There’s a lot which doesn’t add up here — there are URA targets at Amazon, they are usually 6%, but I’ve almost never seen those create tragedies where you LE a high performer or exit a manager who brings enough details.
What does “almost never” mean? There were a handful of cases where it did happen?
The usual response to these stories is “well Amazon is a big company. My team was amazing”. Fair enough, but given the frequency of similar stories and given that most people only likely experienced a small part of what Amazon is, I’m finding these stories somewhat credible.
Partly because I new a guy in AWS who started of with the "it's ok", "my team is one of the good ones", "it's not that toxic", "perhaps I'm lucky" ... and within 5 years he left after his doctor told him that the stress had caused him lasting physiological damage that he would never fully recover from.
AWS != Amazon (e.g., retail; Prime; Alexa). For persons saying things like "I didn't experience this" + "I worked in AWS," this may be because it is quite common on the Amazon side. Managers routinely make up reasons for placement on PIP, for fear of losing their own job as well as outright narcissism. Like a cult.
In hindsight it's probably the greatest gift one can experience. The earlier one learns where they don't want to work and/or what "managers" they will not work for, the better.
Meanwhile, incompetent managers climb the ranks of "leadership" via lies, embellishment, and bullying. For Amazon, it helps explain why all their products and services are clumsy and chronically broken. The people Amazon treats so poorly, the ones who actually make high-value products and services, just won't return.
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[ 10.7 ms ] story [ 556 ms ] threadSource: I was an L8 in AWS.
The usual response to these stories is “well Amazon is a big company. My team was amazing”. Fair enough, but given the frequency of similar stories and given that most people only likely experienced a small part of what Amazon is, I’m finding these stories somewhat credible.
Partly because I new a guy in AWS who started of with the "it's ok", "my team is one of the good ones", "it's not that toxic", "perhaps I'm lucky" ... and within 5 years he left after his doctor told him that the stress had caused him lasting physiological damage that he would never fully recover from.
AWS != Amazon (e.g., retail; Prime; Alexa). For persons saying things like "I didn't experience this" + "I worked in AWS," this may be because it is quite common on the Amazon side. Managers routinely make up reasons for placement on PIP, for fear of losing their own job as well as outright narcissism. Like a cult.
In hindsight it's probably the greatest gift one can experience. The earlier one learns where they don't want to work and/or what "managers" they will not work for, the better.
Meanwhile, incompetent managers climb the ranks of "leadership" via lies, embellishment, and bullying. For Amazon, it helps explain why all their products and services are clumsy and chronically broken. The people Amazon treats so poorly, the ones who actually make high-value products and services, just won't return.