Tag Archives: people management
Amazon’s Compensation Targets Exploit the Promotion Process and Pay Below Industry Rates
In which I review Amazon’s new compensation targets. This structure discourages promotion due to forcing newly-promoted people into the range minimum for 1-2 years, while insisting they perform at the next highest level for 2-4 years before they’re promoted. It also potentially places 80% of all employees at or below the midpoint for their level. Continue reading
Talent is a Power Curve, or Why Employee Top Grading is Driven by Bias
In which I discuss how talent distribution follows a power curve rather than a Gaussian “bell” curve, making it difficult to differentiate low performers. It critiques Amazon’s stack ranking policies, which ultimately lead to bias becoming the determining factor for who gets performance management. Continue reading
Amazon’s RTO SNAFU
Where I discuss Amazon’s RTO (return-to-office) mandate, and their inability to communicate any data-driven or evidence-based decision making. Continue reading
Leaving Amazon
The first post I made on LinkedIn was my goodbye post, announcing that I was leaving Amazon, with a few comments as to why. I was surprised when it got nearly 250,000 impressions, over 1,500 reactions, and 150 comments. It’s … Continue reading
Increasing the Scope
As mentioned in the about page, I’m not only an amateur / hobbyist astronomer with a high-tech telescope, I’m also a software professional. I graduated with a computer science degree back in the mid-90’s, and pretty quickly got into management. … Continue reading
