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Should this be acceptable?
Intentionally not going into level/TCT for anonymity. I just want to share my story for the benefit of the community. Context: I have spent 11 yrs at Amazon in a leadership role, and saw myself working there for a long long time. I believed in the culture and was proud to be an Amazonian. When the New York Times article came out that highlighted employee abuse, I thought it was an exaggeration of isolated incidents. I believed in Amazon’s culture, but I also acknowledged that empathy towards employees was missing from the culture. Main story: During my tenure, I met the bar every single year, had never been rated LE (least effective, a poor performer that does not meet the Amazon bar). A year ago I was told I am doing really well and am on a path to promotion. Then few months later, out of the blue in our one on one my mgr (L8+) told me that my performance has fallen below the bar, and I cannot move to another team without additional approvals. I knew that meant I was put in focus (Amazon’s formal performance management process). I was not given any indication of performance issues prior to this one on one. The very first time I heard it was directly after being put in focus. I was in a state of shock and disbelief. I debated against the assessment. My manager told me not to worry too much as I was only slightly below the bar. They said it will be a quick in and out of focus within a month. I felt wronged that I was not given any heads up and opportunity to fix things before they became this formal. I also felt betrayed by the mixed message that I am on path to promotion and within a few months of that was given a totally opposite message. I kept quiet for most part and paid attention to demonstrating strong performance. I ended up spending a total of three months in focus and came out of it successfully. After I came out of focus something else happened - I began to experience very severe levels of anxiety. The anxiety was completely debilitating on the days I had one on ones with my manager. I just could not function on those days until after the one on one was over. Many months passed and the anxiety did not go away, it only seemed to get worse. I constantly worried about the effects of the anxiety on my performance. During those months I slipped in a dark place of deep suffering and poor mental health. I felt that the only way to end my suffering was to leave Amazon. I gave up on my intent to say there for long time and started making serious effort towards interview preparations. I lined up a number of interviews. As I was going through the interviews my anxiety vanished completely. That was a clear sign that leaving Amazon was the right thing for me. I shared with my mentor (L8+) about my manager’s sudden and abrupt performance message, and was advised that I should confront my manager and let them know that in future this kind of surprise should never ever happen again. I confronted my manager, they accepted their mistake, took full responsibility and apologized for what had happened. They stated that my current performance was strong and I had nothing to worry about. Prior to all of this, I deeply respected my manager and felt we had a great relationship. I wonder if what happened was a result of pressure to meet a top down focus/PIP quota for the org. After this experience I lost trust in my manager, and the way employees are managed at Amazon. I recollected that after the New York Times article Amazon stopped giving out employee performance ratings. Managers were told to center the annual review conversation around employee strength (super powers), and all employees were assessed to be doing well. There was no discussion on performance curves or poor performer quotas to be met. This change lasted for two years after the New York Times article. When the dust from that article settled, the performance ratings were brought back. Along with that came doubled quota for identifying poor performers and managing them out unless they turned around (at least in my org the quota were doubled to make up for previous years) . To me and my peers this seemed draconian and out of touch with reality. We were told we have to make up for the previous year. I was able to defend everyone in my team. But, lost my mental peace during that time. It was a really nasty period for a few months. There were long weekly meetings with HR and the leadership for defending performances of every engineer in the org. In hindsight, perhaps that was the time I should have left Amazon. That’s it, that’s all I wanted to share. If you have read this far, thank you for listening to my story. All I wanted to do was share my experience with the community. #amazon
Did you move to Lyft recently?
No.
Are you sure you specifically replied to this comment 😜
Thank you for sharing your experience. Any tips for current and future Amazon employees? What to do? What not to do? Is Amazon worth joining at all?
Avoid . It’s soul crusher .
In my experience Amazon is a place to learn from and move on.
sounds like a shite place to work
I’m full time remote with Fridays off. How would that go over at SpaceX?
Every Friday off? How come?
Thank you for sharing. I’m sorry you experienced this. Yet it is something I have seen time and time again in my 17 years in tech. The human impact is never considered. Just the metrics, bottom line, okr, etc. That it was out of the blue makes it even more egregious. Do you think your manager did that to meet quota knowing you’d exit Focus and continue to be a strong performer?
I am assuming that might have been the case.
So terrible. I hope you are practicing self care and thriving.
Damn. Amazon is a soul crusher. Thanks for sharing
@Intuit - That’s so unwarranted for. Can you not use your anonymity for unnecessary trolling?
I admire you highlighting the issue what is raging inside many folks who were put on Focus once . It’s more like a Trauma that won’t go away . I can feel & understand you. The only way out is leaving the toxic culture .
What percentage of Amazon employees do you think were in focus at some point in time? Is it common to end up in focus for a few months?
Most org bigger than 50 folks are asked to laid 6% . But to do 6% you need to keep backups too. What if someone during ficus leaves ? Or someone come out of focus ? You need to fill that position. Roughly 17-20% folks are marked as NI ( Needs Improvement) and are feed to Focus Quota
Glad you came out okay and hope you keep doing well. Never worked at Amazon myself but have heard sooo many horror stories from ex-AWS ppl who joined Oracle and friends around Seattle in general. Wish you the best.
Please take care of yourself. Find another opportunity asap, once the trust is lost you wont recover from it.
dude, stfu, he said he wouldn’t address that for anonymity. In an Amazon leadership position that recently departed or thinks about departing, that makes sense. This culture of TC or GTFO is not needed
Read the post . Don’t comment for the sake of commenting .