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YMMV, but it's actually quite difficult to get a PIP in many tech companies, and it's rarely if ever for lack of tech skills. The ones I've seen usually involv

YMMV, but it's actually quite difficult to get a PIP in many tech companies, and it's rarely if ever for lack of tech skills. The ones I've seen usually involve either motivation, output, or both plummeting to zero for extended periods of time due to burnout or a similar extended personal crisis.

gcheong 5y ago
From what I’ve seen it’s almost always as you describe or something political like a manager taking over a group and wanting to make room for their friends. But if employees are burning out and then being PIPed instead of getting support I think that is a rather sad indictment of our industry in an of itself.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >if employees are burning out and then being PIPed instead of getting support I think that is a rather sad indictment of our industry in an of itself The thing is most big companies don't care about your burn-out or personal situation, they either have product launch deadlines to meet, or revenue targets or customers to please, and people in the trenches are considered replaceable so churn is something they account for in order to meet those commitments. If you're lucky you might have an understanding manager, but he himself may have targets to reach for his bonus or promotion, and if you're dragging his team down and his bonus promotion with it, then ... it's nothing personal, it's just business, you will be let go. I worked for a major European semi company and the churn there is insane, either they fire people or people leave by themselves within the first 2 years. All because managers are given near impossible targets, along with great bonuses and stock packages to incentivize them to use whatever means necessary to deliver on those targets, usually at the expense of people in the trenches which are treated as expendable commodities.
  - efitz 5y ago
    Your manager might also have a specific target for “unregretted attrition”, i.e. getting rid of people using the PIP process. If there is not a clear person who is the weakest link, then the manager will pick their least favorite. And remember, performance is very subjective. I have seen a couple of people get fired for cause; that was always clear. I’ve never seen an unambiguous PIP.
    - sgerenser 5y ago
      As far as I know only Amazon has targets for “unregretted attrition.”
      - no_wizard 5y ago
        I heard Microsoft did this for a long time as we. It’s my under it changed though since Nadella
        coredog64 5y ago
        Presumably, any Jack Welch-esque stack rank shop is going to have URA targets.
mandeepj 5y ago
> it's rarely if ever for lack of tech skills. isn't output related with lack of tech skills?
- piptastic 5y ago
  not really, plenty of talented lazy people out there
- fataliss 5y ago
  Not if output was satisfactory before and then drops
- hibikir 5y ago
  To a point, but it's rarely the inability to code that is leading to lack of output. Output often means "did sufficient work that was seen, by management, as impactful enough". This has more to do with communication and task choice than anything. This is not really a skill that we even really attempt to measure in interview. In my experience in high performing tech companies, I've seen about 40 PIPs. There are 'utter tech incompetence' PIPs in the world, but as far as I've seen, they are far less popular than 'thoroughly uninterested in working' PIPs, 'disliked by new manager' PIPs and 'person has a work unrelated crisis' PIPs. Those tech related PIPs will normally have all the symptoms already in the first review cycle. If someone made it to their 2nd year in the company, tech incompetence is not really the issue. It's just unfortunate that nobody provides stats for this kind of thing, so we don't have to just rely on "you have seen" vs "I have seen" arguments.
  - ryandrake 5y ago
    > This has more to do with communication and task choice than anything. In some cases, task assignment instead of task choice. Sometimes by unluck of the draw, you just get assigned to a shit project with no visibility. You could be Einstein, write entirely bug-free code, and you’re not going to get rewarded for the work. I’ve seen really mediocre people brown-nose and schmooze themselves onto a rocket ship project that takes off despite their mediocrity, and they get promoted to the moon. That’s how some VP’s and Directors are made. Meanwhile, a literal genius languishes away improving the performance of InvisibleInternalTool by 500%. The older I get the more I realize how much corporate tech performance evaluation has to do with politics and bullshitting and “being highly visible” and how little it has to do with performance.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> YMMV, but it's actually quite difficult to get a PIP in many tech companies Generally, the more the company practices “hire fast, fire fast” the easier and more common it will be to PIP people. The companies with 4+ stage interviews and entire departments devoted to recruiting and candidate evaluation tend to not have as many PIPs because they’ve studied their interviewing processes and prevented most of the underperformers from getting hired in the first place. The most quick-to-fire company I ever worked for had barely a 1-hour interview process. They’d hire anyone who seemed remotely qualified and then they’d fire everyone who didn’t work out. It was terrible and now I’m actually suspicious of companies that don’t do much technical screening for applicants.
- boredtofears 5y ago
  How do extended interviews root out people that are going to later go through some kind of major personal issue or have burnout or have a lack of motivation? Lack of motivation and burnout maybe could be somewhat sussed out in an interview if it was obvious, but the people that I've been around that's happened to (and myself at one point in my career) were completely fine, but I'm skeptical of any interviewer that says they can reliably fish that out.
  - thematrixturtle 5y ago
    They don't/can't, which is why you still see both at any company, no matter how it interviews.
01100011 5y ago
I think this is highly dependent on your company. People talk about FANG/SiValley companies like they're all the same but that is completely untrue. There are orders of magnitude difference in culture between companies and even within companies. I guess when you're on the outside looking in it all seems the same. It also changes depending on how the business is doing. I suspect, for instance, things are about to seriously go downhill at Netflix. That may cause the culture to become even more cutthroat.

