6 months in, SDE I, fresh out of onboarding (100% remote), and my manager marked me as "needs improvement" during Forte so I'm gathering that I'm pre-PIPed. couple things: 1. is it even worth fighting? I'm not officially PIP-ed, but it feels like the only way to make goals is to work 12 hour days and cut tons of corners. I could meet goals if I knew what I was doing, but the onboarding consists of a word doc with wiki links and a time limit to master it so I'm just piecing things together as I go. 2. team has been unhelpful in learning process, referring me to an outdated wiki if I ask questions. My onboarding buddy only answers my questions directly. "that goes there" "its in the file" "that ID goes in this box", but no info on what any of that means unless I really press for it. is this normal? 3. my manager is piling on extra tasks, side projects, engineering requests, certifications, and trainings even though I'm doing poorly and setting tight deadlines for all these. He was promoted from an IC to manager just after I joined, so I was transferred to him recently. My concern is he's tossing me under the bus to look good as a fresh manager. Is that too tinfoil-hat? 4. if they fire me, do I still have to pay back the pro-rated part of the signing bonus or do they waive it if they toss me lol #pip
Are you a returning intern?
Nope, first rodeo at Amazon. Hired off a recruiter.
What blows my mind is that Amazon tells you are special and they only hire one out of 200... then you are trained for 3 months and on three months of actual work someone unilaterally decide you have to go. Something is rotten with the selection process, on boarding and managers which gives these surprises without guidance
Damn
A good manager can help identify real concrete ways to get you up to speed. Folks starting up during the pandemic definitely struggle more to get up to speed, and you should try to understand if there are major gaps in expectations or if this is meant as motivating feedback.
It's definitely been difficult to ramp up given that my only contact to the team is Slack which is highly... ignorable. I only get informed about expectations after I've missed them, which is unfair as someone genuinely trying to do my best with what I've got. Feels like a losing fight.
That sucks. You should be able to have an onboarding buddy who will hop on calls with you
Cut your emotional loses and start doing leetcode and start interviewing other places.
You don’t payback the pro-rated sign-on even if you resigned. You only payback the rest of relocation package if you had (pro-rated on 2 years)
You don’t payback relocation if you are fired. Only if you resign voluntarily you pay back.
If they pip you and offer severance, then you have to sign saying you left voluntarily.
The worse thing you can do right now is to fight the process. You are simply the sacrificial lamb. Start slacking so you can Leetcode hard.
Manager here. Sorry to hear. Talk to you manager and see what goals are put forth. Before PIP you will be in Focus. About 50% people come out of Focus and don't go to PIP. If you don't have visa issues I would recommend moving out. If you need to discuss more feel free to DM me.
20% in focus, out of those 15% are pip targets. 50% survival rate is wrong.
How can Amazon managers live with themselves? Honest question. From all the horror stories of PIP that I've heard, it seems like almost all managers are out to get you. What is up with that?
Ah, I just meant I'm six months in and this is my first performance review post-onboarding
Being in the on call rotation isn't the same thing as fully onboarding. Would you say you were producing at full capacity after 2 months?
Why does anyone try to work for amazon? They seem like a horribly managed and run company
I'm not on a visa and I had other offers, I'm just a fool lmao. I wanted some Big Tech experience after working startups. "Those horror stories about Amazon can't all be true, I'm sure it depends on your team!", ah sweet summer child.
Same. I even turned down Square and Roblox to join Amazon for the name.
LC and jump
LC?
Leetcode