Why Companies Do PIPs: The Ultimate Guide To Navigating A PIP

A PIP can seem cruel, but there’s a clear reason that companies use them year after year. Let’s start with the top priority for a manager: ensure the optimal performance of the team. For a manager, getting their reports promoted or singing their praises is important, but only insofar as it’s in service of the optimal performance of the team.

Another detail to realize is that the high performers on any team do an outsized amount of work. This is especially true in jobs that have tremendous leverage for the most skilled workers, such as software engineering (thus the famed “10x engineer”). When a company is large enough, a “bell curve” of performance will emerge. A PIP is focused on the employees who are deemed as low performers, typically the bottom 10% of the bell curve.

So, returning back to the original question: the reason why companies do PIPs is to **ensure optimal productivity and impact** for the overall employee base. If high performers sense that poor performance is not being addressed, they may leave the team. So a PIP is a way to push poor performers off the team.

The company also wants to push people out in a way that **minimizes the chance of a lawsuit**. Even though employment in the US is at-will, there’s still a chance of getting sued if the employee argues that they were fired for an illegal reason (e.g. due to a protected characteristic).

The company or manager may claim that the PIP is designed to help you, but that’s almost never the case. They’re more concerned about minimizing the negative impact on the broader team.

Finally, PIPs are often “weaponized” to fire people under the guise of performance when the company doesn’t want to call it a layoff. This is especially relevant now in the current economy as companies may enter an age of austerity.

PIP Stereotypes - The Ultimate Guide To Navigating A PIP

Given the secrecy and consequences of PIPs, you've probably a bunch of stereotypes about PIPs. This is a non-exhaustive list of beliefs that are simply not true:

- *"You must be incompetent or lazy"*
- *"Your manager or company must be horrible"*
- *"It’s impossible to keep your job on a PIP"*
- *"You'll no longer be employable"*

This thinking is reductive and will lead to more harm than good. A better way to think about a PIP is not to cast blame on one party or another. Instead, a PIP means **there was a mismatch in expectation between employee and employer**. 

The reality is that there are many potential reasons why you may receive a PIP, ranging from lack of support, poor management, lack of motivation, shifting company needs, etc.

Throughout the PIP process, one of the most difficult parts is that you’ll feel zero (or negative) support from key people around you. In order to find success at your job, and more broadly in your career, **you need to be an advocate for yourself**. Have the confidence that you are valuable. Too many engineers are their own worst critic, which exacerbates the negative spiral of performance.

What is a PIP? The Ultimate Guide To Navigating A PIP

A PIP is a **Performance Improvement Plan**. A PIP covers specific areas of performance deficiencies and sets clear expectations for what needs to happen in the future to remain employed. Think about a PIP as an ultimatum, essentially telling the employee that "Something needs to change." The employee has been deemed (whether fairly or unfairly, as we’ll see) to be missing their targets.

The PIP will outline a plan to improve the employee’s performance, along with milestones to hit over 1-3 months. The manager will document instances where your performance was lacking, pulling in quotes from colleagues, individual code reviews, or emails you may have sent (or have not) sent. A PIP can feel like a personal attack: the manager will spend hours compiling an argument "against you", explaining why you're not meeting expectations.

We’ll talk about specific strategies to use if you’re on a PIP, but for now, just remember this: **You can still have an amazing career after a PIP.**

Being on a PIP is like being on an extended interview. You have all the anxiety and judgment from a high-pressure environment, but it's actually worse: instead of starting from neutral, you're starting with a negative perception. And a multi-month interview sounds terrible.

Employees on a PIP are not allowed to switch teams. The company has concerns about whether the employee can productively contribute to the company, so they want to avoid the chaos of allowing team switches. This is unfortunate because you may just have a really poor fit with your manager.

Because of the overhead involved with a PIP, generally only medium and large companies will issue them.

The Human Resources (HR) team is involved in every PIP, which is a bad sign. The main function of HR, if not the sole function, is to protect the company’s interests, not the employees’. Once HR gets involved, and the manager has started documenting gaps in the employee's performance, clearly that indicates that there’s been a loss of trust.

This course will cover 4 phases of the PIP lifecycle:

- Before the PIP (but perhaps in the danger zone)
- Receiving the PIP within the company and deciding what to do
- Case studies of Individual Contributors (ICs) who received PIPs, along with managers who have delivered PIPs
- After the PIP -- how to ensure you have a great career even if you received a PIP

Course Introduction: The Ultimate Guide To Navigating A Performance Improvement Plan (PIP)

You’ve probably heard about a PIP, a Performance Improvement Plan. You might be in danger of one, you’re going through one right now, or you’re about to join a company with a widespread PIP culture.

