[transitory_pce]

This is a phenomenon common to all low grade/incompetent dev managers: When a dev asks for a team change they view it as a slap in the face because it has happened to them so often in the past and they take it as a personal offence. The fact is they are lousy managers and usually incompetent and nobody wants to work in their team.

So they go on the offensive and try to manage the dev out before senior management realises that yet another dev doesn’t want to work with them.

[aaviran]

This might not be the case here. As the OP theorized, they were already on the way out of the team, so why not use them to fill up the PIP quotas?

The manager might not be incompetent, but they sure are an asshole

[chickenpotpie]

If you get PIPed at amazon, you can't transfer teams. It locks you to your current team until you "improve"

[phendrenad2]

I wonder what the logic there is. If someone isn't doing well on a team, shuffling them to a new project might help. But the downside is managers might be annoyed by a new person on the team who is a suspected low-performer. Could lead to a game of hot-potato where people try to avoid having PIPs added to their team through politics.

[minhazm]

The logic there is that this person was already going to leave your team either way, so if you PIP them they will just leave the company and you don't need to PIP someone else instead. Still a sociopathic thing to do though.

[jldugger]

> they were already on the way out of the team, so why not use them to fill up the PIP quotas

Well, for starters, this LinkedIn post.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

Then senior management should be wondering why so many low performers are ending up with certain managers...

[cletus]

In my experience it almost never works like this. The fish rots from the head.

I've found bad managers are able to exist, even thrive, due to a culture of loyalty. Having worked in several countries this is a very Corporate America thing (IME). Loyalty is the only trait that matters. Fealty might be a more accurate description.

So that bad manager's manager looks at a situation where people are leaving. Those people are disloyal and thus bad. The bad manager is completely loyal and thus good.

Seriously.

[mleonhard]

This is true. I suffered a lot until I learned that showing loyalty is necessary for having a career in a big company.

Most people don't care at all about doing a good job. They just want more money. To get along with them, you must help them get more money. If you oppose them on anything, they will make you suffer. And if they have the skills, they will manipulate and gaslight you. You can't make anyone do their work well. People work well when the organization is set up for it. If you can't tolerate your teammates' behavior, just move to a different team or company.

[siva7]

That’s exactly how management usually works

[square_usual]

TFA mentions a PIP quota and implies that OP was used to fill the quota, so I'm pretty sure upper management won't blink at this happening. They expect people to get PIP'd, and they have no visibility on the actual internals, so to them OP is just as good as anybody else who got PIP'd.

[0x002A]

The upper management only gives a blink when it becomes more known by the public. They don't want to hear (just not to be in the responsibility zone) and when it's widely known they would go whitewashing or PR stunts.

Why they had to invent "to be the best employer of the world" as a leadership principle?

The more people should stand up and make the stupid policies known, that's the only way this can stop. Otherwise this policies will be the norm for many companies since "it can work"

[greedo]

Upper mgmt generally doesn't give a shit about what the public knows. Amazon is famous for employees pissing in bottles because they don't get enough breaks. No one cares enough to make the warehouse conditions humane. They just do enough PR to feel good about it. The job still sucks, and the pay still sucks.

The only thing that management cares about is how much they're paid, and how much power they have. Look at how Elon Musk behaves. He gets mad/irritated when told by regulators that he can't exercise the power he feels is his right. I actually don't think he gives a hoot about how much money he has, except as a tool for accomplishing what he wants.

Others are more into the wallet than the ego. Do you think Zuckerberg gives a crap about what privacy advocates think? Most people have a fair idea of how far FB spies on them, and Zuck knows they don't care as long as they can share cat pictures with their friends, or post Let's Go Brandon stuff. But you can bet that he's supremely pissed about losing so much money due to Apple's privacy changes.

[pm90]

It’s difficult to not feel empathy for people you have a relationship with. Even if a manager is incompetent, they will get the benefit of the doubt from vs a lowly engineer whom the Senior Manager does not have a personal relationship with.

There are very few Senior Managers who take the time to look beyond what’s immediately presented to them.

[drclau]

So M2s+ are expected to have empathy for M1s, but M1s are not expected to have empathy for engineers. And, M2s+ having been M1s prior to being promoted, have to develop empathy when becoming M2s+.

Have I described correctly the situation?

Legend:

M2 - senior management, has other managers reporting to them

M1 - first layer of management, has workers / engineers as direct reports

[pm90]

I think both are expected to have empathy. It goes south when one of them doesn’t have empathy for their -1 because they get the benefit of the doubt from their +1 in general.

[jonathankoren]

Instead they’ll be wondering why these managers are so good at identifying poor performers. /s

[greedo]

I had a boss who lost a new hire to another team. This new hire was an outstanding performer, and the boss simply couldn't see what he had done to cause this. He seriously was in a funk about it for 6 months. Anytime it came up, he went through the stages of grief. Turns out the employee simply didn't like the caliber of teammates, nor the pace of work. He was able to move to a team that tended towards more of a cowboy mentality.

The same manager never fired anyone he hired. He fired a few that he had inherited (even calling them 'deadwood') around other employees. Employees who had worked with the 'deadwood' for decades. But his hires? They could be the worst performers, and even though they were contract to hire, he always hired them. To not hire them would be to admit his hiring practices were crappy. And considering he had little technical knowledge, he was susceptible to hiring people who kissed the ring (and stroked the ego).

Some managers are just bad. Peter Principal and all that. Some are great at telling everyone what they want to hear, both up the chain and down.