Co-founder

Rahul is the cofounder of Taro, designed to accelerate career growth for engineers. From 2017 - 2022, he was an Engineering Manager and Tech Lead at Meta. Before that, he was an Android Engineer at Pinterest.

Throughout his career, Rahul worked at companies with varying PIP cultures, and he's worked directly with engineers who received a PIP. In addition, Rahul has interviewed dozens of engineers and managers to learn how the overall tech industry uses and perceives a PIP. (See his [YouTube video](https://youtu.be/-a3SZVzl6Wo) on the topic.)

Rahul graduated from Stanford University and lives in the Bay Area.

Connect with Rahul:

- [**Taro**](https://www.jointaro.com/p/rahul-pandey/)
- [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/rpandey1234)
- [**LinkedIn**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpandey1234/)

Rahul Pandey

The easiest way to stress out a tech worker is to bring up a PIP -- a **Performance Improvement Plan**.

A **PIP** is a formal document informing an employee about recurring performance issues. The performance improvement plan (PIP) indicates that the employee is not meeting expectations for their job, and without an improvement, they'll be let go.

Given how high the stakes are, it's essential that you create an airtight gameplan to get the best outcome for yourself.

This course shares everything you need to know about a PIP, presented in a structured way with easy-to-revisit sections. This course is broken down into 4 phases of a PIP lifecycle:

### **Before the PIP**

- Surviving (and thriving) in a company that has a PIP culture.
- A systematic approach to prevent bad surprises when it comes to performance evaluation and feedback.
- How to identify if you're in the PIP danger zone, and what you can do about it.

### **Receiving a PIP**

- Actionable advice if you've officially been put on a PIP. What to do and what not to do.
- The **PIP Evaluation Framework** to determine if you're setup to fail, or you have a fighting chance to succeed.
- Checklist of what you should negotiate (or at least ask about) in your severance package, and what to check before you walk out the door.

### **Case studies**

Real stories of people who went through a PIP, including their context, what they ended up doing, and what advice they would share. Four case studies from Individual Contributors (ICs) who received PIPs and two case studies of managers who have put employees on PIPs.

### Finding career success after a PIP

- How to prevent the negative impacts of a PIP from extending beyond the initial job.
- The right mindset to adopt for future jobs, and how to talk about your experience in the right way.
- Advice to avoid shooting yourself in the foot for future interviews.

The Ultimate Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) Guide

Overview

Before The PIP

After The PIP

Case Studies

Finding Career Success After A PIP

Meta E6 (Staff Engineer) Case Study

Course Introduction

What Is A Performance Improvement Plan?

PIP Stereotypes

Why Companies Do PIPs

PIP In Big Tech - Amazon, Meta, Google

Am I At Risk For A PIP?

How To Avoid A PIP

Emotions After A PIP

Should I Work Through The PIP?

Right Way To Quit After PIP

Amazon SDE 1 Case Study

MassMutual Junior Engineer Case Study

Pinterest IC Case Study

MongoDB Manager Case Study

Meta Engineering Manager Case Study

Life After PIP

Interviewing After A PIP

Conclusion

Meta Case Study: The Ultimate Guide To Navigating A PIP

This was a veteran engineer with more than 15 years of experience at other large tech companies before joining Meta.

- **Before**: Hired in as Staff Engineer \[**E6**\], brought in as a domain expert. Worked for almost 2 years before the PIP

- **During**: Not surprised based on rating trends. Main issue was code productivity, inability to use tooling such as version control

- **After**: Struggled with the PIP for a few months, then negotiated a severance package

Joining a company at too high a level is not good

If an employee's performance is subpar, it's better to act on that early, both for the employee and the team.

At a high level, your job is to lead the team and teach others. It’s ok if you don’t know the tooling, but you should not let that get in the way of landing code. Code output was poor.