Just got my offer and seems like everyone is just shitting on Amazon, how bad is this PIP thing and any idea of what percent of new hires get PIP’d?
If I fail the Performance Improvement Plan (PIP), will I automatically be fired?
How long do I have to decide whether to accept severance, join the PIP, or appeal through Peer Review?
What is Amazon's Pivot Program?
Hi,
I joined AWS as an L4 SDE about 6 months ago and my manager explained to me that I have been slow with onboarding and not getting tasks done quickly enough. He then explained then over the next 6-8 weeks I will be put on some sort of a plan to make sure I am up to speed. This will involve weekly 1:1 meetings and that the outcomes will be difficult and a stretch but not impossible to achieve.
To me this sounds like a PIP and from what I’ve heard most people end up getting laid off after the end of the PIP period. Is this actually a PIP and is it true that most people get fired after the PIP?
Thanks
just got notified yesterday that ive been put on pip. i started amazon late 2023 as a new grad with a broken team that was brand new, 4 engineers in total (however 2 were m.i.a. and on leave, and the other was just way too busy) both my manager and skip manager quit within the first few months, reasons including my skip skip manager, which eventually became my new manager. since the team was new, there wasnt much built and strong lack of documentation. the new manager was pretty absent for a couple months, and all of a sudden started really investing time into the team. during this time i got assigned a project that was proposed to be small, but ended up taking me 6 months. i got put on pip because i missed the deadline (but with good reason), and lack of communication/updates (despite me becoming more communicative these past couple of weeks because he raised concern, manager even brought up not sending things when... i literally did). the pip expectations are quite hefty -- i do think i can do them, but at what cost? ive been working 9 am - 12 am almost everyday the past month, including weekends occasionally to finish my project (with no support from my team, despite requesting). ive experienced so much mental stress and pain, including health issues from the pressure recently. i admit i had a slow start, but i genuinely believe i did the best i could with the circumstances i was given.
i want to take the severance, but is it a good idea? especially with this job market? would i even be able to apply for sde 2 roles or do i just resort to sde 1. even if i do take pip, will i be considered for promotion ever?
The title pretty much says it all. I am feeling pretty down about it so I created this throwaway to talk about it. Is anyone curious about the PIP, working at Amazon, or anything else? I can also talk about my nascent job search but that's less interesting that the PIP.
EDIT: Here's a link that describes what a PIP is and how they are used at Amazon. Although the article has a good description of the PIP, I don't agree with its tone and conclusions... In my case, I don't dispute that I was underperforming and I thought the PIP was fair.
I've been on a PIP once in the past. I survived it fine and am still working for the company now. It took me by complete surprise -- my manager was sort of terrible and didn't tell me I wasn't meeting what he wanted to see in my performance. It ended up being a pretty dramatic reveal (I'd rather not get into the whole story) and, suffice to say, I believe they were planning on letting me basically dig my own grave and fire me if it hadn't all come to light. But it did, and my team lead and I (not my manager) came up with a PIP that the management team seemed to be happy with. I executed it fine and stayed on. Shortly after, I switched managers, and a bit after that I switched roles (same team, but I moved from QA to Ops).
It didn't really seem to have an effect on my reputation (I'm not sure how many people every really knew what was going on, probably not many), but it did instill a wariness on me that I didn't really have before. I'm now pretty much constantly suspicious that management isn't telling me things I need to know, which isn't really fair to them since I have excellent management now. But, basically, my trust in them is gone. It's very unfortunate, but it's been hard to get over the sting of what happened.
I know people love to say how a PIP is a death knell of a job, but I just wanted to share my experience that it doesn't have to be, at least not in a team/company that transparently holds true to the PIP. At some companies, yeah, it's basically just a documented way to push you out.
Good luck with everything! I didn't have a question, just wanted to share.
Thank you for posting . I didn't even know this was a "thing".
My question is do you think there is anything you could have done to avoid this? Like, put more time in, Not piss off the wrong people, etc.
Accepted an L5 position in Finance and starting in a few weeks. I’ve been seeing a lot of posts about people getting pipd and in Focus (which seems to be a step pre-PIP) in this subreddit. Is it normal? Is there always someone on a team in PIP/Focus? Is it like 10% of the workforce? I work in big tech currently and at least in my company you really have to underperform… like try to suck and not show up to meetings to get PIPd
Getting cold feet with the RTO5 + PIP culture. Sounds like you need to thrive living in paranoia and stress to enjoy working there
Hello Amazonians,
I'm seeking clarity on Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) at Amazon. Is being placed on a PIP a genuine concern for employees, regardless of performance level?
Are managers required to meet specific PIP quotas, potentially leading to employees being put on a PIP despite satisfactory performance?