Amazon abandoning stack-ranking
Hi, Recently I read in some article that Amazon has abandoned the stack-ranking system used when it comes to performance review. Is this true? Has it been 100% abandoned? What is the "new" system now? Is it better?
Has the culture improved any
This is correct but there's a lot to unpack. 1. Stack ranking is no longer forced, 100% abandoned 2. Reviews are not "performance reviews" any more 3. Reviews are less punitive; focus on "superpowers" and "areas for improvement" 4. Ranking still exist, but now are forward looking as a measure of investment (no investment, normal investment, high investment) and are not shared with the employee 5. Peer feedback is no longer lensed through the manager; given verbatim to the employee (unless the feedback is flagged as inappropriate) 6. The new system's feedback has been more positive than negative; but it is new and we have some areas we can improve upon it
Does "no investment" mean "to be managed out"?
Is does not mean that in many cases. Might just be we don't see them growing or progressing much. In some roles that's fine. As a SDE1 like 2 years out of school it would be a problem. You could be nailing all the metrics, have good leadership, just there's no expectation of growth.
Still enforcing 7 % on Least effective. Next year it will be enforced more strictly.
Intel supposedly does bottom 10% staff reductions each year but I've seen no evidence of this.
Correct. No more stack ranking to fit a curve.
Curve is still enforced by the artificial low budget.
Perfect, those will get no salary increase but won't be flagged as least effective and eventually let go.