There’s no getting around it: **PIPs are scary.** Receiving a PIP means that there is a perceived deficiency in your performance, and something needs to change. It’s obvious why you might feel tremendous anxiety or fear around a PIP: your job is at stake.

Simply put, **a PIP is one of the most stressful things you can go through as a tech employee**. 

A quick online search reveals tons of discussion in forums about PIPs. It’s easy to get the impression that a PIP is a hopeless situation, and anyone who is unfortunate enough to receive one should simply give up. This is simply not true: whether you’re on a PIP or not, there is a path forward.

The objective for this course is to provide a structured way for you to identify what you can (and should) do to get the best outcome for yourself.

I’m Rahul, the course instructor. I’ve been an engineer at various-sized companies for a decade before I left to start Taro. I was an Engineering Manager and Staff Engineer at Meta (Facebook for the OGs), and before that I worked on Android at Pinterest. I graduated from Stanford with a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Computer Science, and my first job after graduation was founding engineer at a failed startup. 

In researching this course, I talked to dozens of engineers who have received PIPs, along with several managers who have delivered PIPs to their reports. You’ll hear some of their stories in the section dedicated to case studies (from companies like Amazon, Meta, Pinterest, MassMutual, and MongoDB). What became clear from chatting with so many employees is (1) there’s far too much stigma around a PIP and (2) there’s not enough support for people who have received one. This course aims to change that.

In addition, we’ve combined our own personal experience with dozens of hours of online research (we mostly ignored anonymous trolls in forums…).

I’ll occasionally refer to engineers throughout this course, but pretty much all the content is applicable to any type of tech worker (Product Manager, Data Scientist, Designer, etc). Software Engineers are not the only job function that must deal with a PIP!

Final note: my goal with this course it to be hyper-practical; this should be useful to you. I’ll be sharing best practices that have worked for many tech workers, but we can’t cover exact details across all companies in all geographies. I’m not an employment lawyer and I have never worked in Human Resources. You may want to get consultative help if your situation is unique. 

Connect with Rahul: 

- [Taro](https://www.jointaro.com/p/rahul-pandey/)
- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpandey1234/)
- [YouTube](https://youtube.com/rpandey1234)

Read more about PIPs: 

- <https://jointaro.com/topic/performance-improvement-plan>
- <https://www.jointaro.com/blog/breaking-down-the-tech-company-mark-of-death-the-pip/>

Paper Reading Session: Simple Testing Can Prevent Most Critical Failures

In this session, we will be discussing this paper titled "[**Simple Testing Can Prevent Most Critical Failures: An Analysis of Production Failures in Distributed Data-Intensive Systems**](https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/osdi14/osdi14-paper-yuan.pdf)".

Large, production quality distributed systems still fail periodically, and do so sometimes catastrophically, where most or all users experience an outage or data loss. This paper presents the result of a comprehensive study investigating 198 randomly selected, user-reported failures that occurred on Cassandra, HBase, Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), Hadoop MapReduce, and Redis, with the goal of understanding how one or multiple faults eventually evolve into a user-visible failure and how simple testing can prevent majority of them.

Presented by [Sudhi Awasthi](https://www.jointaro.com/p/sudhi-awasthi/), an engineer working at Bloomberg. Connect with her on LinkedIn: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/sudhiawasthi/>.

Ask Me Anything (AMA) with a Senior Eng Director - Sanjay Siddhanti

[**Sanjay Siddhanti**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjaysiddhanti/) is a Senior Director of Engineering at AKASA. After graduating from Stanford, he previously held engineering roles at Counsyl, Karius, and Flatiron Health.

Sanjay's background:

I'm the Senior Director of Engineering at AKASA. I joined AKASA in 2019 as one of the first employees when we were a seed-stage startup. I originally joined AKASA as an individual contributor, and quickly switched over to management. I built much of the company's early technology as an IC and later as a tech lead / manager. I also started and managed multiple engineering teams at the company, including Platform Engineering, now an org with 20 engineers.

Happy to answer questions about:

- How engineering leaders think about the role of Senior, Staff, and Principal ICs.
- How and why to transition from IC to management
- The differences between an Engineering Manager vs Engineering Director
- How to hire and retain great talent
- How to succeed in a startup environment.

How The Top 1% Of Engineers Are Judged

As a former VP of Engineering at Amazon, Ethan has the unique ability to share how the senior-most engineers were evaluated within Big Tech. These are the top few percent of engineers in the company (Staff Engineers, Principal Engineers, Distinguished Engineers, etc), and the expectations are incredibly high.

