Often online all you hear are the extremes at both ends. I hear that you're basically put on PIP as soon as you join, any truth to this?
Generally, new hires are given a few months to ramp up and become contributing team members. People are usually placed on the dev list if they don't meet expectations, and placed on a PIP if their performance does not improve. I'm guessing it reflects poorly on managers if they devlist someone shortly after hiring them.
During my time at Amazon, I know only one person who was placed on a PIP and he was kind of a bad engineer. But I have heard stories of managers abusing the dev list to meet org-level dev list quotas.
It doesn't say what "dev" stands for though.
Overall, I spent my time there working with ambitious and smart people. And money-wise, I feel like you can't work at a safer place in the tech industry then at a FAANG company, particularly Amazon.
Thanks though man you insight is invaluable.
oh god which service/team/
Some teams have operational and funding issues, so your experience there may be hellish. You could think of it another way and realize that you have your work cut out for you. I previously worked on an AWS team like this and left because I got tired of the grind.
On the other hand, a lot of teams are great places to work. Before I left AWS, I worked on a really good team with intelligent co-workers and interesting engineering challenges. It was like night and day - the team was over-funded and had very few operational issues.