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Beware of PIP

Software Engineer
Current Employee
Has worked at Amazon for 4 years
July 10, 2024
New York, New York
2.0
Doesn't RecommendNeutral OutlookNo CEO Opinion
Pros
  • Decent pay
  • Good learning opportunities for entry-level engineers
  • Good WLB depending on team
  • Bigger scope for work depending on org/team
Cons
  • Toxic managers often don't know how tech works but blame people when delivery is delayed. Most non-technical managers (coming from TPM, non-SDE roles) handle tech teams and blame team members without understanding tech concepts. They are never supportive, only caring about project delivery, which can lead to launching bad products.

  • A Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) can be targeted at good performers due to unregretted attrition (URA) quotas. This is done as part of OLR meetings through stack ranking, potentially causing a PIP without a fair explanation. The statements in PIP documents use vague terms and do not clarify performance metrics. Bad managers use favoritism when targeting someone for a PIP. If you are very close to your manager, the probability of getting a PIP is lower than for someone who is not talkative to their manager.

  • The average tenure for SDEs is the lowest among other FAANG companies (you know why).

Advice to Management

Use PIP to actually improve someone's performance by mentoring. Stop stack ranking and mandatory URA quotas.

Work for your employees to support the LP "earth's best employer," or please remove the LP.

Hiring bar should be higher for managers. Ensure diversity across the teams to have better team dynamics.

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