**Key insights:**

- **At very senior levels, technical excellence is table stakes.** The top-performing engineers use their technical expertise to help the business. 
- **The dynamic with company leadership is important**: these engineers must be proactive in helping the business, and not simply the "guru on the hill" who provides answers when asked.
- **There are different modalities to get to a very senior level**, e.g. CTO model, technical expert, product engineer, and others. It's ok if you don't want daily meetings with company leadership, but you must be working on a valuable enough problem that can merit an engineer of that seniority.
- **Finding a good manager is critical for both ICs and managers**. Two ways to evaluate this are (1) find a leader who has grown many people and (2) find a leader who is advancing rapidly in their career.

[**Ethan Evans**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/) is a retired Amazon VP who now teaches managers how to break into executive levels. He was at Amazon for 15 years, and he became a VP in 2013 until he left in 2020. Ethan shares valuable insights for anyone interested in management or career development.

**Helpful links:**

- [**\[Masterclass\] How To Work Better With Your Engineering Manager**](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/2PbJb2fuqF3iMHy57eEg/masterclass-how-to-work-better-with-your-engineering-manager/)
- Rahul's Senior to Staff course: <https://maven.com/taro/senior-to-staff>
- More from Ethan: <https://www.jointaro.com/topic/ethan-evans/>
- [Rahul's $800K TC journey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inydj1VZ0y0)

Live AMA with Casey Dai - Former Head of Engineering & Founder of Expanded Skills

[Casey Dai](https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseydai/) is a career switcher, Head of Engineering, and entrepreneur based in Canada. After getting a finance degree, he worked in consulting before switching to engineering and quickly climbed the ranks to become the Head of Engineering at Capgemini, a multi-billion dollar IT company. 

Topics covered in this Ask Me Anything (AMA):

- What are the most underrated skills for SWEs and EMs?
- How do I future-proof my skills to stay competitive in the tech industry when things are constantly changing?
- Why are there a lot of bad managers? Is there anything that can be done to prevent that?
- How do I identify opportunities to scale my impact?
- How do I become a better decision-maker when faced with uncertainty?
- What are some ways to grow aside from the company career ladder?

Casey will go **in-depth on these topics in [his upcoming course](https://www.jointaro.com/event/operate-like-an-engineering-leader-cohort-based-course/)** starting Jan 16th.

Enroll in Casey's cohort-based course Operate Like An Engineering Leader and receive a free 1:1 coaching session: [**https://www.jointaro.com/event/operate-like-an-engineering-leader-cohort-based-course/**](https://www.jointaro.com/event/operate-like-an-engineering-leader-cohort-based-course/)

How To Approach "Doing Your Own Thing" -- Startup Discussion And Feedback

This session is for *wantrepreneurs* (someone who wants to leave their full-time job and do a company) and early entrepreneurs. In the last two decades, more money and attention have gone to early-stage startups. It's easier and cheaper than ever to start a startup, especially if you're an engineer!

There are 3 paths to scratching the entreprenurial itch: 

1. Build something on the side
2. Lifestyle or indie business
3. VC-backed business (raising millions of dollars in venture capital)

### Build something on the side

This is where you should start -- build something on nights and weekends while maintaining your full-time position. You need to prove to yourself that you have enough skill and autonomy to create something of value **entirely on your own**. No professor, no manager, no tech lead. The 3 most common paths to building something on the side are to (1) publish an app, (2) do freelance/consulting work, or (3) teach your skills. As documented in [this blog post](https://www.jointaro.com/blog/the-best-engineering-side-hustle-teaching/), teaching is the best side hustle if you have in-demand engineering skills.

### Lifestyle or indie business

The goal with an indie business is to make a livable income with a small team selling a high-margin software product. I'd call the number as a project where you can make $100K+ annually. Founders in this bucket are working full-time on their business, but they likely have not taken any outside funding. One way to achieve this is to niche down enough and serve a neglected demographic, "*courses for left-handed pickleball players"* or "*a mobile app for senior citizens in the Bay Area to find activities"*.

### Businesses built with Venture Capital

Very few businesses fit this category, but you may not think that, since these few companies command the lion's share of time, attention, and money. These are companies that have a charter to take over the world, or at least to take over a market. In exchange for money, VCs will take equity in your company, and also likely have some governance power. The minimum benchmark to raise VC is usually a $1B opportunity with $100M in annual revenue, and there will be pressure to grow at 2x or 3x year over year for many years. 

