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

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

#191

Post by monkeybutton »

geodel wrote: post #151
robby_w_g wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I bag on Amazon a lot on here (which if I were to review with my therapist is likely because I had an absolutely HORRENDOUS experience in an interview loop with them my first step out of college that still makes me nervous in interviews, even 15 years later). Hey, I had a similar experience with Google! It was my first technical interview for my first job out of college. The interviewer laughed at my code, and then…

> It makes me sad for the less privileged candidates who might be working a job while also trying to break into the IT field. Very good point. I didn't really think about it much before. It is even difficult for candidates who are in IT field but not in FAANG type companies.

Depends on how motivated you are to to your current job. On two occasions I've witnessed a fellow developer mentally check themselves out after a round of layoffs, start doing the minimal amount of work necessary, and then spending the rest of their time cracking coding problems. When the next round of layoffs came, they were gone to Amazon and Google.

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

#192

Post by ballenf »

_moof wrote: post #148
dudus wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> If a company in the U.S. wants to fire you, they generally don't need a reason.

That's only true if they can prove the reason isn't one of several prohibited reasons (racism, sexism, ageism, etc.). And how do you do that? Have a PIP system in place in which the acceptable reason is documented in detail and all employees are treated consistently.

That's why PIPs are effectively termination at many companies. Even if you survive it will be permanently on your record and your opportunities for advancement will narrow significantly.

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

#193

Post by kiddico »

kentonv wrote: post #4

Please consider increasing the contrast on your text. As is (light-gray-on-lighter-gray) I cannot read it as it literally hurts my eyes trying to focus on it. EDIT: It seems this is not intentional, some of the stylesheets are returning 404 for me but not other people... weird. EDIT: Amazingly, it turns out this site is hosted on the platform of which I'm the lead engineer (Cloudflare Workers / Pages) and the problem…

It's a surprisingly small world we've created

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

#194

Post by killingtime74 »

netizen-936824 wrote: post #82
sharkweek wrote: post #25

Hey congrats on making it 10 months! "Urgent to not block progress, but also ironic that they are asking a person who has no clue what they are doing to deliver critical work" Friend of mine started a role there (this was 4-5 years ago) and was fired (sorry... more or less asked to leave, being told he could keep his signing bonus if he just left) within about six weeks because he wasn't immediately delivering on som…

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

Paid interview preparation (time). Only slightly joking

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

#195

Post by unoti »

emptybottle wrote: post #80

It's really a shame what many of the "FAANG" companies (and the companies who admire/adopt their practices) are doing to tech work. My own experiences, the horror stories I've read, the broken/horrible interview trivia loops, the nonstop crunches, the nonstop on-call escalations, the difficult ethical positions that come with working at some companies, etc. have me feeling worse than ever about this profession. It di…

> It's really a shame what many of the "FAANG" companies (and the companies who admire/adopt their practices) are doing to tech work.

> broken/horrible interview trivia loops, the nonstop crunches, the nonstop on-call escalations, the difficult ethical positions that come with working at some companies, etc. have me feeling worse than ever about this profession.

> a few companies have eliminated all that wasteful "toil" of interacting with human beings by instead treating them like machines...

I agree that these things are happening, but this is not happening everywhere. In particular, Microsoft is not true for any of the above over the last 5+ years since Satya came onboard. In my experience, every one of the above is not true at Microsoft, with one notable exception: the interview loop is indeed hard. But other than that, it's a much better situation at Microsoft. There are no difficult ethical positions (ethics and trust are first class core values there). Individuals matter, and allowances are made for different people's strengths and weaknesses. Workloads and deadlines can indeed be negotiated. It's far more "human" there than other places like Amazon, Facebook, Uber, and other places.

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

#196

Post by aidenn0 »

prirun wrote: post #173
kahrl wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Performance Improvement Plan: "We're trying to fire you but need to do it by the books as to mitigate liability."

I don't understand why people keep saying this. Every state except Montana in the US is "at will": the employer can fire you at any time with no reason. I suppose you could try to prove discrimination because of age or something else, but just like you can walk out and never come back, the employer can ask you to leave and you're done. Companies have no liability if you are fired other than a discrimination lawsuit.…

Legal departments are often fairly conservative. Do you know for a fact that the person you are firing is not a member of a protected class? If they are then they can potentially convince a judge that "fired with no reason" could be code for "fired for being the member of a protected class," at least to the degree that the trial cannot be dismissed.

Once you have reached that point, it's almost moot whether or not the plaintiff will win, as lawsuits are sufficiently headache inducing and expensive that a settlement is likely.

The odds of the above happening might be low, but being made aware of the possibility causes employers to CYA more than you might think in an at-will state.

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

#197

Post by cmckn »

ajkjk wrote: post #90

> I can’t think of a single internal tool at Amazon that is better than a commercial counterpart. I haven't worked at Amazon in 6 years, but when I was last there, these tools were leaps-and-bounds above publicly-available equivalents: * Pipelines (CI/CD tool. Still better than all alternatives IMO, including the AWS offering for some reason) * Igraph (Amazingly good, wipes the floor with Grafana which I have used si…

The first time I did a CR on multiple packages at once...that's good shit.

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

#198

Post by User23 »

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?

It depends on the employee and the organization. If the employee in question really has been under-performing, believes meeting the goals is possible, and wants to stay, then accepting the PIP and trying to succeed is a risky but valid choice.

On the other hand, if the employee in question is fairly certain the PIP conditions can't be satisfied, signing the PIP is a very bad idea. It amounts to written acknowledgement of failing to perform the employee's end of the employment contract and gives the employer justification to fire the employee with cause. If that's the case, declining to sign the PIP and asking about alternative next steps is the way to go. In that case, there's a good chance that the company will offer an exit package in exchange for a general release. One of the upsides of this approach is there's no PIP in the employee file, on the off chance eligibility for re-hire is a concern.

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

#199

Post by stayfrosty420 »

robby_w_g wrote: post #125
sharkweek wrote: post #25

Hey congrats on making it 10 months! "Urgent to not block progress, but also ironic that they are asking a person who has no clue what they are doing to deliver critical work" Friend of mine started a role there (this was 4-5 years ago) and was fired (sorry... more or less asked to leave, being told he could keep his signing bonus if he just left) within about six weeks because he wasn't immediately delivering on som…

> I bag on Amazon a lot on here (which if I were to review with my therapist is likely because I had an absolutely HORRENDOUS experience in an interview loop with them my first step out of college that still makes me nervous in interviews, even 15 years later). Hey, I had a similar experience with Google! It was my first technical interview for my first job out of college. The interviewer laughed at my code, and then…

> Leetcode is systematically favoring candidates who have months of free time to memorize arbitrary logic puzzles

I agree to some extent but moreso, I think it heavily favours those with a theoretical CS background, which means effectively you are favouring candidates from top colleges in a round about way.

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

#200

Post by ballenf »

prirun wrote: post #173
kahrl wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Performance Improvement Plan: "We're trying to fire you but need to do it by the books as to mitigate liability."

I don't understand why people keep saying this. Every state except Montana in the US is "at will": the employer can fire you at any time with no reason. I suppose you could try to prove discrimination because of age or something else, but just like you can walk out and never come back, the employer can ask you to leave and you're done. Companies have no liability if you are fired other than a discrimination lawsuit.…

Because some of their employees are in one or more protected classes and if you don't have a legit reason documented it's much harder to defend against a claim of illegal discrimination.

And you can't just gather those reasons for employees in protected classes or that itself is discriminatory treatment of employees.

So you have to make a choice as a large company: PIP systems or set aside more money for legal fees and settlements. Most opt for the former.

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