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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

#591

Post by zanellato19 »

landemva wrote: post #490
pierat wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes. And lets expand that. The coal miners' solution was to get a bunch of guns and/or gasoline, and either pump bullets in the bosses' house, or to torch it with gasoline. Usually both. That was responded to by bringing in the Pinkertons (private military), along with the US military. These got horrifically bloody. And it got to a point, that by the 1920's, the USA had a strong representation of US Communist P…

There was serious labor abuse in past years, and capital doesn't have as much power in the new info-WFH-open source economy. Mineral rights and office space and expensive yearly software support contracts are gone. Stop waiting on government regulators for action on white collar issues.

Saying that capital doesn't have as much power in the new economy is bullshit.

The WFH thing is the only maybe, but you see how companies don't want that? It is much more about control than performance, as is usually the case with Capital.

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

#592

Post by another2another »

scarface_74 wrote: post #559
Firmwarrior wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that forced attrition doesn't create a dynamic, competitive environment full of go-getters. It creates an environment full of treacherous bums who work as little as possible, and spend all of their efforts making sure they look good and don't take the blame for any failures. You can see the results of this in Amazon's consistently poor companywide performance in every arena. They're even managing to lo…

They are losing ground to Microsoft because MS is already in bed with the “enterprise” and big enterprise was late adopters to cloud. Source: I worked at AWS ProServe for a little over 3 years and saw how hard it was to detangle BigEnterprise from Microsoft

This is something Amazon is going to have to get better at, as I see Azure beginning to become the default (IBM) choice for many businesses.

Google already seems like an also-ran, and did you even know that Oracle has a cloud offering too?

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

#593

Post by mlrtime »

didntknowya wrote: post #556
giantg2 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

could've picked a better analogy that don't reinforce the fitness myth that fat "turns into" muscle. fat is fat. muscle is muscle. one does not convert into another. it can be broken down into energy to be used but ultimately each cell starts from scratch.

You're correct and being downvoted. It's funny because it's the exact opposite metaphor than what they want.

Burn fat = PIP bottom 6%

Grown new muscle = Hire new workers

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

#594

Post by mlrtime »

steveBK123 wrote: post #545
geodel wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is really important point. Somehow lot of folks are missing it. As if each engineer is responsible for launching a new Amazon service every year. I have heard and met many current Amazon software engineer. Most of their job description sound rather crappy routine work even for me earning 1/3rd salary of Amazon. I surmise large number of engineers there are just collecting bounty on Amazon monopoly on clo…

Yeah, to be fair.. the people I know from Wall St tech that left for Amazon were not the best tech people I knew. The best tech people would have found more well compensated roles within Wall St tech. Generally a mix of people who exhausted other paths to higher compensation by their mid 30s - mid 40s (senior management track / trader track) and this was the next big thing.

"Wall Street tech" has it's own levels as well.

We're they from a top tier IB, top tier HF or Prop trading company?

Or from lower tier IB/HF/Trading company or worse one of the 1000's of fintechs.

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

#595

Post by capableweb »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #500
capableweb wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many years are you going to have to save up to retire at $240k/year vs $80k/year, do you think? Would you rather grind 10 months a year until you're too old to do anything but sit around and watch TV, or would you rather grind 12 months a year for 5-10 years and then do whatever you want for the rest of your life? This is the mindset difference I'm telling you about. The rest of us don't want to "grind" at all,…

You're going into a bad, boring place for 8 hours a day. You're pissing away your precious time on earth while lying to yourself that it's a "balance" and you're happy about it.

I feel the same about you, so probably that's OK, people try to live the life they want to live, and that's alright :)

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

#596

Post by sumtechguy »

sleepybrett wrote: post #280
g-b-r wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did know about Microsoft (in the 90s), and I think many companies took inspiration from them; do you have older examples?

invented at ge

Pretty much all of the big banks did it too.

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

#597

Post by eropple »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #449
capableweb wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you avoided the question, I'm guessing I was spot on :) And I'd guarantee you that someone who worked five years for a average German company definitely has incurred less mental stress than someone working one year for Amazon, on average. But I also recognize that it's hard to see the difference between the two cultures if you only have the experience of one of them, and the "hard working pays off" system is so…

I think you need to go touch grass, or at least check out some real numbers and think about them https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/berlin-... https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/san-fra... How many years are you going to have to save up to retire at $240k/year vs $80k/year, do you think? Would you rather grind 10 months a year until you're too old to do anything but sit around and…

If this was real, then the people I know at the companies paying Valley money wouldn't be handcuffed to continuing to work late into their lives. And that's not to omit the many, many software professionals throughout the United States for whom a $70K USD salary is actually pretty good due to accidents of geography and credentialism.

As it happens, I've done quite well and I should, knock-on-wood, do pretty well getting towards retirement; I'm well-paid and I don't live in the Valley so my finances make more sense. But if you're in the same boat with regards to financial capacity, neither you nor I are remotely close to the median or modal software professional in the Valley (let alone in the United States), and it's worth thinking deeply about whether that median/modal software developer is well-served by this system.

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

#598

Post by pierat »

giantg2 wrote: post #589
scarface_74 wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not much better. In my state it is $275 max a week

Not much better is still better.

If I was able to forego the scam of 'unemployment insurance's, and put that cash in savings myself, I could do a hell of a lot better.

In reality, our unemployment insurance is a scam of how pathetic it pays. Again, it's another example of how the middle class gets squeezed both ends, and little care expended on the actual problems.

I can see why republicans get elected - they lower taxes on my bracket so I keep more money in hand. But that's because the very policies that should help everyone don't help everyone cause of shitty means testing.

Now , when I got fired from shitty food service job, unemployment was close to in parity with what I made, so it was useful then. (I just want it useful for everyone, not just low paid.)

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

#599

Post by scarface_74 »

giantg2 wrote: post #590
scarface_74 wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again if you lost your job you would do what it took to get another one wouldn’t you? So what’s the difference between changing jobs when you do have a choice and waiting until you don’t have a choice? If you don’t make time now to upskill, what do you think is going to happen if/when you don’t have a choice but to look for a job and be stuck with in your words “dead tech”.

"So what’s the difference between changing jobs when you do have a choice and waiting until you don’t have a choice?" The difference is that if I lost this job I would then have time during the day to look for jobs or study when I would have been working. I don't really care what will happen. My area is shitty for tech work, my wife won't move, and I'm ill suited to remote work. I'm just coasting now. There's no poin…

That’s not how it works. Given a choice between hiring someone who learned on the side with no real world experience and hiring someone with real world experience - the latter wins.

That’s why you do volunteer for opportunities where you can up skill on the job and while you are still employed you find another job where you can get in based on what you know and then transition

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

#600

Post by Arainach »

scarface_74 wrote: post #543
Arainach wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The decision to sustain products is at the executive level, not the ground level.

It’s also part of the promotion culture where no one shows “impact” by sustaining an existing project.

Sure, but is hiring people smart enough to identify and follow incentives a flaw in hiring or ground level employee capability or a management flaw?
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