If you'd like to build a VC-backed company, I recommend going through a credible accelerator like [**Y Combinator**](https://www.ycombinator.com/apply) like [**PearX.**](https://pear.vc/pearx-application/) 

A good pitch is used to get a potential investor excited about your company, yourself, and the vision you're presenting. It should contain a simple explanation of how your company creates value (skip the buzzwords), and explain who you serve. You should expect rapid-fire questions and skepticism. A good pitch has the following ingredients: 

- Use clear, simple words
- Get to the point
- Teach something
- Show why **you** are uniquely-equipped to solve this problem

Relevant resources:

- [**\[Taro Top 10\] Entrepreneurship And Tech Startups**](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/ArtlSzF17v7cad1K6TJG/)
- Alex answering [**"How did you decide to quit your job and make a startup?"**](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/beZzIkLUP28WinNQctlP/how-did-you-decide-to-quit-your-job-and-make-a-startup-9132022/)
- [**How can H1B (visa) holders do a startup?**](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/N0TKzFWve7K7riyGx9rQ/how-can-h1b-visa-holders-do-a-startup/)
- [**How To Prepare To Leave Big Tech For A Startup**](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/muNQH8uZSviN8P60RaKS/how-to-prepare-to-leave-big-tech-for-a-startup/)
- [**Taro at YC's Demo Day (Summer 2022)**](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/81ACDLKEO9SVX964S1Yx/taro-at-ycs-demo-day-summer-2022/)

Here's How To Identify A Superstar Leader

[**Ethan Evans**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/) is a retired Amazon VP who led teams of up to 800. Here are his two criteria to see your manager is worth working for.

**1\. Investing in people:**

- Look for a manager with a track record of **growing and promoting their team members**.
- Signs of this include:
  - Do reports of your manager often get promoted or take on higher responsibilities?
  - Does your manager actively create opportunities for your development and growth?
  - Does your manager provide good mentorship and guidance?
  - Managers with a loyal following strongly indicate their leadership qualities.

**2\. Personal trajectory:**

- Assess your manager's **career progression**.
- Look for:
  - Consistent upward movement and promotions.
  - A history of exceeding expectations and taking on greater challenges.
  - Faster-than-average advancement compared to peers.

**Reasoning:**

- A manager who invests in their people will more likely create a supportive and growth-oriented environment for you.
- A manager on a consistent upward trajectory signifies their competence and ability, potentially opening doors for their team's growth as well.

Explore more: 

- [Turning the Spotlight on Unsung Efforts: How to Be Perceived as Important and Impactful?](https://www.jointaro.com/question/G91Qd0GbID5AtnRbfGJE/turning-the-spotlight-on-unsung-efforts-how-to-be-perceived-as-important-and-impactful/)
- [How to manage a team towards high performance?](https://www.jointaro.com/question/O8vtGxsrwZebiSSlOlRd/how-to-manage-a-team-towards-high-performance/)
- [**\[Taro Top 10\] Software Engineer To Engineering Manager (IC -&gt; M Track)**](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/oz0mnJvHHgM8NfVF7rgp/)

Leaving An Executive Role To Become A Teacher

[**Ethan Evans**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/) is a retired Amazon VP who now teaches managers how to break into executive levels. He was at Amazon for 15 years, and he became a VP in 2013 until he left in 2020.

Ethan could have spent several more decades in high-powered engineering leadership roles, but he chose to leave his lucrative career at Amazon to focuse on personal development coaching and teaching.

**Reason for leaving Amazon:**

- Ethan found more satisfaction in helping people develop than building things. He actually wanted to scale his impact beyond at Amazon with the role of upgrading the whole eng team.
- Amazon wasn't receptive to his ideas for talent development initiatives. they told him the best bet was for him to become the VP of Eng for the HR products.

**Today, Ethan is focused on** teaching individuals for career development. He creates and shares free content (e.g., daily writing on LinkedIn) and then offers paid coaching and training programs for high-potential individuals.

**Motivation for charging for some services:**

- Belief that people value paid services more than free ones.
- Desire to focus limited time on highly motivated clients.
- Money is not the primary driver but it is important for reaching a wider audience and sustaining the work.
- Charging for high-value services from those who can afford it is ethical and practical.

Ethan is now pursuing his passion to help people grow and achieve their career goals. He's adopted a hybrid approach of free and paid services to maximize their impact and reach.

More to explore: 

- [\[Case Study\] Building An Engineering Brand - Why And How (LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Substack)](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/t06NajpS2kSCk98IEmQm/case-study-building-an-engineering-brand-why-and-how-linkedin-youtube-twitter-substack/)
- [When does it make sense to leave big tech?](https://www.jointaro.com/question/v6GBLlfXb1ugNobkEm7w/when-does-it-make-sense-to-leave-big-tech/)
- [I'm Greg, Ex-Google/Netflix current Director at Disney. AMA!](https://www.jointaro.com/question/CdPjNOXvU882180yzs6R/im-greg-ex-googlenetflix-current-director-at-disney-ama/?a=X1zCA1EgxqdSBELHLfkO)

The Correct Reason To Become A Manager

[**Ethan Evans**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/) is a retired Amazon VP who now coaches managers to break into executive levels. 

