1. A project that I was peripherally involved in under a new project manager went bad and even after escalating I was made the scapegoat
2. My manager that I actually respected left shortly thereafter and the new manager put me on focus as their first act two days after I started reporting to them
3. I met all of the requirements to get off with flying colors and got perfect customer sat scores from two customers (Professional Services). I led both engagements. First goal accomplished. I lasted through a six month vesting event
4. The manager added on more requirements for me to get out of focus and told me a date to meet them. I met the requirements and the manager kept declining my meeting invites and I thought I was off.
5. Finally when they did have a meeting with me three weeks later after the deadline, the manager cooked up more things that I hadn’t done that wasn’t related to any of my projects and mostly geared toward my refusing not to take on a new project that I knew was going to fail on top of my current project that was going well and that would have had me working 60 hours + a week.
By the time #4 came up, I saw the writing on the wall and started putting feelers out. I was just waiting to be offered a severance. I had something basically already lined up.
I knew that Amazon was going to Amazon eventually going in. It accomplished its purpose. I made a lot more money than I could anywhere else as a CRUD developer who had only opened the AWS console two years prior and with no previous strategic consulting experience.
My resume is the bomb now. I also got the chance to be the third highest contributor to a popular (thousands of downloads and hundreds of stars) open source “AWS Solution” that led directly to my current job and I was able to put every useful piece of code I wrote through AWS’s open source process (GitHub AWS Samples). I’ve already used some of the work at my current job (legally MIT licensed).
I am always ready to look for a job. I’ve kept that mentality since 2008.
Were people succeeding their PIPs? Isn't that a good thing?
Were people discovering that they were in secret pre-PIP (pivot), and then giving up earlier than the company wanted?
Were people taking the severance instead of working themselves to death just to get fired anyway?
Was there mounting evidence that Pivot/PIP at Amazon is quota-based, not performance-based?
Were employees getting wise to how performance is documented, and either documenting their own side, or interfering with the company's documentation efforts, which increases legal risk?