Performance Improvement Plan Q&A and Videos

This may come off as a strange question.

It seems to me that there is a lot of nepotism for hiring and PIP. Teams I have been on seem to have a lot of the same race or religion. I notice hiring managers that have similar background to me are more inclined to give me interviews. My name gives a lot away about my background. I have low YOE but I notice that managers usually PIP people that have a different race and religion. I know this is why companies have committees for big decisions, but one person on the committee that plays favorites can make the difference.

Just wondering what your experiences have been with nepotism.

I have been given the option of a PIP or take a severance fee. I am planning to take the PIP, but if I fail I know I am fired. So when I interview for jobs after my termination, if they ask me why did you leave, am i obligated to bring up my pip?

I need some advice on how to navigate my situation. I have recently joined a staff engineer role and its has been 2 months. My manager mentioned today that I would be put under PIP. He mentioned that there is gap in the expectations.

To give a context, I am the only one person here and everyone else including manager (who is a director) are in different country (in europe), completely different time zone and it has been every hard to get any time from them to discuss anything. I have been left out of important meetings because of the time zone. Now, I am working alone here on a new project independent from others. When I created PRs, they were stuck for ever (sometimes a week or so). I posted in multiple channels, etc. Even sync meeting with team mates sometimes were cancelled because of they were busy and it has been hard. I have raised this with manager but nothing changed. For onboarding, I didn't have a buddy to begin with and manager was my buddy.

I am supposed to talk with HR tomorrow and discuss my options. PIP or mutual termination. I am not sure what should I ask HR and what should I do? Any advice would be greatly helpful.

I've been working as a Sr Fullstack Engineer for 2 years at a Series B startup. I've never received negative feedback, actually, I thought everything was fine until last week. My manager told me that I need to improve my Problem-Solving skills and ask better questions, she kind of implies that I'm a candidate for starting a PiP.

I agree that I struggled in the last 2 months (they switched me to a new project where I'm the only engineer and my manager only has 20% of her time for me), it's been super challenging but I'm trying to make it work. That means that I'm putting in more hours than I should frequently, and I'm starting to feel demotivated and depressed.

Honestly, this feedback took me by surprise, as no one told me anything about my performance during the last two months, I thought that even when I was struggling, they were fine with it because it's a new project and I'm basically on my own and no one is there that I can reach out to for help.

• I have ~6 years of experience and I come from a non-traditional background.
• Her feedback is vague, she says that I need to improve my backend skills, but she hasn't told me exactly what's lacking. "backend" is a big word.
• My manager told me that I should think about how to get better and that is on me to come up with an improvement plan. This feels wrong to me, isn't that her job as a manager? how can I create a plan for myself when I don't know what she wants to see from me?

How can I better navigate this? Should I start looking for a new job? I like my job and it would be sad to leave.

What do you think?

thanks.

I've not had great reviews from manager in the past few months. I think it all started with me taking PTO for 3 weeks in december and something I handed over to team before leaving not working as expected. Before that maybe I had a made an impression that I was not proactive enough and it all escalated with this issue in PTO. They had to source a member from another team to get it done.

After I was back from my PTO I did work really hard to get back at the work left and finish diligently, but it again happened that after this work was merged, some other api's failed in Integration environment. And I fixed it soon and got it working. But by this time my manager had decided to put me in PIP I guess.

Now about the PIP, its 60 days long and the way my manager talked about it seemed like she wants me to take it very seriously and improve and she and other seniors can support me during that. My skip manager who is a director, however seems like a not so nice person, I also have a have monthly connect with him next week. He can easily influence the decision even if I do well and my manager wants me. How do I talk to him is one question? And how do I navigate this whole PIP is another.

Since the market is also very bad right now, I'm planning to work hard and complete every objective there is on the PIP document. What do you think about this? I am on stem opt visa and might have 3-5 months to find another gig that's all.

Sometimes an engineer might not be performing up to expectations because their manager is unable to provide them clear expectations for their level. If they feel like that's the case in the face of a PIP, what courses of action do they have to push against the PIP?