Ethan believes the "correct" answer for someone's motivation to becoming a manager should be based on a genuine desire to help and grow other people, rather than on external factors like money or power. People who are motivated by these external factors tend to make poor managers.

The management job is very different from the individual contributor (IC) role. You may be used to learning different technology stacks, but management is about learning an orthogonal "stack" altogether, focused on soft skills and people.

Reflect on your own experiences with good and bad managers -- it's important for managers to have a cohesive style that has a clear set of opinions. This style will not be suitable for everyone, but that's ok. Ethan made the analogy of ice cream flavors. There's no correct ice cream, people will have different preferences in the same way that people will prefer different types of managers. 

Ask yourself (and ideally, test drive) the activities you would do as a manager, things like organizing people's work and holding them accountable.

More to explore:

- [**\[Taro Top 10\] Software Engineer To Engineering Manager (IC -&gt; M Track)**](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/oz0mnJvHHgM8NfVF7rgp/)
- [**How do I figure out whether I should stay as an IC engineer or explore management as an EM?**](https://www.jointaro.com/question/Y6qIop9wpOlCYUL0nGs0/how-do-i-figure-out-whether-i-should-stay-as-an-ic-engineer-or-explore-management-as-an-em/?playlistId=oz0mnJvHHgM8NfVF7rgp)
- [Asking For A Promotion: The Wrong Way vs. The Right Way](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/GvT4NBqaBULFlizarSCf/asking-for-a-promotion-the-wrong-way-vs-the-right-way/)

The Sales Engineering Career Path (And How To Become One)

The sales engineering role combines technical expertise with sales skills as an alternative career path. Even if you don't want to become a full-time sales engineer, many of the skills that are essential for sales engineers are directly applicable for strong software engineers.

🛠️ **Learn Why Engineers are in the Best Position to Sell:**

- Explore the intersection of coding and client interaction that defines the Sales Engineering role.
- Learn why Sales Engineering might be the ideal choice for software engineers looking to blend their technical prowess with business dealings.

💡 PRO TIP: **Sales Presentation and Demo Flow For the Best Outcomes:**

- Gain insights into the advantages of pursuing a career in Sales Engineering, from enhanced earning potential to dynamic job roles.
- Understand how your unique skill set can significantly impact client-facing roles within the technology industry.

🔍 **Explore What Career Options Exist in Sales Engineering:**

- Explore different career paths within Sales Engineering and understand the growth potential.
- Learn about real-world success stories from software engineers who have transitioned into Sales Engineering roles.

Taro member discount is available for the [**2-week cohort-based course**](https://maven.com/techsales/sales-for-software-engineers?promoCode=TARO).

Course conducted by: [**https://www.linkedin.com/in/kbalachandran/**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kbalachandran/)

Explore more on Taro: 

- [Should I become a sales engineer?](https://www.jointaro.com/question/CZdBlFzIDk4rxaLJ1jzu/should-i-become-a-sales-engineer/)
- [How do you "sell" your work and show impact as an aspiring Staff Engineer?](https://www.jointaro.com/question/Zr5koQ1TGgx8GzSAquwG/how-do-you-sell-your-work-and-show-impact-as-an-aspiring-staff-engineer/)

Amazon VP Shares Why Reorgs Happen And Why The True Reason Is ALWAYS Hidden

[**Ethan Evans**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/) is a retired Amazon VP who has gone through dozens of re-orgs across his tech career.

Re-orgs (reorganizations of the team structure) happen because at least one leader views something as broken: someone is under-performing, the right teams aren't collaborating, or some other reason which you may not have visibility into as an engineer.

Once a re-org happens, an effective way to build trust is to schedule time with your new skip level manager and ask what the mission of the team is, and if your work is still aligned to that mission. Ask your manager to setup a meeting if you can't do it on your own.

Communication challenges: Public announcements about such org changes often use vague language and corporate jargon, making it difficult for individual contributors to understand the true reasons behind them. This lack of transparency can lead to further confusion and distrust.

Legal considerations: Legal constraints limit how much information leaders can publicly disclose about personnel changes. Fear of lawsuits can lead to sanitized messages that obfuscate the real reasons behind decisions.

**More to explore:**

- [\[Masterclass\] How To Work Better With Your Engineering Manager](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/2PbJb2fuqF3iMHy57eEg/masterclass-how-to-work-better-with-your-engineering-manager/)
- [How To Effectively Leverage Skip Level 1:1s](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/TToehFEc738PBhJcALwL/how-to-effectively-leverage-skip-level-11s/)
- [Ask Me Anything (AMA) with a Disney Eng Director - Greg Benson](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/eHbg5nVkHn2LYJ55oOVf/ask-me-anything-ama-with-a-disney-eng-director-greg-benson/)

The 4 Paths To Manager Growth. Choose One.

