&#62; It's the same as pretty much any big company - underperformers are notified that they're underperforming, put on a performance improvement plan to help improve their performance, and if they still don't improve, they're fired.<p>On the teams I was on, this was true in theory but not in practice. There were a few weak performers. If they were mediocre, they slipped by unnoticed; if they were really bad, they would get a ton of performance improvement meetings, second chances, etc, and firing was put off for as long as possible. Not sure if this was due to legal fears or what, but it was my anecdotal experience over 3 years.