Hello, I just wanted to get some advice last month I was terminated from my job after being placed on PIP/probation. When I first joined the company I had successfully completed training in React but was put on the team that didn’t use it. When the first review cycle came one of my teammates described my learning as flat and my technical skills as inadequate. There was even a time when I was ignored and tasks were passed over and one where I couldn’t come up with a plan. The junior who they assigned it afterward had the same issue couldn’t find and also didn’t need to come up with a plan but was allowed to work on it. Also, I was given noncoding tasks for a time or generic unit test tickets for functions that didn’t need it.

Eventually, I and the other junior got a task that was basic and miscommunication led to a delay and they complained about us both because of how it took. Then the assignment that sealed my fate was I had to implement a microservice and node API with a unit test in 2 weeks. There was a reference code but we couldn’t ask for help from senior developers. When my manager saw my progress he PIP'ed me and then when saw the demo he was underwhelmed and said I couldn't justify the code had a poor understanding of restful API concepts and my test didn’t meet functional requirements he wrote up the paper to basically have me fired.

Hello

TLDR: I started a new job in September last year, and within three months, I was placed on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) with impossible tasks to be completed within four weeks, essentially setting me up for dismissal. Two months prior, I had been seeing a doctor for health issues, and they advised that the PIP would likely worsen my condition. The doctor recommended taking Short Term Disability leave to focus on my health. The tasks I was assigned for the PIP were eventually completed by two engineers (1 staff and 1 Sr) over four months. My Short Term Disability leave ends soon, and I'm unsure whether to return to my old job.

Question for this community:

1. Is it a good idea to return to the same job after being put on a PIP and taking medical leave? (HR informed me that the old PIP would not be in effect upon my return from Short Term Disability leave. However, I'm unclear on how this process works).
2. I want to change teams upon my return; is this something I can negotiate with HR before trying to go back?
3. I like the company and its culture but ended up in the wrong team with the wrong manager. Is there a way I can remain employed at this company but join a different team and manager?

More Context: My manager was present during the hiring interview, where I clearly expressed my desire to move away from a particular tech stack. I was highly rated in the interview and received a generous offer, which I accepted. However, once hired, the manager assigned me to a project in the same area I wanted to avoid. Given it was a high-priority project and my first assignment, I reluctantly accepted. 1 month into the job, I faced a personal emergency requiring a few days off. I shared the reason with my manager, who seemed understanding at first. After that, the manager's behavior changed drastically. They began assigning more work, constantly switching me between multiple issues and projects, and bullying me in meetings. Despite working overtime (12-14 hours/day) to meet expectations, their attitude worsened. This was the worst manager I've encountered in my 14-year career who had unreasonable expectations as far as ramping up on the projects is concerned and it almost seems like I was hired to be fired in this situation. Note: This is not at Amazon.

Any other pointers would be appreciated. Please help.

This is a serious question involving a friend who met only 3 out of 5 expectations during his mid-year review. He was hired as an IC2 and is about to reach the one-year mark. His team allowed him to approve and merge his own code into production, which resulted in a crash of the application server and AWS environment. This constitutes his first mistake, and someone has contacted the VP in the organization. What potential consequences could he face?

Hi folks,

I'm a mid-level engineer at a big tech company in the bay. While at my company, I haven't felt connected with the product, excited about the work I've been doing, or that connected with the team. I was interviewing for an internal transfer -- and I just had verbally accepted the offer. It was supposed to be a transfer to an acquired company I was excited about -- but I found out they just cut budget for the role. The role is to be remote. I'd have to move back home with my parents. I'm open to doing this, but it also comes with a 15% pay decrease, and I'm already out of and not refreshed on rsus. The transfer offer is a 15% reduction in salary.

The last option is I've been working on a side project with some friends to learn building a web-app end-to-end, so I could take some time off, recharge, and potentially work on my own thing. Overall, I'm quite burnt out and feeling tired of my job. Rather than working on large-scale infra, I'd like to get back to my roots (health-related technology). Any thoughts on this decision? I'm a US citizen, so no visa restrictions.

