5 ms·

Amazon Managers Say They 'Hire to Fire' to Meet Internal Turnover Goal

99 points by aburan28 5y ago

yuppie_scum 5y ago
I saw a few reports on Blind of people getting put on PIP within six months. Makes more sense now.
salawat 5y ago
They could at least add it to the job description. That would do job seekers the favor of clearly communicating Amazon is nuts as an employer.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  Most engineers I know already have a flag against Amazon and their recruiting approach is “this team is different.”
- praptak 5y ago
  Isn't this well known since at least the "people crying at their desks" series of articles?
chrledntsurf 5y ago
sample size.
etempleton 5y ago
I take it Amazon does a 360 style review and eliminates the lowest “performing” 10-20% of employees automatically each review cycle? These types of environments breed hostile and manipulative work environments, it may get short-term results, but long-term it creates horrible company cultures.
- wildfire 5y ago
  Why would a 360° review system be important? Do you think it would stop this? Or do you think it is the reason for this? Stack ranking, illegal in many other countries, is known to produce this (hostile culture) kind of result amongst employees and managers.
  - etempleton 5y ago
    I suppose the 360 review is not always tied to such stack ranking, but it often is so I associate the two.
legerdemain 5y ago
"Performance improvement plans," by any name, are 95% bullshit, and 5% well-meaning, but clueless people managers who don't realize that that PIPs are bullshit. At a non-Amazon company, I once had a PIP where the target sounded feasible in theory, but dubious in practice. "Fix N bugs this week," but the manager would choose bugs like "our software crashed two weeks ago, can you make sure it won't crash again?" A colleague was put on a PIP because a coworker was promoted over him, to a lead position, managing him, and my colleague kept debating app architecture with his new lead the same way he used to before, without realizing that this newly promoted person now had the power to steer toward firing him. My colleague has since learned not to speak up in meetings about app architecture to avoid upstaging his new boss.
- eurasiantiger 5y ago
  And that’s why ”flat organisation” is not just a meme.
seanhunter 5y ago
I used to work at a company (not Amazon) with a similar "cut x% each year" philosophy. In spite of this on one high-performing team there was one very poorly-performing person and it was completely obvious. One day over drinks the manager told me "He's my designated fire-ee. If I don't have turnover from people leaving naturally then he's there to take the bullet when the cut comes. If someone leaves during the year then he survives until the next cycle". I even know a manager (as here) who specifically hired someone so they wouldn't need to cut any of their productive people. Stack rank and cut produces perverse incentives.
- eurasiantiger 5y ago
  You tend to get what you measure. It’s the effects of that measurement on the other facets of an organisation that are unpredictable.
throwawaySlu 5y ago
I’m a Principal SDE at Amazon. Amazons weakest link are its managers, especially at the L6 and L7 levels. Competent L6 SDMs are far and few. I’m now working with the nth L6 SDM as a direct ask from an L7 peer. Like the other SDMs I was asked to work with, this guy can’t write, lacks technical depth, but he’s able to wow other managers in interviews. And the person who hired him is too proud to admit his failure and won’t do anything about it. It’s the same damn thing on repeat every damn year. The problem with L7 managers is many of them are just sales people. Many of them are brilliant individuals, but they can’t hold themselves from trying to shadow architect what their teams are developing. Okay you wanted to be a manager. Now trust your damn people to do their job and get the hell out of the way. For an L6 SDM, eventually this person will get encouraged to move to another org to go be incompetent somewhere else and become someone else’s problem. It’s unlikely he gets let go, unless it’s an engineer. An engineer is put on a performance improvement plan and removed. Does it really bother me? I’m helping him write a coherent road map document. His senior engineers are getting flak for the managers poor management abilities. The engineers manage themselves and TPM themselves. Why are he and so many like him here? It makes no god damn sense. And good, hard working, very capable engineers are thrown under the bus because of incompetent managers. They screw up peoples careers. I’m just bitching at this point. I know. But nothing will change until it hits our bottom line.
- posguy 5y ago
  This reminds me of Almost Live's Boeing Union Negotiations skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGHBQLxynrI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGHBQLxynrI
- tamzn 5y ago
  I'm a L6 SDM and do agree that there is a lot of scope for screwing up people's careers at this level, whether through incompetence or malice. If your org consistently has subpar SDMs, are there datapoints that support this statement (eg: attrition/failed promo docs/prfaqs/goals tracking)? If so, then as a L7, can you escalate this as a systemic issue? If not, what datapoints can you find to make you confident this is a systemic issue? Scary to escalate for sure but if your L8 isn't going to listen to you with an open mind maybe you need another L8.
namelessoracle 5y ago
Im curious why anyone not out of school would take an amazon role. Is there tc that good? I feel like the idea that one had amazon on their resume as a plus is way overplayed.

