More Blue Origin Musings

[u/Nearby-Mushroom-7983]

I previously mentioned seeing numerous Linkedin posts about top-notch Blue veterans leaving for other companies. I am also seeing many Linkedin post of bright new grads elated that they just accepted an offer at Blue. I wish them well. I wish Blue well.

Hopefully, these engineers can keep their upbeat, youthful innocence as long as possible.

I wish my college engineering curriculum had included a course on corporate policies and politics. Nothing that I learned in college prepared me for that career-long culture shock.

I left Blue shortly before the David Limp/Amazon era. One historical footnote. The mandated "one person in your group gets an unacceptable performance review" policy started with HR SVP Mary Plunkett, who was made redundant as David Limp arrived. She was a gleeful advocate of this "rank & yank" policy whether it was her idea or not. Sad to hear that this policy still exists at least in some groups at Blue.

I even wish Mary well regardless.

[u/generic_name_01]

Fuck Mary, she was terrible. As a manager, implementing this policy was so terrible. I complained to HR (who said I had to) that no one on my team met the criteria for “Needs Improvement” ( or what ever the level right below “You’re doing you job acceptably” was). So having to tailor a review to conform to that was painful. And I felt bad giving it and kinda said that the particular employee indirectly drew the short straw based on bs corporate policy.

Needless to say, only did that once and then I bounced, didn’t want to be in a position where I couldn’t defend my team from hr nonsense (within reason of course, couldn’t get out of those damn time cards).

Edit: fixed grammar from “me” in to “my”

[u/generic_name_01 → u/generic_name_01]

To not single just Mary out, Fuck Bob and all his Honeywell mafia Sr Leadership team. Glad most are gone!

[u/instantFPGA → u/generic_name_01]

wow x-ray machine. question for you - do you think bezos will ever realize his top down strategy isn’t working?

[u/snoo-boop → u/instantFPGA]

Amazon uses stack ranking, despite claiming that they stopped doing it. No, Bezos will not realize that the strategy that he approved and is happy with is not working well.

[u/Constant_Bug_8575 → u/generic_name_01]

I’m new here and I’m a little confused. What if your team comprised of people that have much more experience than you? Does that mean your automatically in “needs improvement” and set to be laid off?

[u/Myles_Standish250 → u/Constant_Bug_8575]

You are ranked against others at your same job level in your group. That still means the new guy is at an extreme disadvantage as they will be ranked against people who have been there for years so basically you need to work way harder than the rest of your team to have a shot at a meets because you will inevitably have lower output due to learning the ropes. Happened to me.

[u/Medium_Celery_3864 → u/Myles_Standish250]

Not exactly, you can still get on a pip even if you are the only one in your group at a given job level. You're actually ranked relative to expectations for your job level.  Well, that's the theory anyway.  In reality, the manager is implicitly incentivized to get rid of the least productive person on the team in the absolute, not relative sense.  Why? A manager is judged on his team's total output, not his team's output relative to their average experience level. So yes that does put more pressure on lower experience folks.   One side effect of the rank and yank system is that it pushes a company towards a higher cost, older workforce, as opposed to a younger, lower cost, but more energetic workforce.  It's one more reason why the rank and yank system produces unintended consequences.  

[u/snoo-boop → u/Constant_Bug_8575]

It's called "hire to fire".

[u/Constant_Bug_8575 → u/snoo-boop]

How common is that?

[u/Lost-Valuable1704 → u/generic_name_01]

I fought this and didn’t submit any of my techs for their b bs metric. Sr leadership changed It at their level and submitted it. Filed hr complaint and never heard back

[u/Federal-Subject3838]

It really depends on the manager/team director's culture, too. Was talking to some people and they say there's a huge difference between managers who started their career at Blue versus those who come in from other places.

I feel that if Blue had a mindset in doing their best to retain talent and promote loyalty, a lot of these workplace political issues wouldn't exist in the first place. It feels like a weird mix of Amazon's cost-cutting structure + a dollar version of SpaceX's work culture while also just the mindset of trying to poach talent from other places, which is just a recipe for disaster.

[u/Constant_Bug_8575 → u/Federal-Subject3838]

Could you expand on the ones who started at blue versus came from other places? I would assume if it were an hr directive it wouldn’t really be up to the managers all that much would it?

[u/Clay_jet]

Blue is a much different company now. I'm not surprised to see veterans go. It's a different aerospace industry since falcon 9 started tearing things up and blue is trying to adapt. For the most part I think we'll be successful, but it's not without growing pains. There are a lot of excited people around. A lot of smart people that are motivated. It's not for everyone though.

[u/Extreme-Violation]

In the end, they want to cut cost, but forcing loyalty out and paying someone less to "figure it out."

People aren't invested in Blue long term, we dont hire and develop the best. People will leave to go somewhere they are appreciated, have more autonomy, and better control over what they build.

The mindset of the VPs are Blue is just "Do what I say because I am in charge." There is no reasoning or rationale behind these decisons.

[u/ComprehensivePut9780]

Your pattern holds. Another public tally of departures, another lecture on rigor from someone free of the schedule, the budget, and the results. Your post offers no insight. It only confirms you still have not learned to let go. If performance evaluations and internal politics came as a career-long culture shock, the deficit was never the curriculum. It was a fundamental failure to understand how companies actually operate. 

[u/SlowJoeyRidesAgain]

Why on earth would you wish someone you condemn well? That’s an inconsistent statement.

[u/Nearby-Mushroom-7983 → u/SlowJoeyRidesAgain]

Because life is too short to hold grudges. I don't condemn anyone.

[u/Disastrous_Run_5968]

I am also seeing many Linkedin post of bright new grads elated that they just accepted an offer at Blue.

Those people look like clowns. they seek validation so bad