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Growth Machine, Survivor Meetings

Engineering Manager
Former Employee
Worked at Amazon for 20 years
February 20, 2017
Seattle, Washington
4.0
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEO
Pros

Interesting work, challenging, tangible accomplishments, growth opportunities.

Good location in SLU.

Ability to try completely different/new things, i.e., move from retail to AWS, Kindle, Video, Publishing, IMDB, Zappos, etc.

Cons

Five to six all-day stack ranking meetings per year make managers feel like judges on Survivor.

The review system incentivizes switching teams/orgs every two to three years. If you aren't aggressively looking for ways to advance your career (i.e., hopping around), you'll eventually be viewed as low-growth and managed out. The constant churn is potentially good for employee growth but bad for organizational effectiveness.

Advice to Management

OLR (organizational leadership review) is too political and has little to no relation to goals/accomplishments. Also, if a good employee is in the wrong role, try to get them in the right role before patting yourself on the back for fulfilling an arbitrary top-grading quota.

Frustration with the OLR process is the primary reason I quit. I loved working at Amazon as an engineer. I wouldn't return as a manager.

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