99 points by aburan28 5y ago

I saw a few reports on Blind of people getting put on PIP within six months. Makes more sense now.

They could at least add it to the job description. That would do job seekers the favor of clearly communicating Amazon is nuts as an employer.

eyelidlessness 5y ago
Most engineers I know already have a flag against Amazon and their recruiting approach is “this team is different.”
praptak 5y ago
Isn't this well known since at least the "people crying at their desks" series of articles?

chrledntsurf 5y ago

sample size.

etempleton 5y ago

I take it Amazon does a 360 style review and eliminates the lowest “performing” 10-20% of employees automatically each review cycle? These types of environments breed hostile and manipulative work environments, it may get short-term results, but long-term it creates horrible company cultures.

wildfire 5y ago
Why would a 360° review system be important? Do you think it would stop this? Or do you think it is the reason for this? Stack ranking, illegal in many other countries, is known to produce this (hostile culture) kind of result amongst employees and managers.
- etempleton 5y ago
  I suppose the 360 review is not always tied to such stack ranking, but it often is so I associate the two.

legerdemain 5y ago

"Performance improvement plans," by any name, are 95% bullshit, and 5% well-meaning, but clueless people managers who don't realize that that PIPs are bullshit. At a non-Amazon company, I once had a PIP where the target sounded feasible in theory, but dubious in practice. "Fix N bugs this week," but the manager would choose bugs like "our software crashed two weeks ago, can you make sure it won't crash again?" A colleague was put on a PIP because a coworker was promoted over him, to a lead position, managing him, and my colleague kept debating app architecture with his new lead the same way he used to before, without realizing that this newly promoted person now had the power to steer toward firing him. My colleague has since learned not to speak up in meetings about app architecture to avoid upstaging his new boss.

eurasiantiger 5y ago
And that’s why ”flat organisation” is not just a meme.

seanhunter 5y ago

I used to work at a company (not Amazon) with a similar "cut x% each year" philosophy. In spite of this on one high-performing team there was one very poorly-performing person and it was completely obvious. One day over drinks the manager told me "He's my designated fire-ee. If I don't have turnover from people leaving naturally then he's there to take the bullet when the cut comes. If someone leaves during the year then he survives until the next cycle". I even know a manager (as here) who specifically hired someone so they wouldn't need to cut any of their productive people. Stack rank and cut produces perverse incentives.

eurasiantiger 5y ago
You tend to get what you measure. It’s the effects of that measurement on the other facets of an organisation that are unpredictable.

throwawaySlu 5y ago

I’m a Principal SDE at Amazon. Amazons weakest link are its managers, especially at the L6 and L7 levels. Competent L6 SDMs are far and few. I’m now working with the nth L6 SDM as a direct ask from an L7 peer. Like the other SDMs I was asked to work with, this guy can’t write, lacks technical depth, but he’s able to wow other managers in interviews. And the person who hired him is too proud to admit his failure and won’t do anything about it. It’s the same damn thing on repeat every damn year. The problem with L7 managers is many of them are just sales people. Many of them are brilliant individuals, but they can’t hold themselves from trying to shadow architect what their teams are developing. Okay you wanted to be a manager. Now trust your damn people to do their job and get the hell out of the way. For an L6 SDM, eventually this person will get encouraged to move to another org to go be incompetent somewhere else and become someone else’s problem. It’s unlikely he gets let go, unless it’s an engineer. An engineer is put on a performance improvement plan and removed. Does it really bother me? I’m helping him write a coherent road map document. His senior engineers are getting flak for the managers poor management abilities. The engineers manage themselves and TPM themselves. Why are he and so many like him here? It makes no god damn sense. And good, hard working, very capable engineers are thrown under the bus because of incompetent managers. They screw up peoples careers. I’m just bitching at this point. I know. But nothing will change until it hits our bottom line.

posguy 5y ago
This reminds me of Almost Live's Boeing Union Negotiations skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGHBQLxynrI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGHBQLxynrI
tamzn 5y ago
I'm a L6 SDM and do agree that there is a lot of scope for screwing up people's careers at this level, whether through incompetence or malice. If your org consistently has subpar SDMs, are there datapoints that support this statement (eg: attrition/failed promo docs/prfaqs/goals tracking)? If so, then as a L7, can you escalate this as a systemic issue? If not, what datapoints can you find to make you confident this is a systemic issue? Scary to escalate for sure but if your L8 isn't going to listen to you with an open mind maybe you need another L8.

namelessoracle 5y ago

Im curious why anyone not out of school would take an amazon role. Is there tc that good? I feel like the idea that one had amazon on their resume as a plus is way overplayed.