I’ve only worked in the public sector and have only had to PIP people a few times. It’s almost always a sign that you need to get out. I’ve only done it when I’m at wits end with a person. They all ended up quitting before we got to the 90 days but yeah as said it’s basically a CYA move. Likely the people are low performing enough by some measure you can fire them but it’s sort of a last chance thing. And it documents where they need to improve and what they need to do, so all that is good for the employee if they want to improve (and I do believe nobody wants to do a bad job).

Soul searching is easy. The only people who put up with that shit are people who don't feel good enough, so they are begging their master like a dog to please, please like them!!

The cure? Don't allow corporations to set your value, specially not mad and crazy corporations like amazon and space penis.

Do you know is there a built-in per year PIP percentage at AWS? Does PIP involve a severance payment?

Good advice.

No matter how much you might try to "ace" it and put in your best effort, more than 9 out of 10 times, the person will not come out of it. Anything and everything no matter how minor is likely to be used as supporting evidence. So interpret it as a notice of eviction of sorts where they pay you some months to find a new job.

Yes, there are exceptions. Thing is do you want to try your luck with HR?

I had a friend who was put on a PIP at a smallish company. Company had 200+ people, but this satellite office in a different state had about... 8-10, and was run more or less by a single guy. He put my friend on a PIP - which was just... strange, because they'd sort of built up that office on their own initially just the 2 of them, then it grew a bit more. He PIPs he, then leaves a couple weeks later, and no one had any idea how to handle this dangling PIP. IIRC the company just erased it, and she was there for another couple of years after that, with no issues (other than bad pay and shrinking office size).

I got on a (non-Amazon) PIP once for not turning up on many Mondays to many times, and would have passed it (all I had to do was turn up every day I was scheduled to work for a month) but failed because I didn't turn up on NYE (mate convinced me to "stay for one" at Scala) one day before my PIP was supposedly over in the new year (totally my fault).

I feel it would have been possible to work my way out of it, I think different companies use them in different ways.

Ah well, most of the team got poached by Revolut anyway. I find WFH suits me a lot better because as long as I can go to stand up after a heavy weekend (which is a lot easier if you can do it from home) and then achieve above and beyond the rest of the week, there's a lot less anxiety.