A Former Amazon Worker Was Put a Performance Plan; Lost a Deposit on a House | Hacker News Reader

A Former Amazon Worker Was Put a Performance Plan; Lost a Deposit on a House

businessinsider.com

23 pointsuladzislau41 comments

You really shouldn't be making purchases assuming you'll have a FAANG salary forever. As we've seen, layoffs will come, random PIP come, and you might be forced to take a huge pay cut. Worst case, you'll be unemployed. Sure you can sell, but you'll have to hope the housing market has stayed good, and that you've made up for all of the fixed costs when buying and selling. It's often not worth it until you've owned it for several years. That's not even considering the stress of buying/selling, or how it locks you into one geographical location. Cool offer in SF? Hope you don't mind going through the process again.

Exactly how are you supposed to buy a house without a steady FAANG salary for 30 years?

You probably just don't? If you really want to, wait until you're married with dual income and buy significantly under your budget. That might mean a longer commute and your kids sharing a room, but you won't be having panic attacks during every performance review for the next three decades.

So I commute 3 hours a day, to a job I work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week for, while my son and daughter are sharing a room...

When I left grad school in 1997, the biggest problem me and my friends had was figuring out whether or not Microsoft, Intel, Google, or Amazon had the best stock option package. Was it going to be 4, or 5 years before we'd be able to buy a million dollar house?

Now the advice is to just roll over. Lets call it what it is: POVERTY

Let's call your 90s example what we now know it was: a bubble.

Software engineering salaries are substantially above the US mean and those that receive them are on track to be solidly upper middle class. They're not so high that you are free to make irresponsible financial decisions with no consequences.

Two points:

1. Most of the companies on that list are more profitable now than they were back then, and

2. My grandfather was a janitor, who never made more than $50 a week, and his kids never had to share a bedroom. He was able to buy a house and put his kids through college.

Its been several generations since we've had an economy which actually functions the way its supposed to. Half the people alive have never experienced it and really lack a frame or reference here.

The sad truth is that the era of our grandfathers (the Fordist era, as a shorthand) was an insane anomaly in the history of political economy. That doesn't mean we shouldn't work to bring it back, but it was grandpa and his peers that got lucky, not us who got unlucky.

The laws were also different though. Trickle down economics is a fairly “new” concept (and total failure) and that has certainly fucked the economy up. By cutting taxes to the wealthy (among the many other laws that benefits corporations over individuals, etc) the gap/disparity between the haves and have nots has increased tremendously. A vacuum salesman in the 70s/80s could afford a house, children, etc. I don’t think they were lucky but they also didn’t have the chips stacked against them.

The reason I have a hard time with the luck theory is that companies are far more profitable, and workers are far more productive today than they were back then.

So why all the advice for tech workers to just accept that they have to live in poverty. And yeah, that's the word for it. The recommended lifestyle is not recognizable as anything like middle class. Don't buy a home. Don't go to college or send your kids to college. Commute from somewhere we don't have to see you or associate with you.

Agreed that we are wealthier now as a planet and a country than during the Fordist era, but that's why it's called political economy. Our society is richer but labor is worse off. This is in line with historical norms throughout almost all of recorded history. Tyranny and poverty are the rule, not the exception.

I agree that this state of affairs is unacceptable but from my perspective it's just good luck that my grandpa was able to live during the era he did. He certainly didn't plan it that way!

Well, I’m glad we can agree that the current situation is unacceptable—my grandfather, who was a janitor, would have been ashamed if that’s how his family had to live. OTOH, my other grandfather, who belonged to a union, fought hard so that his family didn’t have to live like that.

Americans used to make their own luck.

The problem isn't pay, the problem is the cost of housing(and education). Even if everyone got a 3x pay raise we would probably see a 4x increase in housing costs because fundamentally there is a supply issue. Until politicians are ready to tank the housing market by either investing in public housing, up zoning, deregulating, etc. the problem will never get better. You can still participate in the system if you want, but I refuse to take on life ruining risk to join a rat-race where lead poisoned boomer home owners get to squeeze me for 50% of my salary every month. If we lived in a sane economy with good labor protections(like the eu), or fair housing prices(like Tokyo) then we could talk about it.