[**Ethan Evans**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/) is a retired Amazon VP who now teaches managers how to break into executive levels.

He shares how to get promoted as a front-line manager (M1). The pre-requisite is that you must do good work. This means motivating your team, delivering results, and organizing them effectively. M1s are focused inward and downward, with most of their time and attention on their team. M2s (managers of managers) focus on the bigger picture, considering how their team fits into the larger organization and collaborating for overall success.

**Four main ways to grow:**

- **Organic growth:** Your team and the company naturally expand, increasing your responsibility.
- **Filling holes:** Someone above you leaves, and you're chosen due to your performance.
- **Reorganizations:** Teams get shuffled, and you absorb parts of others' responsibilities.
- **Lead a new initiative:** Successfully launching a new project demonstrates leadership and initiative, potentially leading to promotion.

When times were good (i.e. metrics were strong and the company was doing well), there was more capacity for people to get promoted. For example, the gold, silver, and bronze medalist (3 people) may have gotten promoted, but in a stagnant company, only the gold medalist would get the promo.

Although you can't control when people leave or if there will be a re-org, what you can do is **focus on being the top performer:** Consistently deliver excellent results, demonstrate strong leadership, and be ready to take on additional responsibilities.

Relevant follow-ups:

- [Would you recommend SDEs try a rotation as an SDM?](https://www.jointaro.com/question/BRNUnPJ0y2BttQhPNmCu/would-you-recommend-sdes-try-a-rotation-as-an-sdm/?playlistId=oz0mnJvHHgM8NfVF7rgp)
- [\[Taro Top 10\] Software Engineer To Engineering Manager (IC -&gt; M Track)](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/oz0mnJvHHgM8NfVF7rgp/)

Ethan Evans' Career Path: Startup Manager to Amazon VP

[Ethan Evans](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/) is a retired Amazon VP. He shared his career journey starting out during the dot-com boom of the 1990s, quickly ascending as a manager at a string of startups.

**Early Career and Management Path:**

- Ethan started in management early, taking on a TPM role for a small project due to the team's need.
- He was drawn to leadership because the project lacked organization, focus, and communication.
- Ethan was supported by managers and encouraged to continue in the role. He progressed through several startups, growing in each one and reaching VP level by the third.

**Joining Amazon:**

- Ethan was a "fake" startup VP before going getting downleveled as a manager at Amazon, and it took years for him to return to a true VP role, managing a team of 800 people.
- The startup he was at was failing, and Amazon offered more compensation despite being giving a worse title.
- He initially managed a team of six at Amazon, which eventually grew to 800. 

Ethan credits his rapid ascent to:

- Seeing problems and proactively solving them.
- Taking initiative and asking for more responsibility.
- Curiosity and motivation to understand the bigger picture.

More to explore: 

- [\[Taro Top 10\] Software Engineer To Engineering Manager (IC -&gt; M Track)](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/oz0mnJvHHgM8NfVF7rgp/)
- [What's the difference between Big Tech and startups in terms of learning and growth?](https://www.jointaro.com/question/KWXIrFIR1EIJsvdOdo7u/whats-the-difference-between-big-tech-and-startups-in-terms-of-learning-and-growth/)
- [How much am I hurting my career by staying at a startup? (Pressure to work for big tech)](https://www.jointaro.com/question/dqCvmYhI9WE0k33orZEP/how-much-am-i-hurting-my-career-by-staying-at-a-startup-pressure-to-work-for-big-tech/)

Lessons From The Top: Managing And Growing 800 People (Ethan Evans)

[**Ethan Evans**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/) is a retired Amazon VP who now teaches managers how to break into executive levels. He was at Amazon for 15 years, and he became a VP in 2013 until he left in 2020. This wide-ranging interview covers many topics:

- Ethan's career trajectory, and how he entered the management path startlingly early.
- How do you know if an IC will be a good manager or not?
- What are the common reasons why managers fail to get promoted?
- Why do re-orgs happen, and why is there so much corporate speak?
- What should you look for in a leader?
- How are the senior-most engineers evaluated?
- Why did Ethan leave Amazon to become a full-time teacher?

Ethan shares valuable insights for anyone interested in management or career development.

