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Ex-Amazon Employee Couldn't Get Job After PIP; Networking Was Key ...
I was put on a PIP at Amazon and took an offer to leave. I thought finding a new job would be easy — I was wrong. As told to Jacob Zinkula You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email. Nicholas Jenkins, a former Amazon product manager, took a termination package after being put on a PIP. Nicholas Jenkins 2026-04-09T18:53:52.269Z Nicholas Jenkins was put on a performance improvement plan while working at Amazon. He took a termination package in December 2024 and was surprised by how hard it was to get hired. He finally landed a job after moving home to Houston and leveraging his personal network. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Nicholas Jenkins, a market research analyst in his 40s who lives in Texas. He previously worked as a program manager at Amazon until leaving the company in December 2024 after being placed on a performance improvement plan. The following has been edited for length and clarity. I started working for Amazon in 2020. Beginning in 2022, it felt like there was a shift within the company, and some experimental projects were deprioritized. Layoffs and reorganizations also picked up during this period, creating an organizational crunch. My role as a program manager based in Seattle still seemed pretty secure. However, I thought I could eventually be impacted if layoffs continued. What I didn't realize at the time was that something other than layoffs would put my job at risk. When I was put on a PIP, the writing was on the wallIn 2024, I landed under new management through a reorganization. It didn't feel like a great fit, but I wasn't too concerned. I thought my work was critical and that, for the most part, the quality spoke for itself. I was even angling for a promotion.Around August 2024, there were some initial conversations about my performance, including my proficiency with the programming language SQL. I felt I was being evaluated on standards outside the scope of my role. Despite how I felt, the writing was on the wall.Around October, I was formally placed on Amazon's "focus" performance improvement program (PIP).At that point, I was like, I've got to get out of here. This is too stressful. I viewed my departure from Amazon as a winI was eventually offered a termination package that included a couple of months' worth of severance pay. Rather than taking it right away, I decided to carry on with the PIP process so I could buy time until my stock veste...
You Just Got Put on a PIP. Here's What to Do in the Next 48 ... - LinkedIn
I know exactly how you feel right now. Your manager pulled you into a room. Maybe HR was there. Maybe it was just the two of you. Either way, you heard the words, and something in your chest just dropped. I've been there. Twice. Once at Amazon, where I survived it in 30 days. Once at Microsoft, where I didn't. I'm going to tell you what I learned from both, because they taught me completely different things. First, let's be honest about what you're feeling. Stupid. Slow. Like you can't hang. Like everyone else on your team is keeping up and you're the one drowning. Like you had so much pride in your career, worked so hard to get here, and now you're about to ruin it. Like your family is going to be disappointed. Like you might get blackballed from the industry and never work at a company like this again. I felt all of those things. Every single one. And I need you to know that feeling those things is completely normal. The PIP process is designed to be high-pressure. It is stressful. The uncertainty is real. You are allowed to feel it. What you do with it, though, is everything. What actually happened to me at Amazon. I was a Program Manager at Amazon. I had been grinding hard, but I'll be honest with you: I knew I wasn't the top performer on my team. I was doing my day-to-day work. I was executing. But I wasn't driving big projects or generating ROI beyond my core responsibilities. I was, as I'd describe it now, just okay. My manager called me in one day and said he wasn't happy with my performance. No HR. No formal paperwork. Just him, telling me he was going to be watching. I asked him directly: "Am I going on a performance improvement plan?" He didn't say yes yet. But a week later, I was stressed out of my mind. I accidentally published something to the public that wasn't ready, and had to ask him to take it down. That was the moment. He put me on it. Amazon called it the "Focus Tool." Whatever your company calls it, it's the same thing. The requirements: a biweekly progress report on what I was moving forward. When I made another mistake, it became weekly. Every Friday, I had to show him what I had done. I hated it. But I did it. I was also a full-time grad student at the time. My personal life was not going great. I was staying at the office until it got dark every night. I stopped leaving. I stopped cutting off work when I got home. I was completely submerged. And somehow, I got off the performance improvement plan in 30 days. Here...
How Does Amazon Do Performance Management? Forte, OLR & PIP Explained ...
Diverse challenges, breakthrough performance, zero hand-holding—these are attributes that may work well with a specific type of high-performer, and they definitely seem to match Amazon's unique position as a fast and fearless innovator.
Techie says he got manager fired after PIP, shares how he challenged ...
Techie says he got manager fired after PIP, shares how he challenged the decision: 'I chose violence' A techie says he challenged PIP with evidence and complaints, leading to manager's exit.
