Worse after 10 years

I joined Amazon more than 10 years ago and worked at one of their remote office outside of the United States in an engineering role. My tenure with the company lasted 6+ years and for the first four years, I was blessed with two great managers and even got a promotion to L6. Then things started to get ugly. Out of the blue, our technical team of engineers got assimilated by the local sales department - and my then-manager got laid off. Successor to that Technical Team Manager position was the former Head of Sales; she wanted to proof herself as tech-savvy but had (and still has) zero clue about anything. Nearly 1/3rd of my colleagues resigned within the next 6 months as that person was micro-managing us to death. As engineers, we were even forced to perform sales cold calls - which increased the number of departures even more. 

I decided to stay with the company which was a big mistake. Change in management had happened in January and it turned out that my new former-sales-now-tech manager had made several modifications to my yearly goals (initially defined by my previous manager) which she previously hadn't communicated to me. Even though I achieved my original goals by 250%, I obviously failed to achieve her new goals because I simply wasn't aware of them until it was too late. So I was put on PIP and lost access to a lot of RSUs in the process. And once you get this PIP scar in your personal records, you'll be burned for life - even though you may overperform for the next decades. 

Initially assuming that the whole thing was just a mere misunderstanding, I worked on the PIP, took the death march for one year and (in comparison to my other PIP'ed colleagues who got laid off in the most undignified ways possible) did not get fired. I later on found out that my manager used the PIP as personal revenge on me because I never admired her looks and especially her earrings which was something that she was still super fond of. However, due to the PIP scar in my personal records, I was not able to apply internally for other roles and/or experience any career development whatsoever. I managed to stay with Amazon up until I had partially recovered from the burnout caused by the PIP experiences. Needless to say, the whole thing left me scorched and emotionally destroyed.

I learned the following things the very hard way:

* Always (and I mean always) suck up to your boss. Rather than "Disagree and commit", my department and the two others that I have been with were only encouraging you to follow the "commit" part of that principle. Nepotism and politics rule this place.

* Always self-advertise yourself. If this is not within your nature, YOU CANNOT WIN - no matter how good you are. This is SUPER critical for remote employees and THE MOST IMPORTANT THING to do if you work outside of the HQ. Literally, you need to justify your existence on a daily basis - otherwise, you're screwed for life.

* Contrary to what has been communicated to me when I signed my initial work contract with AMZ, only people-management roles experience career development. If you have a tech role and you're not willing to become a people manager, you'll be stuck there forever and can't get past L6. Things might be different in Seattle, though.

* Your manager is not your friend (repeat three times). Almost every manager that I've met is willing to throw you to the wolves in order to improve their chances of getting promoted. You are expendable and you will be told so. Good managers who treat you decently usually don't last very long. If you want to progress with your career, your need to betray and abuse your colleagues' trust. Stab them in the back - the more you do this, the higher the chances of getting promoted.

* When applying internally, it is ridiculous that you have to inform your current manager about your application process with the new department before that application process can be started. I am aware of two cases where people got PIP'ed and subsequently laid off simply because they tried to move to a new role. If the new role has a higher level, ensure that you get promoted BEFORE you join that new role. Otherwise, you 'need to proof that you are Level xx material' and work for one additional year on this potential promotion. If you have moved to a new role, NEVER look back and never support the poor fella who has inherited your mess - they will/need to do the same to you. The best and only survival strategy seems to be changing roles every two years. Don't care about the scorched earth that you leave behind - just move on.

So - why did I reapply? By early 2016, I was contacted by an Amazon recruiter as they were desperately looking for an expert in one of the areas that I had worked on during my previous tenure with the company. I still happen to know a lot about the platform and as I had somewhat assumed that they did learn from their previous mistakes, I decided to give it a go. Needless to say that they didn't learn anything. I finished my application process in late June and have to say that working with HR was abysmal - there is no other word for it. They even managed to mess up my interview travel schedule to Seattle so I had to do the five hour VC interview with them which lasted up until 2am (was working in Europe at this time). One week later, that woman from HR called after I requested an update on my application multiple times. She told me that they would not give me the role that I did apply for - but they'd be able to assign me to the initial L5 role that I was taking care of more than 10 years ago when I joined Amazon. Seriously? Needless to say, I terminated the discussion with HR.

I still think that in general, Amazon has great potential and would even consider returning to the hive - but not before there has been some general cleansing related to the corporate culture.

Recommendations to the management:

* get rid of the ridiculous yearly goals, stack ranking and the abusive PIP processes. Rather than collecting the blame for one year, enable proper 1:1 discussions on a recurring basis. And by 'recurring' I don't mean once per year.

* enable personal/professional development for ALL of your employees and not only for those who have majored in brown-nosing or have been members of the MBA boy's club. Think outside the box - there are other colors than black and white.

* Work on your hiring processes and treat your candidates with respect. Having to do a (very) short-notice deep-tech interview at 1am just because your HR department has screwed up things is disrespectful, unnecessary and gives me a very bad first impression about the company. You're dealing with human beings and not with robots (see also work/life balance)

* Also rethink the management and the power that you enable them with. How is it possible that managers can blame their delegates and PIP them just because that manager holds a personal grudge against that employee or wants to prevent an employee from progressing with his career? Why aren't complaints checked by HR?

* Most importantly: Rethink your HR strategy. As that abusive HR behavior seems to be deeply buried in the company's nature, start by culling all of your HR departments and associated processes. You need to eradicate and wipe out that disastrous DNA strain from the company's body before you can start rebuilding a good HR structure from scratch. Treat your employees like your customers and they'll be happy to stay.