**Key insights:**

- **Why did Ethan choose management so early?** He was drawn to it because that was the need from his team and his managers supported his decision.
- **What skills helped Ethan ascend quickly in startups?** High-growth environments provided opportunities, but Ethan capitalized on them by actively seeking problems to solve and proposing solutions. He took initiative and wasn't afraid to ask for more responsibility.
- **What advice does Ethan have for others?** Be proactive, identify problems, and offer solutions. Don't be afraid to step up and make the ask to your leadership team. "*Do good work and hope*" is not an effective strategy.
- **Careers are long**. Ethan was a "fake" startup VP before going getting downleveled as a manager at Amazon, and it took years for him to return to a true VP role, managing a team of 800 people.

**Helpful links:**

- [\[Masterclass\] How To Work Better With Your Engineering Manager](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/2PbJb2fuqF3iMHy57eEg/masterclass-how-to-work-better-with-your-engineering-manager/)
- [Overcome Career Stagnation (5 Common Scenarios)](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/UvGdGyBfHn4oNCfE77KV/overcome-career-stagnation-5-common-scenarios/)
- [Asking 7 Levels Of Engineers The Most Important Skill](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/J9Io5lDGaYUpI8vGrUyI/)
- [**How do I figure out whether I should stay as an IC engineer or explore management as an EM?**](https://www.jointaro.com/question/Y6qIop9wpOlCYUL0nGs0/how-do-i-figure-out-whether-i-should-stay-as-an-ic-engineer-or-explore-management-as-an-em/)
- [**\[Masterclass\] What Software Engineers Should Look For In Their Engineering Manager**](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/oeY7ncZhzJ5NO6dij5e7/masterclass-what-software-engineers-should-look-for-in-their-engineering-manager/)

Demystifying LLM Benchmarks -- How To Compare Large Language Models?

In the recent launch of Google's Large Language Model (LLM) Gemini, Google claimed that "Gemini beats human level performance on MMLU" but you might be wondering:

- What are the different evaulation criteria? Massive Multitask Language Understanding (**MMLU**)? General Language Understanding Evaluation (**GLUE**)? **HumanEval**?
- How can we know which model is good at coding tasks?
- What is considered "human-level performance"?
- How do they actually get the results for these benchmarks?

In this talk, Sai breaks down all the benchmarks you need to know to be better informed when papers claim to beat benchmarks.

The next paper reading session is on January 8 at 5pm: [**https://www.jointaro.com/event/paper-reading-group-4-mistral-7b/**](https://www.jointaro.com/event/paper-reading-group-4-mistral-7b/)

**Your host:**

[**Sai Shreyas Bhavanasi**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/b-sai/) has worked in Computer Vision and Reinforcement Learning and published 2 first-author papers. He has also worked as an MLE and Data Analyst.

Overcome Career Stagnation (5 Common Scenarios)

**This session dives into the steps you can take to get unstuck and get back to growing your career in a meaningful way.**

Overcoming career stagnation is a complex problem and a primary reason behind job dissatisfaction and burnout.

We often hear stories of people leaving their jobs due to a toxic environment or lack of compensation. However, it’s often due to a lack of meaningful growth, especially amongst ambitious, top performers.

There’s more in our control than we think. Sometimes, we just need to know what options we have at our disposal.

For a deeper dive into this topic, [Casey](https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseydai/) is teaching a course starting mid-January: [**Operate Like An Engineering Leader**](https://www.jointaro.com/event/operate-like-an-engineering-leader-cohort-based-course/)

Ask Me Anything (AMA) with a Disney Eng Director - Greg Benson

[**Greg Benson**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg7gkb/) is the Director of Engineering at Disney Streaming (Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+ Star+). Further questions and discussions are on the [AMA thread](https://www.jointaro.com/question/CdPjNOXvU882180yzs6R/im-greg-ex-googlenetflix-current-director-at-disney-ama/).

Previously, he was the Engineering Manager at Google, where he worked from 2017 - 2021. Prior to that, he was a manager at Netflix during the hypergrowth phase (2013 - 2017). Greg also has a deep background in music and audio, having received a Masters in Music & Audio Technology in 2003, and then working with Dolby for more than 5 years.

After leaving Google and before joining Disney, Greg took a career break to learn, explore, and recharge. He traveled to Ghana, learned about accounting, became a startup advisor, and read a lot.

Greg answered many questions in this Ask Me Anything (AMA). This session was moderated by [Igor Podkhodov](https://www.linkedin.com/in/podkhodov/). 

**Transitioning From Engineer to Manager: Insights and Expectations**

Greg shared his experience transitioning from an engineer to a management role. 

- Ask strategic questions in one-on-one and skip-level meetings, focusing on career trajectory and higher-level considerations. 
- Individual ownership and accountability are critical to ensure you succeed and build trust. 

