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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

#431

Post by mattgreenrocks »

JohnFen wrote: post #338
pyrale wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're mistaken in that you believe that the goal of culls is to cut underperformers. Stack ranking doesn't assess performance, it checks whether you're willing to do a little more to be ahead of your peers. The real goal of culls is to motivate people to work more, to be more accessible to their managers' requests, etc. so they make it "to the next round". It's a pressure tool, not a performance control tool.

This sort of thing is one of the big reasons why I would never work for a FAANG company. I prefer to work at a place that encourages good work rather than a weird cutthroat arena combat thing.

I did a DiSC (corporate Myers-Briggs-esque personality test) assessment and dominance was listed as one of the core motivators for people. I'm not sure I actually believe that; it feels like that was retconned into truth so it'd get past the decision-makers who may actually have that tendency. But maybe it is!

However, on the bright side, it is kind of nice that FAANG attracts the type of people who actually think this sort of constant stack ranking arena fighting is okay. Think about it: if they really hated it, they'd leave. Obviously the pay is a huge motivator, but if it was as distasteful as it was to many others, they wouldn't hang around.

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

#432

Post by anvil-on-my-toe »

giantg2 wrote: post #235
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…

One thing about fat that I think is overlooked is how fat today might be muscle tomorrow, and how little companies try to convert it. Maybe a person is in a bad role, on a bad team, or simply doesn't have experience or skills fitting the specific requirements of that single point in time. I've been a high performer in the past. Now I'm a low performer (I'm slow) after the company has changed the way it treats teams/w…

I think managers in tech companies are very often just really untalented as leaders. Good leaders create more leaders. Growing talent and getting the best out of people should be the goal for any leader, and I've seen so little of that from the ones I worked with.

After a point it just becomes part of the landscape, a pervasive culture of not recognizing what good leadership looks like, and people filtering out of the industry because they're over it.

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

#433

Post by mattgreenrocks »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #381
pyrale wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're mistaken in that you believe that the goal of culls is to cut underperformers. Stack ranking doesn't assess performance, it checks whether you're willing to do a little more to be ahead of your peers. The real goal of culls is to motivate people to work more, to be more accessible to their managers' requests, etc. so they make it "to the next round". It's a pressure tool, not a performance control tool.

Meh. Going to a FAANG is like joining an Olympic sports team; it's not a place you'd want to be if you aren't hell bent on going for the gold. The irony is that the pressure cooker works; an unhealthy degree of ambition, competitiveness, and willingness to work their tails off are all assets in the business world. I know a, at least to me, surprising number of people who successfully navigated these environments who…

This feels like the tech version of the temporarily embarrassed millionaire meme: it's something people need to be true so they can justify their ambitions of making it. So they repeat it, and say it enough to believe it.

FAANG employees are no different from you and I in the aggregate. That's not a dig, that's just statistics.

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

#434

Post by lowbloodsugar »

badRNG wrote: post #400
rgblambda wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

PIPs would do that if the process was valid, but as pointed out, they are not. So if they defend against a claim of racism, sexism, castism, or ableism, with “but PIP!”, then it helps if we can show that PIPs are bullshit.

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

#435

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

scarface_74 wrote: post #277

My perspective: I was your everyday ordinary CRUD developer in 2020 with leading a few projects under my belt at mostly unknown companies who had two years of AWS experience and was 46 years old. A recruiter from Amazon Retail reached out to me on LinkedIn about interviewing for a software engineering position. At 46 years old there were a number of problems I saw with that “opportunity”: - I hadn’t done a real codin…

So no leetcode if you join AWS Professional Services?

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

#436

Post by giantg2 »

psunavy03 wrote: post #416
giantg2 wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who is getting out (technically going reserve). It sounds like there are lot of factors impacting retention and most of them are being ignored. Why should the leaders focus on things they are a part of and admit fault if they can simply blame stuff on civilian cultural issues or subordinate "weakness"? I heard some of the cyber warfare units are proposing to bring in people in as high as O5. No way th…

IMHO there's a huge blind spot in leadership exactly due to the stack rank, because how do you recommend changes to the system to someone who succeeded and owes their whole career and professional reputation to that system? The answer's going to be "well it worked for me, so it must not be that bad." The other part of the problem is yes, there are times when the military has every right to expect folks to endure hard…

I don't, even for the surgeon thing, they probably shouldn't be skipping ranks. If the MOS needs a specific level of pay, they should address it by changes to that duty pay and revamping the retirement system to look at that pay too. The automotive executive is a little different since you do what them to oversee everything since they are an industry expert, not just a individual contributor or midlevel manager.

Funny thing about the surgeon part. I know a surgeon who served and had a unique specialty with aerospace occupational preventative medicine. They didn't fight too hard to keep them other than offering a promotion. Even at O6, they could have been making 3x the money if they were a civilian. Bringing people in at a higher rank isn't going fix the pay issue and isn't necessarily going to place them in the right level of authority. They need to make some changes to how that's managed to ensure the right people are at the right levels. I'm sure there are career guys who would not be happy to have someone with limited experience come in over their rank and pay if they're doing the same job.

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

#437

Post by iLoveOncall »

rsynnott wrote: post #173
iLoveOncall wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're a director you will never come even close to $100K of stock vesting in a single event, and directors are not subject to PIPs. So that's a nice theory you have here but it doesn't work in practice.

Amazon has a weird vesting schedule (40% in the third and fourth year IIRC) and it has gone up quite a lot over the last few years. It also appears to have yearly vests. This doesn't seem implausible under those conditions.

I work for Amazon, vests are at least spread over two per year if not more.

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

#438

Post by xyzelement »

I never worked at Amazon, but I did work at other companies known for toughness and "places you can get fired from" - most notably Bridgewater (from where I did get fired...)

These places are not for everyone, but there are very good reasons why people consciously join a place with an "elevated risk of a PIP."

Most notably, these places execute very well. Amazon is crushing it in vastly unrelated fields from Retail to Cloud. That seems to suggest that their philosophy on performance is more helpful vs hurtful to them in contrast to what others do. Doesn't mean it's perfect, but that perhaps the imperfections are worth it.

Since no system is perfect, a company has to either run the risk of letting good people go, or bad people stay. Amazon has chosen which risk to run and it seems to work for them.

As an employee, there's risk both ways. If you want to grow your skills and comp, your best bet is a place that errs towards strength. In the long run, it might be worth the small risk of let go, to be surrounded by strong performers.

On the flip side, if you are really worried about underperforming and getting fired, Amazon is probably fine with you self-selecting to not apply.

Personally, I took the risk of working at Bridgewater. While I did eventually get fired, those couple of years made me for sure a stronger performer (and person overall) so I am grateful for it. It was the right call but not for everyone.

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

#439

Post by JohnFen »

coin wrote: post #424
JohnFen wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sort of thing is one of the big reasons why I would never work for a FAANG company. I prefer to work at a place that encourages good work rather than a weird cutthroat arena combat thing.

Not all FAANG are like this. Google and Apple are known for being easy going. This of course depends on the team.

> Google and Apple are known for being easy going.

The engineers I know who work at those places wouldn't agree. But how true that is depends a lot on what sorts of things tend to bother you.

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

#440

Post by steveBK123 »

Aurornis wrote: post #396
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…

The problem is I've been at both fast growing companies & big dumb banks, and the "1-in-18" are never evenly distributed.

It is often clear that some teams are about 50% underperform while others are close to 0%.

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