diff --git a/atlasdb-client/src/main/java/com/palantir/atlasdb/transaction/impl/AbstractConditionAwareTransactionManager.java b/atlasdb-client/src/main/java/com/palantir/atlasdb/transaction/impl/AbstractConditionAwareTransactionManager.java
index d487a92bca4..8b1003a2129 100644
--- a/atlasdb-client/src/main/java/com/palantir/atlasdb/transaction/impl/AbstractConditionAwareTransactionManager.java
+++ b/atlasdb-client/src/main/java/com/palantir/atlasdb/transaction/impl/AbstractConditionAwareTransactionManager.java
@@ -83,7 +83,6 @@ public <T, C extends PreCommitCondition, E extends Exception> T runTaskWithCondi
                 log.warn("[{}] RuntimeException while processing transaction.", SafeArg.of("runId", runId), e);
                 throw e;
             }
-            sleepForBackoff(failureCount);
         }
     }
 
diff --git a/atlasdb-client/src/main/java/com/palantir/atlasdb/transaction/impl/AbstractTransactionManager.java b/atlasdb-client/src/main/java/com/palantir/atlasdb/transaction/impl/AbstractTransactionManager.java
index f69b4bb9505..4b7ebaed31c 100644
--- a/atlasdb-client/src/main/java/com/palantir/atlasdb/transaction/impl/AbstractTransactionManager.java
+++ b/atlasdb-client/src/main/java/com/palantir/atlasdb/transaction/impl/AbstractTransactionManager.java
@@ -51,10 +51,6 @@ public abstract class AbstractTransactionManager implements TransactionManager {
         this.timestampValidationReadCache = timestampCache;
     }
 
-    protected static void sleepForBackoff(@SuppressWarnings("unused") int numTimesFailed) {
-        // no-op
-    }
-
     protected boolean shouldStopRetrying(@SuppressWarnings("unused") int numTimesFailed) {
         return false;
     }
diff --git a/atlasdb-impl-shared/src/main/java/com/palantir/atlasdb/transaction/impl/AdvisoryLockConditionSuppliers.java b/atlasdb-impl-shared/src/main/java/com/palantir/atlasdb/transaction/impl/AdvisoryLockConditionSuppliers.java
index f8f3c3d6489..408f380aaf6 100644
--- a/atlasdb-impl-shared/src/main/java/com/palantir/atlasdb/transaction/impl/AdvisoryLockConditionSuppliers.java
+++ b/atlasdb-impl-shared/src/main/java/com/palantir/atlasdb/transaction/impl/AdvisoryLockConditionSuppliers.java
@@ -83,7 +83,6 @@ private static HeldLocksToken acquireLock(LockService lockService, LockRequest l
                     log.warn("Failing after {} tries", failureCount, ex);
                     throw ex;
                 }
-                AbstractTransactionManager.sleepForBackoff(failureCount);
             } else {
                 return response;
             }
diff --git a/docs/source/release_notes/release-notes.rst b/docs/source/release_notes/release-notes.rst
index 22825ac9cb2..6438674f957 100644
--- a/docs/source/release_notes/release-notes.rst
+++ b/docs/source/release_notes/release-notes.rst
@@ -57,6 +57,12 @@ develop
            We now perform the operations correctly only considering the value (or absence of value) in the relevant cell.
            (`Pull Request <https://github.com/palantir/atlasdb/pull/3388>`__)
 
+    *    - |improved| |devbreak|
+         - We have removed the ``sleepForBackoff(int)`` method from ``AbstractTransactionManager`` as there were no known users and its presence led to user confusion.
+           AtlasDB does not actually backoff between attempts of running a user's transaction task.
+           If your service overrides this method, please contact the AtlasDB team.
+           (`Pull Request <https://github.com/palantir/atlasdb/pull/3432>`__)
+
     *    - |improved|
          - Sequential sweep now sleeps longer between iterations if there was nothing to sweep.
            Previously we would sleep for 2 minutes between runs, but it is unlikely that anything has changed dramatically in 2 minutes so we sleep for longer to prevent scanning the sweep priority table too often.  Going forward the most likely explanation for there being nothing to sweep is that we have switched to targeted sweep.