[Repost] After being placed on a Performance Improvement Plan by Instacart, I have decided to quit tonight without having a new job lined up

Disclaimer: I am not the author of the following article. Instead, I have translated the original article into English. The original article was written by an anonymous person in Chinese and posted here in 2021, when Instacart’s stock was valued at $125 per share.

Comment: I'd like to clarify this article. The original author has the right to document what actually happened. As a translator, I insist on maintaining the original meaning from the article during my translation. However, when we read this article, we should adopt a perspective that is broader than that of the original text, keeping in mind that the issue mentioned is much deeper and more pervasive than what a single person could create. The problem is not caused by any particular individual mentioned in the article, but rather by the specific environment of the company.

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To me, a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) has always been something that existed only on the internet, and I never thought it would actually happen to me. I once naively believed that as long as I, as an individual contributor, completed tasks on time and ensured quality, I would not be put on a PIP, even without receiving a promotion. The harsh reality has proven me wrong.

After graduating, I worked for ten years at two major companies. Last year, during the holiday season, when I had some free time, I considered changing my job. I interviewed with various well-known unicorn companies and received several offers. Ultimately, I chose Instacart. My decision was straightforward: they offered a significant amount of money. While the base salary was more or less the same across the board, the Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) they offered amounted to 2 million, which was more than three times what other large companies were offering. Additionally, there was the potential upside of owning stock in a pre-IPO company.

After signing the offer and joining the company, I learned about the so-called clawback policy from the internet, and indeed, it was also mentioned in my offer. However, this policy would effectively be nullified if the company went public within a year.

As the song goes, "The beginning is always unspeakably wonderful." My first two months at Instacart were indeed very joyful. The internal documentation was on par with that of the big companies. My colleagues were kind, energetic, friendly, and helpful. My manager was reasonable and communicative. The atmosphere within the team was harmonious and joyful. The working hours were much longer than those at typical big companies, not much different from the 996 schedule in China, but I was able to accept it. After all, it was a hot startup, and I was grateful for making the right choice.

With rapid expansion, our department underwent a reorganization, and subsequently, a manager from India was brought in. Everything changed following his arrival.

The first change was the lack of recognition for your work from the manager. The deadlines at Instacart had always been tight, which I understood given the rapid growth phase of the company. However, previous managers would offer verbal praise for each achievement, but now it was just endless urging, with at best a nod of approval. Even more outrageous was that the Indian manager would often advance deadlines, fully aware of the amount of work involved. Secondly, the team atmosphere changed. Previously friendly and approachable colleagues started to become a bit irritable. My understanding was that everyone's pressure increased, leaving no time or energy to help others. It became common for new colleagues to leave within 2-3 months of joining. They disappeared before I had the chance to get to know them better.

Around the end of August and the beginning of September, there was an important feature that was scheduled to go from RFD (Request for Discussion) to launch in just over a month. I worked overtime and managed to merge 18 pull requests in 9 days, ultimately completing the feature on time. I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking I could finally enjoy a peaceful weekend. However, then the Indian manager suddenly scheduled a 1-on-1 meeting at 5:30 PM on Friday, which was a devastating moment for me.

The Indian manager did not acknowledge my hard work and achievements at all but started by stating that my performance was below expectations and that I was officially being placed on a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan), listing reasons one, two, three... While I was still in shock and hadn't had the chance to defend myself, he said that he would give me one month to improve and that he would send me an official email, hoping that I would read it carefully.

The content of that email was infuriating. It followed a standard PIP format and did not mention any of my work achievements. The first part of the letter listed my "offenses." I highlight two representative examples.

Offense number one: Having 18 commits in one pull request (PR) is an indication of irresponsible work. My reaction was intense because there were plenty of PRs like this within the company, weren't there? Requirements changed back and forth, and review comments needed to be addressed. Besides, wasn't it you who instructed me to push out the PR as soon as possible so that everyone could review it and then make gradual changes?

Offense number two: Lack of ownership of the XX project. My reaction was one of disbelief, as this project didn't even have a formal requirements document. I managed everything from requirements gathering to design, implementation, and deployment by myself. I couldn't understand what more could be considered as having ownership. In summary, the criticisms seemed like they were just finding faults for the sake of fault-finding. None of them were actual mistakes in my work.

The second part of the letter outlined the requirements of the PIP. I was required to complete three major projects within a month, and they had to be completed with zero bugs. This was simply an impossible mission. Not to mention, in my years of working, I had never seen anyone, no matter how skilled, guarantee that their code was completely free of bugs.

The third part of the letter detailed the consequences of not meeting the expected goals. It explicitly stated that the consequences could include measures "up to and including termination."

I spent the entire weekend doing nothing but gathering evidence and writing a rebuttal letter. The following days were spent appealing to higher-ups, from the skip-level manager to the HR Business Partner (HRBP), but I didn't receive much positive support. The HRBP even mentioned that I wasn't the only one on a PIP; such cases were common in the company, with at least 5% of employees experiencing it. In the end, the Director attempted to mediate, suggesting that while the Indian manager had some valid points, I indeed could improve in some areas. However, he acknowledged that the subsequent requirements were somewhat unreasonable and proposed that if I could complete one project well, they would consider the PIP successfully passed. After estimating the workload for that project, I concluded that it was feasible with some extra hours. It seemed like a normal request, so I reluctantly agreed.

On Friday night at 9 pm, after finishing the last Pull Request (PR) of the week, my 4-year-old son was about to go to bed and was clamoring for me to tell him a bedtime story. Distractedly, while planning how to squeeze in some time over the weekend for local testing and deciding when to move to staging testing on Monday, I pulled out a picture book and began to narrate one of the stories. The illustration showed a carrot hanging in front of a donkey to motivate it to work. At that moment, a realization struck me: Instacart’s logo was also a carrot.

After putting my son to bed, I felt increasingly like the donkey in the story. The carrot hanging in front of me was the stock options valued at 2 million on paper. Here I was, working so hard, yet receiving no recognition, and absurdly, being put on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) for the first time in my life, all while being bossed around by that Indian manager. What was I doing this for?

I discussed the possibility of resigning without a new job lined up with my wife, and she was firmly supportive. She handles our finances and showed me our ledger: excluding our stock assets, we still have over $400,000 in cash. Our biggest expense, the mortgage, has $360,000 remaining, but we should be able to cover our family's living expenses for several years without issue. Since we already have our green cards, there are no immigration issues to worry about. As for the $2 million in RSUs, firstly, I'm not sure I'll even be able to receive them; secondly, even if I do, with the new tax laws under President Biden, I expect at least half would go to the government. What's left wouldn't significantly change my life; at most, it would just serve as the down payment for a second house in the Bay Area.

Having realized this, I sent my resignation letter overnight. If I can walk away from $2 million in RSUs, then there's nothing left here worth my attachment. As for what to do after resigning, the first thing that comes to my mind is to take my child back to my home country for a while. Due to the pandemic, my child's grandparents haven't seen him for over two years. Now that I'm not working, the quarantine period is no longer an issue for me. At least I can access LeetCode in China, so during the quarantine, I can brush up on my coding skills and look for the next job, which shouldn't be too difficult.

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