I’m an E5 at a Big Tech company trying to get to E6. As part of performance reviews, my skip level asked me for feedback on my manager:

• He confessed that he has concerns about my manager’s people management and execution on the team
• My manager’s EngageMe scores are very low and have not increased in the last 3 quarters
• My manager has been at this company for a little over a year

Before this, I had 5 managers in 5 months (my current one being the 5th) as we went through a reorg and a lot of leadership departures. I was hired as an E5 and have been at this company for 3+ years. Every time I get a new manager, they say they want to see consistent E5 performance before they’ll give me an E6 opportunity. I feel that this keeps getting reset due to management churn. Are there strategies to mitigate this? For what it's worth, I got Exceeds in the last performance review.

Hi everyone,

I joined Premium just now.

My first question is: Should I re-apply to Microsoft after getting terminated?

3 years ago I was terminated due to performance. My Connects and Rewards (for 3 straight years) were good up to that point. My performance mainly suffered due to mental health and motivation issues (this was mid-2021 during the pandemic).

They mentioned during my final call with them that I can re-apply after 2 years, but I'm thinking realistically and not optimistically. I didn't join another Big Tech company after that, and although I'm at a senior role now (I was level 62 at MSFT), I haven't really shown significant growth (or promotion) after 3 years at my current company. Is it worth my time to try to re-apply or get referrals there? I'm thinking even with a referral it will be an uphill battle.

Hi all,

I just got put on a 30 day PIP after ~6 months of not good performance. I have been working through grief of losing two extended family members during that time, and my work productivity really fell. The company is offering me a separation package before starting the PIP that I am pretty strongly considering taking. In the long term I know the company isn't a good fit for me, and I have definitely lost a lot of trust among leadership. Is there any downside in taking the separation package? Thanks!

I joined this June. Our team has two chunks, one is doing project M and the other doing project H. For the first three month, project M was my ramp up project and manager said I did well. In the mid of October, my mentor told manager that I have code quality problem, writing too fast with bugs in diff. Manager talked to me once and pointed out, which I appreciate. Then the last quarter began, I was assigned both project M and project H work, project H is very coding heavy because of the design pattern and for project M, the tl didn't give any input, I would have to basically guess in the doc, according to the previous pattern, we can present the doc, let people comment, at the same time, start to work(it's building a dashboard), but my manager insist that I need to get a signoff from the project M tl, which I previously actively ask for input, no response, after the dashboard was drafted, the tl was not satisfied and told manager, manager told me he will let other people take over this. That's part one.

Part two, the tl from project H provided detailed guideline and I raised diff in time, but the person was really busy, I can't get my diff reviewed, for a whole week, I only got one review, even though the work has a target date, but that seems not to be meaningful with the sluggish review process, I also asked other team members involved in project H to take a look at my diff, only one person responded after three days. The feedback from this tl is that he can't approve my diff fast. Then the manager think it's still my code quality issue, which I paid extra attention after last feedback, so I was really confused with what he said. The diff review process is always an issue, it was brought again and again during team meeting, but nothing was done to really solve it

The PSC is looming, good part is that I don't need to participate it since I'm TNTE. But I still sense the atmosphere has changed from manager. I thinks the work assigning has some issue as I have never worked on project H before and because of this heavy coding task, I needed extra time for it, hence having no time for project M's dashboard.

Should I be worried at this team? I am not eligible to transfer now, what should I expect next year?

Hey folks, I’m currently working at a Tier 2 tech company that enforces mandatory quotas for categorizing employees as not meeting expectations.

Recently, after a management change , I’ve felt unfairly targeted by my new manager. Despite positive feedback from other senior staff and even my director, my manager constantly questions my performance and has even rejected my reimbursements, making the situation feel very personal.

Additionally, I’ve been given an unfairly large workload and have been isolated, as my peers, including senior engineers, have been instructed not to assist me.

This has left me mentally drained and struggling to find time to prepare for job opportunities elsewhere, despite not being constrained by visa issues.

Given this challenging environment, what strategies would you recommend for managing these workplace difficulties and making time for job hunting in such a demanding job market? Thanks for any advice you can offer!