I know that there are teams that are doing well. But if one person or more on your team gets pipped every year something is wrong...
There IS an expectation of managers being able to identify the bottom performers in their team, but for the PIP part it's up to the manager. They absolutely can push back and say that no-one in their team deserves to get PIP'ed. They would have to write a reason (i.e. "No one on my team is performing low enough that I'd prefer re-hiring") but that's pretty much it.
Anecdotes on the Internet make it seem like we are all scared at review time to see who is going to get PIP'ed, but that's just not how it is...
What I'm hearing from others is this... there are good teams at amazon... amazon is huge but the overall culture is not what you describe. I guess I'm looking for a more overall picture rather then someone viewing it from the perspective of a good team.
>They absolutely can push back and say that no-one in their team deserves to get PIP'ed
You realize that a pip is not normal? Even one person getting PIP'ed on a team is is an event and abnormal. The fact that a manager has to "push back" for not pip-ing somone raises a red flag for me.
> Not saying that it's the same for every SDE...
I think my initial comment had enough disclaimer to make it clear that I don't think this is applicable to every team at Amazon.
> You realize that a pip is not normal? Even one person getting PIP'ed on a team is is an event and abnormal. The fact that a manager has to "push back" for not pip-ing somone raises a red flag for me.
Every company I worked at had some form of "performance improvement plan" that essentially meant "pick up the pace or we will have to discuss options". The idea that on a team of 20 people, during the span of a year, not a single employee (expected rate is ~5%) is underperforming is worthy of writing a justification.
EDIT: Re-reading your comment I think I understand why you think this is so weird.
> The fact that a manager has to "push back" for not pip-ing somone raises a red flag for me.
You don't have to push-back not pip-ing a specific employee, but you will have to justify why no-one on your 20+ people team got PIP'ed during the year. Is that clearer?
Disagree. The measure of the entire performance of the team will always be a bell curve distribution. Even pruning the lowest performers doesn't change the bell curve. Think about it. You remove the lowest performer, that switches the lowest to another person on that team who's now at risk of pip.
Here's a way to evaluate the team in a way that makes sense. Ask the manager if he thinks someone needs to be PIP'd rather then asking the manager "who's your pick of PIP for the year? if you don't have one you better justify it"
Maybe so, but the probability that the manager will have to write a justification is rather high (35.8% each year).
