I applied to AWS Lambda and two days later my manager of two months (who was formerly my skip manager. My manager(s) quit and they couldn't find a replacement for several months, so my team shifted up the report chain.) told me that I had been under performing for the last year and likely put me in Focus [0] which is the precursor to being put in Pivot aka PIP. You can't transfer teams internally when you're in Focus, so I was stuck there.

My team's senior engineer he told me that I was nowhere near under performing during the last org-wide performance review. I received great Forte feedback that year. All of the teammates that I had talked to, and my former manager who was now at another AWS org, told me the situation seemed suspicious especially due to the timing.

I got out as fast as I could after my manager said that I was under performing. I applied to a handful jobs, interviewed, received an offer, and gave my two weeks notice all within 3 weeks of the start of events. Now I'm at RStudio [1] which pays about the same as AWS but has a significantly better culture while still being able to work on interesting projects.

That experience was pretty terrible. My team and former managers had all given me consistently positive feedback. There was always something I could improve, but overall I was a good engineer. My interactions with this manager still make me question if I am competent which isn't the best feeling.

I had a fairly positive experience at AWS up until this chain of events.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/9/22570579/amazon-performanc...

[1] https://www.rstudio.com/