Performance Improvement Plan Q&A and Videos

There have been multiple instances since I joined last October with my manager where in, I felt I didn't fit in. I had lots of excitement when I joined in, but since the 1st month, with interactions I have had with him everything went downhill.

I realised that I don't work until there's a fire/my life depends on it (serious deadline). I am literally the pro definition of procrastinator. I have been this person for so many years. Until things get serious, I have never had self motivation to do the hard things. When I want to do hard things, I always have procrastinated, when deadline comes, I try to find existing solutions, only when there's nothing that exists but I have to think and create one and I believe I can do it, I do it!

These things make me worry whether I have the ability to take anything up in this world. When items/issues are discussed during work, others pitch in and talk, and I just listen, and think, how am I not able to come up with these stuffs or be proactive in solving problems.

Is tech not for me?

What should I do now? My PIP is for 1 month. I do think I can survive PIP as this is exactly the fire thing I was talking about above. But I don't think I can provide the consistency they ask for! I am preparing for backend since I found my work in DevOps is mostly Ops and I like learning things than executing. I am not ready for job change for primary reasons like -

1. Don't know what job should I take?
2. Not ready to take DevOps roles with current knowledge I have
3. Not ready yet to clear backend interviews

Has anyone else ever been in my shoes? Not in PIP terms, but if they can relate to the procrastination bit / self motivation. What did you do to solve the problem?

I transitioned into a backend engineering role 1 year ago after working as a data analyst for 3 years. The jump was definitely big to me, as I had to learn a lot of new concepts (OOP, clean code, architecture, devops etc). The transition was done through internal hiring where they did a live coding interview (2 LeetCode easy), a live system design interview, and motivational interview. I passed all of those and ended up in a high-paced team.

The team was severely understaffed. The manager was managing 3 teams that decreased from 20+ people to <10 people and there was hiring freeze. There was no proper onboarding and all the seniors were too busy with tasks to help me properly. I did my best to read the documentations and set up 1-1s with more senior engineers from other teams that could help me. I finished several projects although carried over some to the next half.

My 1st performance review was "meet expectations". However, before my 2nd performance review, there was a manager change and this manager gave me "partially meet expectations" and then said that I would be put on PIP program. When I asked the manager what the program would be like and how many people completed this successfully, he/she couldn't give a definitive answer and said that HR would be in touch with me.

I decided to quit and spend time to learn more fundamental concepts and take up a freelance project. It's been 2 months since then. Right now I feel like I'm learning a lot in these 2 months compared to my 1 year in that company, but I can't help but feeling very anxious with all these layoffs and the incoming tech winter. I don't have any self-confidence within myself that I would get any decent job. I'm just worried that when I'm interviewing at my next job, the career gap in my resume and the past potential PIP would hurt me. I'm also at loss on how to avoid potential PIPs in the future. Any advice to help me? Thank you very much.

Edit: For more context, I didn't come from a CS background (I studied Mathematics). My team was not a revenue generator. The company was especially hit really hard during covid and had 2 big layoffs. When I left, there are many products that are being shut down and a couple of senior-level product managers left as well without being replaced due to hiring freeze. During the talk of my PIP, the manager brought up his/her expectations on me that was 1 level (mid-level) above my current level (junior-level).

Manager says that I have not been meeting expectations of my role while my teammates do not agree with his comments.

He writes email after our 1-1 meeting every week with not meeting expectations claiming that I did not deliver on time while another staff engineer on the team told me 1-1 that I have set the example for others in the team with my deliverable.

I have met 1-1 with other senior engineers in the team and all of them have told me that I am clearly meeting the expectation of the role but my manager always seems dissatisfied with what ever task I do. Am I being managed out?

This manager joined the team 6 months ago. The manager who hired me left the company.

What should I do?

Current level - SDE II

Total comp - 240K

Started at Meta London as a mid-level engineer back in 2020. Put in everything I had, but stayed stuck at the same level despite trying for promotion every cycle. Made it through several re-orgs and manager changes, always thinking "next time will be different."

Never quite found my groove there. I know I'm a solid engineer, but between team circumstances and a poor fit with the product side, I couldn't land those "exceeds expectations" ratings needed for promotion. Now they're laying me off with a "below expectations" rating, which might block me from ever working at Meta again.

This hits hard. Really hard. I poured years of my life into this job, burned through my health both mentally and physically. Now I'm watching everyone talk about this massive AI revolution coming for tech jobs, while London tech salaries are already pretty rough, and I've just lost my position at one of the few companies that paid well here.

