I've been an Amazon SDE and an Amazon SDM. I enjoyed my time as an SDE, luckily free from these horror stories. After having been an SDM, I understand how these horror stories can form.
Generally, Amazon has two minds about performance management. In written documentation, it's all about whether your reports meet the role guidelines. The written documentation is solid. They share how to evaluate people objectively and how to minimize bias. Verbally, it's all about numbers and probability. The organization wants X number of people to leave this year, to do that they want Y number of people in performance improvement plans.
There is an intense pressure to force a certain amount of attrition each year. While Amazon may claim stack ranking doesn't exist, Amazon uses rating and calibration mechanisms to learn who you think as a manager are your lowest performers. As a manager, you get verbal (never written) lashings from your manager and skip manager to put the lowest performers on performance plans that ensure that any attrition counts. As soon as you capitulate, your lowest performer is now considered a low performer.
As an SDM, I wanted to maintain the illusion of great Amazon culture for my team. Behind the scenes, I spent a lot of time advocating for my team and trying to poke holes in the performance ratings of other teams. It was exhausting. There are certainly a lot of shortcuts I could have taken like putting potential internal transfers on performance management, but did not. I feel bad for the LinkedIn poster here, I think he had a lazy manager.
Generally, Amazon has two minds about performance management. In written documentation, it's all about whether your reports meet the role guidelines. The written documentation is solid. They share how to evaluate people objectively and how to minimize bias. Verbally, it's all about numbers and probability. The organization wants X number of people to leave this year, to do that they want Y number of people in performance improvement plans.
There is an intense pressure to force a certain amount of attrition each year. While Amazon may claim stack ranking doesn't exist, Amazon uses rating and calibration mechanisms to learn who you think as a manager are your lowest performers. As a manager, you get verbal (never written) lashings from your manager and skip manager to put the lowest performers on performance plans that ensure that any attrition counts. As soon as you capitulate, your lowest performer is now considered a low performer.
As an SDM, I wanted to maintain the illusion of great Amazon culture for my team. Behind the scenes, I spent a lot of time advocating for my team and trying to poke holes in the performance ratings of other teams. It was exhausting. There are certainly a lot of shortcuts I could have taken like putting potential internal transfers on performance management, but did not. I feel bad for the LinkedIn poster here, I think he had a lazy manager.