Each manager has to meet quota for marking LEs. I have been put on dev list as well. This places sucks!! Just to give more context. Amazon has 2 rating systems. One is used during your perf similar to other companies. Other is hidden from you and only managers know about it. It only has 3 categories: TT - top tier HV highly valued LE least effective. You are never told about these ratings unless you are being put on PIP or Dev list.
What is LE
Turd of a company
That’s pretty fucked up. Why would anyone work there instead of Microsoft ?
This is bullshit. Dont go spreading lies around if you dont know what you’re talking about
Sorry what's being exposed? This is how Amazon has operated from the beginning and it's widely discussed all the time in our channel and there are not two rating systems. You were found to be the lowest performing employee in your org so you are on a coaching plan now and you think that's unfair? Maybe you should listen to the feedback you got and focus on improving. As for transfers, Amazon has one of the most employee friendly transfer policies in the industry: anyone can transfer at any time to any team without needing their manager's permission. You talk like transfers are some human right that you were entitled to whereas it's an exceptionally good benefit at Amazon. But yeah there is one exception: if you are the lowest performing engineer and you are being coached to improve you can't transfer until you improve. So yeah, unfortunately you can't run away from that feedback you got, you have to work on it. Oh and what's going to happen if you fail that informal dev plan your manager puts you on? Will it be horribly unfair if when you fail to improve your manager decides to move to a formal Performance Improvement Plan, threatening to terminate if you? Good news: Amazon has one of the most employee friendly policies in the business in this regard: you will get to appeal your manager's decision in front of a jury of other engineers (or whatever role you have) who will look at your manager's case and your written rebuttal, interview you both, and decide if your manager is being unfair. If you win that appeal you won't have to do the PIP, your rating will be restored, and you will get that transfer you want. Plus your manager will get to go explain to their manager why they tried to PIP you without adequate grounds. Big "expose". Here's some advice: Pull up your socks and take the feedback you got seriously and actually improve, Amazon isn't a vacation resort.
What percentage of engineers are required to get LE?
What kind of coolaid are you drinking? The OP shows a manager concerned about meeting his quota of LE ratings with no regard for that employee improving. The only reason that manager was worried is because the engineer may move (and possibly succeed in another role) while the manager now has to come up with a new human sacrifice.
Engineered to be toxic
You will know your rating when you see your comp in April, it won't be much of a secret. We definitely communicate your comp which is all that is used for. If you get a big stock grant and a modest raise you were rated TT. If you get a small raise and maybe a few shares you are HV. If you get no raise and no RSU and your manager is talking about your need to improve you are LE.
I don't get it? You are concerned that a business evaluates its employees?
I see a lot of people who think their manager should have no right to judge them. They see the transfer policy at Amazon as a human right and when they are told they can't transfer to escape negative feedback they think it's unfair. Not sure if these folks ever had jobs before.
Ah got it. The life should be fair folks.
TLDR: Amazon is the same as Microsoft was pre-2016, with some improvements. But Microsoft new model is also bad. Curious how other’s have solved this Been a L7 for 1 cycle in Amazon. Was in Microsoft before. Amazon model is exactly the same as Microsoft was 4 years ago with curve stack rank (1 to 5). Microsoft forced managers to put people in the bottom 10% and there was an assumption to make about 3-4% leave for the same reasons amazon has (improve the org). There was no resort to complain as in Amazon Another big difference was in Microsoft people were able to fight across orgs so that a bottom perfomer would end above other org bottom performer . Those meetings were crap as managers who were better at fighting ended up without low performers (rated as 4 instead of 5 during those days). In amazon my experience is that it is much more about other people’s feedback; managers can help some but it is more quantitative. I really dislike the curve model discussion. But Microsoft answer was to give M2 managers a slider to distribute a budget and not force a curve. So what happens is managers peanut-butter a lot, leaving almost no low performers but also having high performers, especially at the higher bands, with less awards. That is because managers are not incentivize to make a hard call. Result is much lower TC for really good people at the 64+. The unspoken part is that HR contacted you to force a curve, but managers rarely complied. Enter the famous Microsoft SSA, to give people who were slightly above the average an extra bump (I believe it was 120% , 100% being on target) I’m not sure what google/apple/FB does but i imagine every company has a budget that they need to divide somehow. Curious to hear how they address this issue and create the perception that this problem doesn’t exists
much exposal. wow.