention into account, and amazon simply doesn't value retaining employees

> I believe the commenter was implying that their policy takes retention into account, and amazon simply doesn't value retaining employees I think there's some Bezos quote about people being lazy and it being easier to extract labor from fresh hires trying to prove themselves.

> Bezos believed that workers' desire to perform well decreased over time and that an entrenched workforce was a "march to mediocrity," Niekerk told The Times.

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-polices-based-jeff-be...

Re: I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

#146

Post by franczesko »

Ex-Amazon. Lasted 2 years. I'll just repeat the comment I posted the other day:

There are only two instances when you're happy at Amazon - when you start and when you quit. Doing the latter was the best decision I made, perhaps, in my entire career. I can honestly tell that those RSUs and bonuses weren't worth it.

Avoid at all costs. You've been warned.

Re: I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

#147

Post by the_snooze »

ryanianian wrote: post #66

> The churn I experienced was significant One thing I don't see mentioned enough is the forced PIP policy. Basically every manager is forced to stack-rank their entire team, and the bottom N percent is put on a PIP. So even if your entire team is comprised of very top-notch engineers you will see forced attrition. It also disincentivizes helping team-members in deep ways and incentivizes back-stabbing politics. Of co…

>Basically every manager is forced to stack-rank their entire team, and the bottom N percent is put on a PIP. So even if your entire team is comprised of very top-notch engineers you will see forced attrition.

That sounds like a huge disincentive to mentoring and developing your team.

Re: I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

#148

Post by _moof »

dudus wrote: post #112
cjaro wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Performance Improvement Plan. It's basically the company's way of saying "We want to fire you, but don't have a reason on the books, so here you go. In six months, pack your bags and go."

I respect your view and while that may be true on a lot of cases that's not what the company represents a pip to be. A PIP is a situation where you are told you are not performing at the desired level and needs to improve. In a respectable company being on a pip can be good for you. In my personal case I was not performing well due to personal issues. Getting on a pip saved my job. It gave me the resources and attent…

I've put people on PIPs. I genuinely wanted them to do better. They did. Like you said, they are a tool for laser-focusing attention on specific, well-defined issues.

There is no actual ass-covering need to put someone on a PIP. If a company in the U.S. wants to fire you, they generally don't need a reason.

Individual company cultures will, of course, vary. There are a lot of shitty managers out there.

Re: I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

#149

Post by [deleted] »

ryanianian wrote: post #66

> The churn I experienced was significant One thing I don't see mentioned enough is the forced PIP policy. Basically every manager is forced to stack-rank their entire team, and the bottom N percent is put on a PIP. So even if your entire team is comprised of very top-notch engineers you will see forced attrition. It also disincentivizes helping team-members in deep ways and incentivizes back-stabbing politics. Of co…

[deleted]

Re: I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

#150

Post by dpark »

spike021 wrote: post #118
dpark wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tried switching but other teams insisted on a full interview loop before I could even see it that team would be a better fit. That’s because they have no consistency in their hiring bar. I know multiple people who were contacted immediately by Amazon recruiters after failing an interview loop. “Hey, that other team says you suck but I bet you’re perfect for our team.” When you know other teams are happy to take you…

I definitely can understand that. But if I’m a mid level engineer I kind of have desires in what kind of team I’d like to join. I’d really hope a hiring manager can entertain that and let me speak with one or two people on the team before I have to agree to a loop. That’s just me though.

You’re definitely right. You should be able to do that. We call that an “informational” at Microsoft. You just chat with the hiring manager or someone else on the team with no guarantee of an interview (from either side). It’s still an evaluation from both sides, but a loose one.
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