[ex_amazon_sde]

> Hiring managers are DESPERATE For people. And they will beg barter and steal for hires, and try to convince bar raisers to lower the bar to get people in.

You just described something that comes very close to "hire to fire".

I've been in Amazon for long enough to see the hiring bar float up and down a lot, with big differences based on the team and the country.

Once you put together URA and the staggering attrition rate that exists in many high-pressure teams the managers are left with only two options:

A) Hire very skilled and productive engineers and then find ways to push them out of the company later on B) Let the bar slip sometimes and keep the good engineers for a bit longer

By all means, "A" happens far more frequently than "B" and, in many ways, it's even worse.

[UncleMeat]

> You just described something that comes very close to "hire to fire".

Not at all. "Hire to fire" means that the person gets zero coaching because they are a sacrificial lamb. They have no chance to succeed even if they turn out to be skilled. "Holy shit I need to hire people" means that the bar is less consistent but every hire is intended to stick around. The latter puts people in a challenging position. The former is planned sabotage. Completely different things.

[amzn-throw]

> "Holy shit I need to hire people" means that the bar is less consistent

Not even. It's not the manager's job to determine the bar. It's the bar raiser's. And they are not under the same pressures.

We can and do veto hires below the bar.