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I spent almost a decade at Amazon. Their system for removing low performers has two key flaws. First, the mandatory minimums. If an org is full of superstars,
by mabbo 5y ago
I spent almost a decade at Amazon. Their system for removing low performers has two key flaws.
First, the mandatory minimums. If an org is full of superstars, the org still has to ensure it has at least X% turnover per year, so a superstar has to go. Usually well-performing devs whose manager wasn't skilled enough to convince the larger group that all of their people are superstars.
It's cruel, unfair, and harms the company far more than it has ever helped them.
The second problem is that sociopaths can and do abuse it. There isn't supposed to be a way for a manager to fire someone on a PIP when they ask for a transfer. There's also at least one manager in the Toronto office who openly brags that he does it. He's been there a long time, and the devs warn each other not to go work for that guy if you value your job.
Being a sociopath is not a requirement to become a senior leader at Amazon, but the qualities of a sociopath strongly overlap with the qualities it takes to get those promotions. So naturally, the systems in place are designed to favour sociopath behaviours. There is no system to try to identify and remove such people who abuse the PIP system, because the people in charge would never want such a system.
Kind of glad I left. When I chose which offer to take, I decided to turn down a much higher paying offer because "That company feels too much like Amazon".
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mr_beans 5y agoAllow me to speculate that the guy’s manager is perhaps new at being a manager. Imagine going into being a manager from being an engineer not knowing you’re up against sociopaths in your own org who want to gut your team (other commenters have called it a bloodsport). I’d love to see the data correlating PIPs of reports to manager tenure. I bet there is an inverse correlation. So to prospective hires, ask your hiring manager how long THEY have been a manager AT AMAZON before you waste time going through the whole interview process. I had a manager who was one of those org-psychopaths you speak of and it was entertaining to watch him tear apart managers of other teams. Absolutely shred their OP1 docs and argue that their team was working on utter bullshit. Don’t get me wrong there was a lot of good stuff about Amazon, their operations culture is second to none, but a lot of the ways I saw people being treated and bad behavior from managers being tolerated rubbed me the wrong way. I absolutely saw PIP being used reactively to block a transfer to my team, for instance.
- ignoramous 5y ago> "That company feels too much like Amazon". Let me hazard a guess: Microsoft, Coinbase, Uber, or Airbnb?
- frankgrimesjr 5y ago> the org still has to ensure it has at least X% turnover per year Can anyone explain the motivation for this? I've never understood why a company would want to routinely fire X% of otherwise well preforming employees in a team, when they're going to need to hire that many again anyway.
- mabbo 5y agoThe system presumes that leaders are lying or too weak. That in an org of 200 people, there must be some bad ones, and by culling them the average skill level goes up. Nevermind the concept of growing your people. We'll just hope they grow on their own and replace them if they can't. Every team is already understaffed anyways.