I've landed another job to keep the lights on (again, I can code), but it's clearly not somewhere I'll grow much. Being in my 30s and having to rebuild from scratch is scary enough - add in the AI uncertainty and it feels even worse. That "below expectations" rating from Meta feels like a brand I can't shake off.

How do you bounce back when you've had a shot at the big leagues and it didn't work out? When you have to start over but you're not fresh out of college anymore? Some days it feels like everyone's judging me for not making it.

Looking for any advice from folks who've been through something similar or found their way and succeeded even better after a major career setback.

Hi all,

I was put on PIP today. The PIP period is from 01/2024 till end of 01/2024. He said unsatisfactory performance & had to do this to be fair to others in the team. I think I was being benchmarked against others who work on weekends as outlined in my previous question: .

Yesterday I asked my manager for a 1-week remote and 3 weeks PTO (the company has unlimited PTO) from end of January to 3rd week of February. Do you think this was one of the reasons leading to me being PIP during the month of January?

What should I do now? Should I strive to overcome the PIP or should I find a new job? Anyone successfully overcame the PIP? How do I balance PIP and finding new job?

For more information, my 1st-year stock won't be vested till 06/2024 (so 25% of my RSUs won't be vested till end of the 1st year working for them). I think I'm out looking for a new job, but don't want to lose the RSUs.

For the sake of extreme ownership what could I have done better? If you need more info from me I can definitely provide in the threads below.

I was hired as a mid-level engineer, but I'm performing at the level below it. I had about a year and a half of experience coming into my company but didn't get much from it due to multiple re-orgs. In hindsight, I was a poor hire for my role and have felt this way the entire time. I am not interested in the niche and motivation is a struggle at times. I stayed because the team was really strong and I thought I could focus on the coding and grow technically. That was a mistake.

Fast forward a year and a half later (now), my manager tells me informally that my delivery is ok, but the way I go about my work needs improvement and I'm not growing, so I am performing at a level below. I need a lot of help from other engineers. And that I need fewer comments on my diffs and to do more research on problems because I'm not problem-solving well enough to be at my level. He's completely right. The team is full of high-performers and I know that I'm doing poorly by comparison. But I'm already consistently overworking into the evening and weekends.

I'm also hitting the limit with my mental health. I am putting in effort, but am being told it's not enough. For example, I spend some time understanding X and think I understand it, but teammate questions me in a way that makes me apply that knowledge and I realize my understanding is not so good or I did not think about it that way, so I am ashamed because I have spent a lot of time working on the task, but have failed to deep dive into this part. Or my teammate asks me for my thoughts on how to make something better, but nothing really comes to mind. How do I work on this behavior?

Some other questions:

• Is this a sign to leave my team or company? And the profession? Despite my best efforts, I'm disappointing my team and it's taking a toll.
• I haven't been served a PIP yet, but is this a sign that it's coming?
• Naive take, but is it a bad idea/even possible to ask for a downlevel? The reasoning was that I'd rather keep my job than lose it.
• Any advice?

I am the last person who should be complaining right now, but I absolutely hate my job and the tech sector in general right now. I work at Sh*p**y and even though I got promoted, the hr culture has changed to not increase compensation upon promotion. There's a lot of other hr f**kery I am having to deal with besides this.

Clickbait titles on twitter, business Insider posts or any news media article talking about AI replacing software engineers has given me a headache. Like I get that CEOs are using AI as a coin term to jack up stock prices or raise money. I have enough experience to know there won't be a true AI software engineer for a while but it still bothers me somehow because of the uncertainty (media brainwashing).

Overhanging worry of getting PIPed and not being able to find a job, because a lot of my former colleagues who were let go took a full year to find a new gig.

I'm just exhausted from thinking. I'm scared to talk to my bosses because they will always side with senior leadership, and I am exhausted by the rumours that are circulating about Q* and all the other AI domination clickbait posts.

Has anyone been able to learn to defuse from situations like this? I bet 08' was even worse than the current times. How did people deal with job uncertainties then? Really need answers because my productivity at work has gone down the drain.

I’ll be starting as an E6 at Meta, working on internal tools. Currently, the headcount is really low, and people only have 60 days to match, so I decided to go with the first team I matched with, even though it’s not the most exciting option.

I’m committed to doing a great job in this role, but I’m a bit concerned about the potential impact I can have and how that might affect my performance reviews (or get me PIPd). Is this something I should be worried about? Any advice on how I can maximize my impact on a team that might not be seen as highly impactful?