gcheong 5y ago

From what I’ve seen it’s almost always as you describe or something political like a manager taking over a group and wanting to make room for their friends. But if employees are burning out and then being PIPed instead of getting support I think that is a rather sad indictment of our industry in an of itself.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>if employees are burning out and then being PIPed instead of getting support I think that is a rather sad indictment of our industry in an of itself The thing is most big companies don't care about your burn-out or personal situation, they either have product launch deadlines to meet, or revenue targets or customers to please, and people in the trenches are considered replaceable so churn is something they account for in order to meet those commitments. If you're lucky you might have an understanding manager, but he himself may have targets to reach for his bonus or promotion, and if you're dragging his team down and his bonus promotion with it, then ... it's nothing personal, it's just business, you will be let go. I worked for a major European semi company and the churn there is insane, either they fire people or people leave by themselves within the first 2 years. All because managers are given near impossible targets, along with great bonuses and stock packages to incentivize them to use whatever means necessary to deliver on those targets, usually at the expense of people in the trenches which are treated as expendable commodities.
- efitz 5y ago
  Your manager might also have a specific target for “unregretted attrition”, i.e. getting rid of people using the PIP process. If there is not a clear person who is the weakest link, then the manager will pick their least favorite. And remember, performance is very subjective. I have seen a couple of people get fired for cause; that was always clear. I’ve never seen an unambiguous PIP.
  - sgerenser 5y ago
    As far as I know only Amazon has targets for “unregretted attrition.”
    - no_wizard 5y ago
      I heard Microsoft did this for a long time as we. It’s my under it changed though since Nadella
      - coredog64 5y ago
        Presumably, any Jack Welch-esque stack rank shop is going to have URA targets.

mandeepj 5y ago

> it's rarely if ever for lack of tech skills. isn't output related with lack of tech skills?

piptastic 5y ago
not really, plenty of talented lazy people out there
fataliss 5y ago
Not if output was satisfactory before and then drops
hibikir 5y ago
To a point, but it's rarely the inability to code that is leading to lack of output. Output often means "did sufficient work that was seen, by management, as impactful enough". This has more to do with communication and task choice than anything. This is not really a skill that we even really attempt to measure in interview. In my experience in high performing tech companies, I've seen about 40 PIPs. There are 'utter tech incompetence' PIPs in the world, but as far as I've seen, they are far less popular than 'thoroughly uninterested in working' PIPs, 'disliked by new manager' PIPs and 'person has a work unrelated crisis' PIPs. Those tech related PIPs will normally have all the symptoms already in the first review cycle. If someone made it to their 2nd year in the company, tech incompetence is not really the issue. It's just unfortunate that nobody provides stats for this kind of thing, so we don't have to just rely on "you have seen" vs "I have seen" arguments.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  > This has more to do with communication and task choice than anything. In some cases, task assignment instead of task choice. Sometimes by unluck of the draw, you just get assigned to a shit project with no visibility. You could be Einstein, write entirely bug-free code, and you’re not going to get rewarded for the work. I’ve seen really mediocre people brown-nose and schmooze themselves onto a rocket ship project that takes off despite their mediocrity, and they get promoted to the moon. That’s how some VP’s and Directors are made. Meanwhile, a literal genius languishes away improving the performance of InvisibleInternalTool by 500%. The older I get the more I realize how much corporate tech performance evaluation has to do with politics and bullshitting and “being highly visible” and how little it has to do with performance.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> YMMV, but it's actually quite difficult to get a PIP in many tech companies Generally, the more the company practices “hire fast, fire fast” the easier and more common it will be to PIP people. The companies with 4+ stage interviews and entire departments devoted to recruiting and candidate evaluation tend to not have as many PIPs because they’ve studied their interviewing processes and prevented most of the underperformers from getting hired in the first place. The most quick-to-fire company I ever worked for had barely a 1-hour interview process. They’d hire anyone who seemed remotely qualified and then they’d fire everyone who didn’t work out. It was terrible and now I’m actually suspicious of companies that don’t do much technical screening for applicants.

boredtofears 5y ago
How do extended interviews root out people that are going to later go through some kind of major personal issue or have burnout or have a lack of motivation? Lack of motivation and burnout maybe could be somewhat sussed out in an interview if it was obvious, but the people that I've been around that's happened to (and myself at one point in my career) were completely fine, but I'm skeptical of any interviewer that says they can reliably fish that out.
- thematrixturtle 5y ago
  They don't/can't, which is why you still see both at any company, no matter how it interviews.

01100011 5y ago

I think this is highly dependent on your company. People talk about FANG/SiValley companies like they're all the same but that is completely untrue. There are orders of magnitude difference in culture between companies and even within companies. I guess when you're on the outside looking in it all seems the same. It also changes depending on how the business is doing. I suspect, for instance, things are about to seriously go downhill at Netflix. That may cause the culture to become even more cutthroat.