"insane anomaly" = "solid progress that we've since backslid on"

Sure, I'm not against widespread middle class prosperity, just annoyed when people present their greatest generation parents as an example of a norm that we are failing to meet. It wasn't normal, it was extremely bizarre. If we want to make that progress back, we'll have to do lots of radical stuff. Labor will have to be militant again, or we'll need some kind of external pressure like an ascendant USSR, or both, and it still may not be possible. It certainly won't happen just voting for Democrats every two years.

> So I commute 3 hours a day, to a job I work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week for, while my son and daughter are sharing a room...

bay area market is crowded with young folks with faang salaries who are willing to share rent with several others. Would you consider moving to some other place with possible salary reduction?

You can call it a FAANG salary if it makes you feel better, but if you can't afford your own place, you are not in the middle class, you are living in poverty.

> moving to some other place with possible salary reduction

Well, we just proved that pretty much everybody in tech can work remote, with no effect on the profitability of the companies, so why should there be a reduction in salary working some place else?

> you are not in the middle class, you are living in poverty.

I agree with you, certain areas in US are very expensive and FAANG salary may not be enough to fit middle class definition.

> we just proved that pretty much everybody in tech can work remote, with no effect on the profitability of the companies

Which companies? Some companies(FAANG and ecosystem) benefited from COVID because of significant market shifts online and this is not relevant to remote job, but I am not sure about many other companies. Also, another impact on revenue was fiscal policies (0 rates), and there can be cooldown soon too.

> Which companies?

Software companies for sure, but I was working at a Stock Brokerage/FinTech/Media company in NYC when covid hit, and pretty much everybody from admins to sales to execs were working remote--and were actually MORE productive, inasmuch a they didn't arrive pre-exhausted from a train ride from Jersey.

Some jobs (janitorial, manufacturing) can't be remote, but I can't name a single tech or service-sector company which was materially affected by remote work, can you?

I think you can make ideal employee more productive (reduce commute and all office life bs), but the major risk is bad actors: dudes who "silently quit", work 3 jobs or just getting lazy at home without manager watching their backs constantly. CEOs probably have some internal metrics, and make decisions based on them.

I can relate. I hate the situation I am in, and I am too reserved to make risky changes. It sucks. I have lost trust in Tech.

That’s what we did. We should have bought sooner, we would have saved a lot. But we’re happy owning now and not having to worry about what rent will be next year. Hopefully in a few years we’ll refinance at a lower rate and have a lot more principal paid down.

If you’re having kids and you want a big place (we want neither), there are plenty of places in the country where houses (big ones) are a quarter of what they are in the Bay, Seattle, etc. Sure, you won’t be making $350k/year as a senior but the schools will be excellent, your kids will be safer and if one of you lose your jobs it won’t matter because you’ll have a massive emergency fund and lower expenses.

> dual income

> kids

Pick one!

What do you mean? You can have kids and two working parents.

You can have 10 kids as a single parent. Doesn't mean its a good idea.

I picked single income, two kids and a mortgage. Oops!

Just lawyer and closing costs of a house can be 2 percent of the house. Do this two or three times (one to buy new, one to sell, and one final to buy the downgrade) is easily 6 percent of a house.

So the house needs to go up 6 percent just to break even in the most ideal scenario.

Typical transaction costs for a sale with agents are 6% before closing costs.

Meh, the lawyers I've dealt with for real estate only charge between $1.5k-$3k per transaction since it's largely all boilerplate review for them that they do a lot.

It's the real estate agent that take a 6% cut. Lol

Big clue: the trouble came when he was helping an overcharged customer. At the same time, he must have been exposing bad management (or even fraudulent management) which caused the overcharge in the first place. Ergo, he must be discredited. Ergo, he must be a loser. Ergo, he must be fired.

To be clear, he did not lose the deposit on the house because he was put on a performance plan. He lost the deposit on the house because his ability to finish the house he was building was predicated on his salary, which is a normal requirement when you apply for a mortgage.

He says:

> My wife and I decided to sell our house, take the money, and use it to build a bigger house because we have a large family.

This seems to actually mean 'we decided to sell our house, take the money and use it as a deposit on a loan for a bigger house'. As I understand, he did not actually have the cash to buy the bigger house.

> So I lost my job. I was building a house. I lost my house because I couldn't close on that. I lost $110,000 that there's no way I'm going to get back.

