Comment by boisenberrier | Hacker News Reader

Comment by boisenberrier | Hacker News Reader

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So you’ve been close to one person getting fired? How do you have an opinion on the PIP process or firing at all if you have next to no experience with it?

I knew a guy at a FAANG who earned himself and his report a PIP for the grave sin of choosing the wrong deputy to send upstairs while he was on vacation. The deputized person went to one meeting and ran his mouth (arguably, told the truth). Both are no longer at the company.

PIP politics are absolutely routine in FAANG and if you’re arguing the other side you don’t know. FAANG is actively trying to fire or replace you at all times. I’ve worked at two so I can’t speak for three, but I’ve also worked for the two in that older acronym that you’d think of as the “nicest”. People read that that and probably hear me saying “giant evil entity is out to get you”, but it’s really middle managers cosplaying Kings Landing in the office, mostly unchecked, that does it.

Seriously; people want to work at a FAANG/MAMAA or whatever so they often assume it’s good. I had someone ask me if I noticed how light my calendar was now that the org considered me irrelevant. There’s an idea that FAANG is a bunch of nerds with glasses cooking up cool shit in a Zen commune with ambient drone music but it’s honestly some of the worst office politics I’ve ever seen across what is now two careers, and the PIP process is a big tool in that kit.

I worked at a FAANG for 3 years and I'm pretty sure no one I worked with was on a PIP. A PIP is extreme. It's sufficient to simply not give people raises, most people can and will easily find another job earning 10% more.

How would you really know? People don't usually talk publicly about their PIP.

I went from long time IC to manager at a faang adjacent company. It was eye opening to see who was on a PIP and go through calibrations.

There were well liked, competent people who others on the team got along with but they just were not delivering at the expected level. Sometimes the problem was lack of motivation or bad role fit.

> but they just were not delivering at the expected level. Sometimes the problem was lack of motivation or bad role fit.

Another i think is when management doesn't understand that someone is, in your wording, a "well liked, competent person", doesn't adequately understand what they bring to the team. Performance reviews, especially of ICs but not exclusively, have a bias towards perceived individual contribution and against teamwork.

Um, this is an antonymous forum, wouldn't you expect many comments from people that were PIPed if it was a very common thing?

Sure, but that doesn't give you any information about your particular company or team. In my experience, how aggressive companies are about "performance management" (using PIPs but this can also include other strategies like layoffs and outright firing) varies quite a lot.

I've worked at a FAANG for almost 5 years. I know probably a dozen or two people who have been PIP'd. I even know one guy who was PIP'd twice and then left when he was given his third PIP.

This sounds awful. Disrespectful. Glad I never worked for a FAANG.

The smartest person I ever met at Google got PIP'ed, and a few of the engineers from my vintage did as well.

Been at one of FAANG for a few years. Never saw this play out. Sounds like something that is more likely to happen on the management side than it is the IC side…

Most ICs are pretty well insulated from this, because if they understood what went on at calibration a lot of good contributors would become pretty bitter.

Thank goodness ICs never see the top-level calibration with the executives. It's the most insane, ill-informed drive-by management I've ever experienced.

I had a lot of managers and higher level ICs explain calibration and rage quit (although it was long overdue) after an unfairly low review. There were extreme politics happening at the time that the current ED laid out to me in an exit conversation, and most of it came into play. I should have made way more money off of my contributions than I did but didn't play politics, and honestly, given my role and position could not. I was a resource and not a player:)

FINALLY someone on this thread that understands politics and freaking understands that human beings are not spherical and frictionless.

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