Cronyism at it worst

I've done two tours of Amazon about 15 years apart (slow learner). My last job I lasted 18 months. I was hired in as a mid level manager to build up a new engineering team supporting several dev teams. A new VP was brought over from another org. It looked good. The new VP was well liked and respected in the old org and I thought he would bring stability to our org.

Almost immediately my manager and most of the other managers in my org were gone, either fired, quit, or they transferred. The only folks left were the principals and the managers that actually wrote the services. All those vacancies were filled by the cronies from the VP's old org. I was not totally clued in by what was happening as I had 6 head counts to fill and I couldn't find people and when I did find qualified candidates, I couldn't convince them to work for Amazon. My team was underperforming because we were so short-handed.

OLRs roll in and I realized how badly I played the politics. All the transfers from the VP's old org have dozens of reviews from each other praising their adherence to the Amazon values while most of original workers were treated more harshly. I had one person on my team that transferred in from the other org and he was praised by all while he was a mid performer on the team. My high performer, who didn't play the politics, was judged very harshly. These two had worked on the same projects with mixed outcomes one got an "Exceeds" with a serious stock grant, and the other got "Needs Improvement", no stock. There was nothing I could do to help my high performer, the "data" had spoken, and he promptly left. I realized I had painted myself into a corner and soon followed. They like to call it "Raising the Bar", but it isn't. They lose too many good people who don't play the game and reward mid performers that know whose ass to kiss. The very nature of the reviews means you have to cultivate a group of cronies to advance your career.

Amazon does some amazing things and the scope of work can be fantastic. The scale is mind boggling. If you get with the right crowd you can go far, but fall outside the crowd of "cool kids" and you will be ground up and spit out.