They also discussed the purpose of skip-level meetings, which included understanding the expectations of senior staff and determining one's career trajectory. They emphasized the importance of adapting to different organizational and cultural contexts, as expectations can vary between companies. Igor added that it's important to verify the direction of one's actions during skip-level check-ins.

**Career Breaks and Influential Readings**

Greg discussed their influential reading materials, including [Creativity Inc](https://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Inc-Overcoming-Unseen-Inspiration/dp/0812993012), [Beyond Entrepreneurship](https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Entrepreneurship-Turning-Business-Enduring/dp/0133815269), and [Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances](https://www.amazon.com/Leading-Teams-Setting-Stage-Performances/dp/1578513332). He also shared their career journey, which involved tenures at Amazon, Netflix, and Google, a break of about a year and a half, and a transition to Disney. Greg quit his job at Google during the Covid-19 pandemic due to the challenges of remote work and the mental health burden. They emphasized the importance of taking breaks in one's career and the potential implications of extended gaps in one's employment history.

**Speeding up Engineering Velocity**

Greg discussed their experience at Disney, highlighting a less engineering-oriented approach compared to their previous roles. They also shared their insights on the factors that could accelerate an engineering team's velocity, such as testing, team culture, and the use of large systems. Greg further discussed the use of AI and large language models in the development process. During his time off, Greg learned more about AI and ML which helped him feel more confident in leveraging new advancements. For truly paradigm-shifting technologies (like AI), you won't be "too late" if you start adapting now.

**Mentorship and Career Growth**

Igor asked Greg about their approach to mentorship and its impact on their career growth. Greg shared that they have never used a career coach but has found mentorship through ad hoc interactions with colleagues. They emphasized the importance of reaching out to people for help and guidance, asserting that most people are willing to assist. They also shared their strategy of researching potential mentors before reaching out and being open-minded about learning from people in different roles and departments. Igor agreed with Greg's approach, noting the importance of persistence in finding a willing mentor.

**Career Progression**

- In a challenging economy (and world events), Greg advised holding out for a decent job that you're actually excited about, emphasizing the importance of following interests and passions. 
- Your specialization and expertise can help stand out in the job market. Startups often will have more growth and personal satisfaction. 

**Engineering Career Paths and Management Challenges**

Igor raised a question about career paths for engineers, emphasizing the need to understand motivations and challenges of growth into staff engineer or manager roles. Greg highlighted the significant responsibility that comes with a managerial role, including handling team issues, and advised finding an environment that supports career growth. They discussed the challenges and rewards of transitioning from an individual contributor to a managerial role, including loss of control, recognition, and specific deliverables, as well as the ambiguity and subjectivity of performance evaluation. The discussion ended open-ended with Prakash seeking insights on handling disagreements within teams.

**Managing Conflict: Strategies and Challenges**

Greg and Igor discussed the complexities of conflict within teams, with Greg sharing their experience and strategies for managing discord. Greg emphasized the importance of understanding power dynamics, providing coaching and feedback, and attempting to understand the other person's perspective. They also highlighted the challenges of balancing objectivity and support, and the importance of expressing empathy when disagreeing with someone. Igor shared their experience of trying to help a direct report dealing with personal issues, and learned the importance of empathy and understanding in communication. Greg also discussed the importance of different modes of listening, potential pitfalls of problem-solving over brainstorming, and the concept of escalation in conflict resolution. They suggested that if a manager is not supportive, it's important to know one's limits and consider finding a different team or having a direct conversation with the manager.

**Building Trust and Influence in the Workplace**

Greg shared his thoughts on building trust and influence in the workplace. 

- Honesty and transparency are paramount, with consistent actions over words. 
- Listening attentively and empathizing with others can help establish trust quickly. 

Greg also underscored the significance of documentation for accountability and avoiding circular conversations. They further discussed the involvement of politics in management roles, explaining that it's less about merit and more about relationships and perceptions. They clarified that healthy politics involves branding/reputation and accurately communicating achievements, rather than manipulating facts.

**Managing People and Avoiding Burnout**

Greg discussed their approach to managing people who don't read documentation, emphasizing the importance of empathy and support over shaming. They suggested providing opportunities for people to catch up, followed by a conversation if the issue persists. Igor then asked Greg about handling workload and avoiding burnout. Greg suggested contextualizing the effectiveness of meetings and encouraged individuals to assert agency over their time by choosing not to attend wasteful meetings, prioritizing their own work.

Further questions and discussions are on the [AMA thread](https://www.jointaro.com/question/CdPjNOXvU882180yzs6R/im-greg-ex-googlenetflix-current-director-at-disney-ama/).

Tech Career Growth Videos

Our instructional videos provide software engineers with insights needed for career growth. Masterclasses go incredibly in-depth on a specific tech topic while case studies are real examples from established engineering leaders.