He did not 'lose' his job. He quit. He mentions that he processed a big refund for a customer—it's indeed possible that this caused him to be flagged for closer scrutiny. He mentions that he refused to shadow other TAMs to see what they do. He mentions behaviour from his manager which is broadly consistent with how a manager would treat an underperformer (minuted references to failures to meet documented expectations).

His deposit is big but he's building a house. It's not the construction firms' fault he can't follow through, and it is reasonable that he 'loses' it (although again, the circumstances here are a bit unclear—he doesn't have anything at all to show for that money? Not even the land?)

I'm no big Amazon fan, but this seems a bit of a storm in a teacup. He chose not to follow the recommendations of his manager when he was on a PIP, decided to take matters into his own hands and resign, collected a severance package, and now complains that he can't get a mortgage any more now he doesn't have a job.

You're under the assumption that the PIP process is fair. I'm a former AWS employee (never on PIP) but I've seen it being applied to very smart and capable individuals. It's just a game of what manager likes you.

It is also well known that Amazon has (or has had) target attrition percentages. Managers are expected to oust a quota.

The only blame the author deserves is the financial leap of faith that he'd hit the big time by landing a job at Amazon.

I had a similar experience, but I joined AWS support, in a pretty challenging role (big data profile).

My first 3 months were training (almost none of it on any big data technologies) taking cases and working with other support engineers.

The role itself was very demanding, very little prep with the transition to the actual role, and I felt lost most of the time. Learning how AWS puts their services together was most of the challenge and to be honest the and my manager (normal IT guy) didn't really understand the basics or complexity of the cases we were dealing with at all from several conversations I had with him. He oversimplified just about everything.

At some point in time 6 months into the role, he decides to move to a different area. My new manager was like "oh I see you are on a performance improvement program". This was the first I had ever heard of it. After explaining myself to the new manager and doing a few kickass cases for very large customers, I was actually sent on training at Amazon HQ and from there I never looked back, and ended up becoming a global big data SME in professional services. So from there point of view I was worth the investment (especially at ~2-3500 a day billable to customers!).

But I'll never forget that my manager wanted me out after only 6 months, working with some of the most difficult customers and most difficult support cases I think AWS support has to deal with..

A new tam finds a “huge” overcharge. Most AWS billing is automated - I think a bit more detail would be helpful on this huge overcharge and refund. For new folks maybe run it up to manager early to figure out approach / insure understanding is good? Hard not to see a link to AWS unhappiness there potentially- and no doubt places did overhire too. Be curious about actual timing - there was a tightening up at a lot of places not too long ago and stealth layoffs via pips etc

> But I never thought I would be pushed out.

Famous last words.

Tldr. Never, ever take a tam role at Amazon. My leadership actually told me to avoid that role when I worked at Amazon as I was curious about more customer facing roles.

Tangential nitpick: huh, a sentence or two per paragraph. This is like reading a Twitter thread, but hey long Twitter threads always grinds my gears, so putting everything in 1 article is a lot better. But geez, it's like an article from BuzzFeed (the part that wasn't award-winning) or written by a 5th grader.

Any company that pays much higher than the average for the same role should be considered as a temporary job and should be used to enhance savings goals. In giant corporations you either move up or you move out.

We had something called a PIP - it was used to get rid of people instead of helping them.

When his manager was documenting every interaction this guy was already in Focus. Amazon has a secret stage where they don't tell you that you are in the program, but they'll block a team change if you try to move.

Also, their policy is to not deny it if directly questioned, so if you are at Amazon and you see this excessive documentation - immediately ask your manager if you are in Focus and if you hear a yes - start interviewing.

It sounds like maybe this guy's manager didn't like him and that the job was loaded with near-impossible expectations so that just about any managerial decision could be spun as someone being fired for cause.

But the story style is a mess of disconnected quotes that read as if the journalist clipped half the text in a blog or forum post almost at random, then hit publish. The guy sold his house, lost $100k on a deposit for another property, his wife is upset and confused about the whole thing, and I can't help getting the impression that he blew up or burnt out because the vibes were bad? Guy sounds somewhat unstable to tbqh, it could be that he's very personable in some respects but still impossible to work with. His refusal to take any kind of severance and throwing away a 6 figure home deposit made me think of compulsive gamblers and similar personalities.

I'm generally pretty cynical about corporations and employment but in this case I ended sympathizing with his manager and even more so with his still-confused wife.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com