Performance Improvement Plan Q&A and Videos

I’ll be starting as an E6 at Meta, working on internal tools. Currently, the headcount is really low, and people only have 60 days to match, so I decided to go with the first team I matched with, even though it’s not the most exciting option.

I’m committed to doing a great job in this role, but I’m a bit concerned about the potential impact I can have and how that might affect my performance reviews (or get me PIPd). Is this something I should be worried about? Any advice on how I can maximize my impact on a team that might not be seen as highly impactful?

My TL recently became my TLM at the start of this quarter and we've had communication/expectation issues before. My previous manager indicated through check-ins that I was on track to receive a Significant Impact (SI) rating ("Meets All Expectations") for the last 9 months and now my TLM is hinting that I only meet partial expectations.

The feedback is that I meet my delivery and impact expectations but only with a lot of guidance and help and at my level I need to show more independence.

Even when I ask them what rating they have in mind they don't have a straight answer and it's stressing me out not knowing if it could also be an NI or a PIP in the near future. I'm ashamed because this isn't how I wanted my career to progress at Google and because my friends and family (and team) definitely expected more from me but at this point in the year there isn't much time left.

I'm stressed out of my mind and it doesn't help that I also have anxiety and ADHD that make the situation worse than it actually is due to a recent family issue. The options I see forward are

(1) take the M rating and work harder next year to get promoted

(2) take short-term leave for 1-2 months due to burnout and "freeze" my performance for this year instead of making it worse.

What would you recommend I do?

Joined Meta 2 months ago as an E4 in a completely different tech stack and domain. Recently my manager informed me in a 1:1 and subsequent email with my skip and ERBP that I’m trending BE. It has areas I’m missing the bar on and ways to improve so I’m planning to work on those but is there anything else I can do to turn this around and be successful? Is it impossible to get a CME for H1 if this signal has been documented?

I am a software engineer with 3 years experience at a fintech company and I am on H1B visa with 33 months left. I recently got offers from Amazon L5 and Meta E4.

I am debating between two positions because I know Meta has an up or out policy. If I can’t get promoted after 33 months I will run out of my H1B time to switch job. With Amazon I can stay at L5 and potentially relocate to another company (supposed I dont get PIP). I see myself as a hard worker but I am not as fast at coding as others.

I like the work at Meta better but I am worried I can't survive there reading many comments that Meta moves much faster than Amazon.

I have the following questions and would greatly appreciate any guidance:

With Meta

1. How are the ratings Meet most, Meet all, Exceed Expectations decided at Meta ? Are they evaluated based on the 4 axes (Impact, Direction, Engineering Excellence and People)?

2. If I complete all projects within the timeframe I agree to , do I get MM, MA or EE ?

3. How does one get Meet Most ?

4. Does the obsession with “impact” and “metrics” at Meta lead to people competing for sexy projects only and avoid things that are harder to measure like Engineering Excellence (refactoring codebase) ?

5. For work that falls under the Engineering Excellence category, what are some tips to justify or measure their impact ?

6. Is it better to give conservative estimate for the projects I work on to meet the deadline so I can get Meet All ? Or doing this will put me at risk of not delivering enough work in each half ?

With Amazon,

1. How does one get PIPed ? Not completing as many tickets as others ? Not finishing the project they promise to deliver ?

My other concerns are

1. Green card: Meta labor market test failed 99%. Amazon paused PERM for the last 2 years so no data to compare but they said they will start PERM process (maybe batch PWD) for me 4/2025

I know it is not an offer evaluation platform but I would greatly appreciate any suggestions to guide my decision making process. Thank you

I am nearing the end of my 6 months probation. My manager feels that I'm going towards an Approaching rating (like Meets Most) rather than a Thriving rating (Meets All). He feels that I lack in contribution to group level engineering discussions and being technically strong enough to mentor other engineers, which he expects from a senior engineer like me.

He keeps going through the growth and development framework and highlights he is concerned I don't meet B3 senior expectations. He increased the frequency of 1:1s to twice a week.

He didn't mention the word PIP but gave me to do a project with a very tight deadline to assess my coding and implementation skills. Now that I'm making good progress in it after a lot of effort, he brought up weaknesses in the engineering direction and discussion points.

My other team members think I am doing ok and my performance isn't too bad, though there are things I can work on.

It sometimes feels like my manager already made up his mind to make me fail probation and is finding weaknesses even if I complete this stressful project.

He even talked about downlevelling if that's a possibility and being asked to leave. He said extension of probation is not possible due to legal reasons.

What do you recommend I do?