24 ms·

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 delive

• lotophage 5y ago
  > within about six weeks because he wasn't immediately delivering on some insane amounts of work I've heard that, because of the stack ranking, if managers want to keep their current team unchanged, they sometimes hire someone new just so that they can turn around and fire them.
• brazzledazzle 5y ago
  >he came back from parental leave and his direct reports had all been put on a PIP while he was out Wow. It’s really difficult to imagine a likely scenario where that’s justified.
  • pc86 5y ago
    They had a quota to fill, and they didn't know or didn't like anyone on that team. Not that that is a justification, but it's almost certainly the reason.
    • twiddling 5y ago
      and if a mgr is not there to defend his team...
    • ubermonkey 5y ago
      A quota of people who needed to be on PIPs? That's insane.
      • pas 5y ago
        Keep the blood fresh. The slowest/oldest/worst 10% has to go! Stack ranking is the best!
        • monetus 5y ago
          Almost all casual retail jobs in my area operate like this. It is somewhat stunning when you compare them to national chains not using localized labor practices.
      • tdeck 5y ago
        Just a few months ago it came to light that managers at Amazon hire new people they're planning to fire shortly after, so they don't have to fire people they're attached to in order to meet such a quota. https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-tracks-unregretted-attrition-rate-people-not-sad-to-lose-2021-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-tracks-unregretted-at...
        • mcguire 5y ago
          Just a few months ago? Wasn't that the case several years ago, or was than MS or one of the other FAANGs?
          • tdeck 5y ago
            A few years ago there was a lot of noise about stack ranking at Microsoft, and there was also a lot about people crying at their desks at Amazon several years ago - perhaps you're remembering one of those. I believe the specific "hire to fire" press is pretty recent.
  • pyrale 5y ago
    Imagine getting fired because your manager is on a leave and their manager sees you as free real estate.
    • paganel 5y ago
      Tells a lot about company politics. Often times I'm left wondering how come capitalism still survives. Actually, writing this down made me think that big companies (like the FAANG mostly are) are quite anti-capitalistic. I'm not sure how to call them, because sure as hell they're not socialist or anything of the sorts, but it's reasonably clear that many of the theoretical capitalistic principles that many of us know in one way or another do not apply to these economic entities.
      • kfarr 5y ago
        Maybe more medieval: building up fiefdoms, power, resources, etc
        • FridgeSeal 5y ago
          Needs a catchy name, Capitalist Feudalism? Feudal Capitalism?
          • kfarr 5y ago
            Corporate Feudalism?
      • Schiendelman 5y ago
        Oligarchic. (Internal) Leaders who run successful businesses call the shots for everyone.
      • jedberg 5y ago
        Most companies are authoritarian internally. The people at the top make decisions and push those down to their lieutenants who then enforce those rules on the masses.
      • 5y ago
  • AdrianB1 5y ago
    Usually performance evaluations are done with managers of a certain level; if there is no manager to represent his/her direct reports, with stacked ranking they all get at the bottom. I personally had a direct report, ~ 10 years ago, with PIP because her previous direct manager was 3 months on paternity leave so she drew the short straw. The person was an average performer, so I fixed the PIP situation and she is still working there.
• ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  > I've never seen him so happy. I've shared about how I was forced into early retirement, in 2017. I had tried getting another job, after leaving my company, but no one would even talk to me (I won't go into why). It absolutely infuriated me. It was humiliating and scary. I decided that I didn't really need to be patronized and insulted anymore, and just gave up. But I was quite able to stand on my own. I didn't need the money; just the work. After over four years of working (harder than I ever did, as a corporate shill) for a nonprofit (and learning new stuff), I can't see myself ever going back to the rat race.
• netizen-936824 5y ago
  What does PIP stand for? I haven't run into that acronym before
  • lkschubert8 5y ago
    Performance improvement plan
    • sharkweek 5y ago
      This, and it's mostly a death sentence. If you're on a PIP the odds you survive it are low, used mostly to manage people into quitting.
      • MattGaiser 5y ago
        "You're fired, but I am just waiting on the paperwork."
  • bennysomething 5y ago
    I think it's performance improvement plan, but that's a guess
  • cjaro 5y ago
    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."
    • dudus 5y ago
      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 attention to turn the situation around. You get a clearer plan of what you need to do and closer relationship with mentors to help you on the way. But again if you don't improve you are fired and you have that hanging over your head.
• stuaxo 5y ago
  This explains a lot about why Amazon services are like they are.
• robby_w_g 5y ago
  > 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 after going through the logic said "Wow I can't believe this actually works." Personal grievances aside, I've come to think that the Leetcode interview style has morphed from a "let's see how you handle problems at scale" test into an ego-driven hazing ritual. My biggest gripe is that Leetcode is systematically favoring candidates who have months of free time to memorize arbitrary logic puzzles. It makes me sad for the less privileged candidates who might be working a job while also trying to break into the IT field.
  • mk81 5y ago
  • geodel 5y ago
    > 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.
    • monkeybutton 5y ago
      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.
      • TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
        Where are they now?
• commandlinefan 5y ago
  > asking a person who has no clue what they are doing to deliver critical work ... as fast as possible, whether it actually works in all cases or not. As Dilbert says "our boss can't judge the quality of our work, but he knows when it's late".
• pjbeam 5y ago
  10 months in the pit is no joke. I'm on 13 and often wonder how I made it this far.
  • tech_tuna 5y ago
    I have a friend who lasted more than 2 years which amazed me but then his compensation _went_down_ because of Amazon's crazy comp structure works. I have another friend who was offered a job there and turned them down, then the hiring manager fired back with "Oh c'mon, you just have to last a year here and then you can put Amazon on your resume" which is hilarious and totally fucked up. "We aren't going to pretend that you will actually like working here but if you suffer for about a year, it's gonna do wonders for attracting future employers" I often wonder if Amazon wouldn't actually be more successful if they treated their people better. I think there's a strong sentiment of Emperor Bezos' New Clothes and survivorship bias that has Amazon leadership convinced that being evil bastards is the only reason/way the company can be successful.
    • pjbeam 5y ago
      There's a built in assumption of stock growth in the grant they give you, and after year 2 the bonus dries up so it's your base of 160 + whatever the equity is. Year 2 -> 3 comp drop is not uncommon.
      • iends 5y ago
        Amazon also has this weird 5%, 15%, 40% & 40% vesting schedule. This tells me most people are not making it past 2 years.
        • kemitche 5y ago
          The early years are generally accompanied by huge cash bonuses so it evens out against the back loaded equity.
    • Gunax 5y ago
      The difference is that Amazon (unlike the other giants) doesn't have a moat. Facebook and Google basically have one product that is a money machine which funds everything else. The rest is mostly window dressing. Amazon does not have the luxury of being able to rest. I think you will find a similar culture at Netflix, which is also in a competitive market.
• seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  From what I hear, Amazon is incredibly uneven in org quality, so it is really possible your friend got unlucky. My wife works at Amazon and seems to have a pretty good balance and has good things to say about her work environment, but she is not a SWE (rather a designer). Still, I don't think I would ever work there without a lot of careful research about the group I was going into.
  • taurath 5y ago
    This is what they always say but they never say which orgs are good or bad. When you’re a candidate you are rolling the dice
    • CrazyStat 5y ago
      Perhaps every other org is a good one. --- "I'm sure I'll take you with pleasure!" the Queen said. "Two pence a week, and jam every other day." Alice couldn't help laughing, as she said, "I don't want you to hire me – and I don't care for jam." "It's very good jam," said the Queen. "Well, I don't want any to-day, at any rate." "You couldn't have it if you did want it," the Queen said. "The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day." "It must come sometimes to 'jam to-day'," Alice objected. "No, it can't," said the Queen. "It's jam every other day: to-day isn't any other day, you know." "I don't understand you," said Alice. "It's dreadfully confusing!"
      • xtracto 5y ago
        This is perfect :) . I am as illiterate as one can be, but loved this reference.
        • hotpotamus 5y ago
          It's even cleverer than that - it's also a reference on latin conjugations builtin to the Queen's joke. Carroll was a smart cookie.
    • seanmcdirmid 5y ago
• costcofries 5y ago
  You and me both! I made it to the round of in-person interviews when I was pursuing a principal pm role. 5 hours of back to back interviews, expressionless faces, repeated questions and almost zero eye-contact. I am not certain what they were going for, though I can tell you I left knowing that even if I had gotten an offer, there was no way in hell I'd be accepting. It's obvious there are some very successful (happy?) amazon people (amazonians?) but no thank you, I enjoy living.
• halpert 5y ago
  These are one-sided stories recounted by someone with an axe to grind...
• kamaal 5y ago
  >>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 some insane amounts of work. Its crazy how these FANGs promise the moon, the serious RSU vesting starts only after 1 - 2 years and the average tenure is like 1.5 years. >>he came back from parental leave and his direct reports had all been put on a PIP while he was out I've heard this quite a bit at many places, when you go on a longish leave of any kind basically people kind of replace you. When you come back you discover your job is gone, for this reason alone I don't know many people who take these long leaves/vacations.
• tikiman163 5y ago
  I've also had engineering friends that worked for Amazon, none of them had anything positive to say about them. One interesting situation is that one of them worked for Google for several years before moving to Amazon. Less than 2 months later he quit working for Amazon and went back to Google. I've read articles claiming that Bezos had certain opinions about people being lazy, and that he intentionally structured Amazon to make it almost impossible to get promoted. Basically, people are hired to do a specific job, and they will never be allowed to do any other job or be promoted until they quit from overwork. The exceptionally few people that both deliver the impossible and don't quit over the workload are treated as valuable, but only at the specific job they are currently doing. From what I've been able to piece together, this was always at least somewhat true, but has gotten much worse the last few years. I think Amazon is likely going to start running dry on willing candidates in their engineering and management teams within a couple of years and we'll see them start to lose market share as a result.