TLDR: new grad -> Amazon -> things go downhill -> PIPd (on work visa) -> received multiple offers. --------------------------------------------------- I started at Amazon as a college hire, moved to Seattle. The Seattle Freeze is real but got through it. I like to do outdoor stuff so PNW is an awesome place for me. I became really good friends with my teammates, they were all cool and super fun. My then manager left 2 weeks after my joining. I worked under the skip mngr for 6 months and was bored AF because I was just working on fixes and no new projects, no weekly 1:1s, no assigned mentor. I tried to switch teams internally at this 6-month mark. My interview skills were a bit rusty by now, so didn't quite easily get into another team, also was demotivated after 1-2 rejections. 8 months into the team, there is a tiny reshuffling. I get more senior engineers in my team, I get assigned a project where I play a key role. Things get interesting, I start learning new stuff, delivering more. 1 year in this team, Skip hires a new manager. Excited that finally will have recurring 1:1s and better scope for promotion. Turns out, I don't like him. Everyone is starting to get annoyed by him. He interrupts everyone in the meetings, trying to showcase himself. 1:1s look like another standup, more so like I'm going on a 30min one-sided interview every week. He makes me feel how insignificant my contributions have been and the team projects in themselves are pretty small as compared to what he has worked on. He is going to up the game now! More time passes by, I smell his blatant lies about every little thing, be it promotion or deliverable deadlines, etc. He asks everyone to work on weekends or holidays. The project delivered had a lot of issues because it was so hurried that we missed a few things during the planning phase. OnCall load has now increased, the team has to bug bash 2x a month to maintain the ticket count. I continue to work on my stuff. All of a sudden one of my teammates dies due to covid, he was the best person I've ever met, we were tight, I just can't take it. My manager in our 1:1 two days later: "I can understand you guys must be close but know such things happen in life, we have to move on. I understand yesterday you wouldn't be able to work due to this sad news, but how's the work coming along otherwise?" O.o I now know I've to leave this team or maybe Amazon is not the right place for me, so I give an interview at Azure. I get rejected, again demotivated, and just continue doing my daily work. One of my teammates is put on the Focus plan now and they are going to quit, I decide it's time to move to another team. This time I get 4 internal offers. I choose one and tell my manager that I'll be moving to another team. My manager smiles and agrees. A day later the prospective manager backs out stating that he received pretty negative feedback about me from my current manager. I'm shocked! I feel I'm being immobilized, so I contact HR. Turns out they were going to contact me because they have received complaints about the manager and are collecting every member's feedback. I try once again to switch to another team and I successfully get in. This time my manager did not become a hurdle but still tried to retain me by saying they are planning my promo in the next quarter, I could straight away see through this BS and took no more to switch to this new team. Day1 in this new team, ready for a fresh start, the manager is nice to me, getting to know product/team members, well team members seem off/disconnected, but not every team is the same and I'm still pretty new here, let me give it enough time. 1 week in the new team, my manager is regretting hiring me. In our second 1:1, he says he received negative feedback from my previous manager and so I should not think of promotion this year, I need to show my strengths and deliver. Shocked again! Is Forte rating of no use? There is no hope for me at Amazon. 3 weeks into this team, my new manager asks me to bug fix a colleague's issue which they are not able to fix. I understand their system and come up with a solution skipping my meals and working from 9 am to 4 am the next day. The morning during the standup, this new manager yells at me stating how I didn't take ownership and didn't communicate the progress of this critical work to him and this is the exact same feedback that he got from my previous manager. Wait, what! I was directly communicating with the stakeholders, sorry that I missed communicating the same to you. Was it so wrong? Nope, I've been just tagged. All hopes are lost at amazon. I know pip is coming so I start my interview prep. (Meanwhile, another teammate from my previous team gets PIPd. What is going on!) I get put in focus 3 months into this team, which is fair as I didn't deliver much after the last event. I start interviewing, Focus gets converted to PIP in a month. I'm all stressed out and would just take any job because I'm on a work visa. Right now going through my pip, I have received 6 offers few of which have much higher TC than my current one. I've my fingers crossed for a smooth H1B visa transition. I feel I've been scarred but I never want this kind of experience again. Maybe I'm naive, maybe Amazon will deem me a slacker/incompetent. Some will say my approach in handling the situation was not correct. But at least I can reassess myself with a fresh start. Adios Amazon! Current TC: 150K Max offered TC: 330K (not considering this over WLB) Accepted offer TC: 240K
Tech Industry
Yesterday
535
Jensens works 7 days a week and wakes up at 6am
AMA
Yesterday
2028
I just laid off 500+ people to keep my TC. AMA
Tech Industry
Yesterday
10880
Elon Musk had sex with SpaceX intern
Personal Finance
Yesterday
1791
Officially a multi-millionaire
Personal Finance
Yesterday
717
how to retire on 2 million, practical solution
Tldr, but congrats on the higher comp offer
330k company? And accepted company?
> "All of a sudden one of my teammates dies due to covid, he was the best person I've ever met, we were tight, I just can't take it. My manager in our 1:1 two days later: "I can understand you guys must be close but you know such things happen in life, we have to move on. I understand yesterday you wouldn't be able to work due to this sad news, but how's the work coming along otherwise?"" Holy shittt 😶😶😶
Spitting on this guy's gravestone, wtf
You deserve to get pipped. You literally rejected a 330k offer over 240k one for wlb ? 90k difference is huge.
It's a unicorn startup, stocks are mostly paper money, although it's a successful one! I chose something more stable.
OP dont listen to him, there is so much more to life than TC. And I am not surprised that the only person to have a negative opinion, to your story, here is from Amazon. Good luck to you!
How many YOE do you have OP? Could you name the company you got the 330k offer from?
WTF, seems like both your teams were hella toxic. Never heard of a manager yelling at someone during standup for such a small thing. Also, working at Weekends and after hours is never okay. Glad you got the new offers OP, get out of there. Amazon seems hell bent on not giving you a new start.
This is why Google asks Leetcode hard DP even for engineering managers with 20 YOE. It prevents non-technical managers with interiority complex from getting in. As long as Amazon keeps hiring non technical managers, the culture there will remain bad.
Good for you, keep your chin up. Amazon is famous for f’ing people over. Glad you got out of that.
Thank you :)
Your post put me to sleep. Way too long! But I am glad you are doing well.
Thanks, TLDR was for you. Gn :)