Ask HN: Amazon software engineers, how is the work culture now?

Post by dbuder » Mon, May 14, 2018, 10:20 AM UTC

leohutson wrote: post #73

sadamznintern wrote: post #37

I interned at Amazon last year in the Alexa org (non-frontline team in ML). My team was rarely in the office before 10:30 or after 6, even during crunch time (we launched our feature during my internship) but i did see code review responses at odd hours sometimes. I enjoyed the project a bunch, and while my coworkers werent the most social bunch they were pretty smart and effective. I did pretty well and exceeded man…

No hiring manager looking at resumes is going to put any stock into whether it says Google, Amazon or FB, or what school you went to. They will care what you worked on. If you bring with you this completely unjustified view that your coworkers are worse, it will show, no one will want to work with you, and you aren't going to get to work on anything interesting. Your attitude is extremely concerning, you have a lot t…

Post by mabbo » Mon, May 14, 2018, 10:25 AM UTC

uji wrote: post #105

Worked in an AWS team, and the biggest issue was constant fire-fighting and oncall/operational load. Code quality is really bad across all teams in AWS due to constant prioritization of features over stability. We use to get 20 pages a day, and it was very common to get 2-3 pages in the middle of night. It was horrible and yet management didn't pay much attention on fixing it. At the end devs starting leaving the tea…

Post by Steeeve » Mon, May 14, 2018, 10:35 AM UTC

sadamznintern wrote: post #43

I couldnt get into any of the companies you mentioned and picked Amazon as a last resort. What should I do now? Ive contemplated suicide but i dont know if thats a wise choice.

Post by walshemj » Mon, May 14, 2018, 10:44 AM UTC

some_account wrote: post #10

jamdamu wrote: post #7

Amazon has taken steps to prevent abusive behavior from occurring, such as creating a process for engineers to challenge managerial pips and allowing engineers to transfer while on development plans. In my opinion, these steps seem more like treating the symptom than the cause. The overall culture remains the same. Engineers are still treated by management as resources to be allocated, and for me, this is the hardest…

You are. The software engineer profession is becoming like traditional factory workers, only this time they have ping pong tables and free snacks. Also the salary is very high. But the downside is that you are still at the bottom of the pyramid.

Post by walshemj » Mon, May 14, 2018, 10:51 AM UTC

jonhendry18 wrote: post #99

codeonfire wrote: post #34

Thanks to linked in, I saw who was on a 1st level connection with the ex-director there who was arrested for running ads for prostitutes in Bellevue. Those 1st level contacts are still there and in higher positions now. Being 1st level on linkedin doesn't mean they are the same character or were part of the crime, but they are all in management positions. I emailed some women that still worked there and told them the…

That's a really bizarre way of thinking. 1st level connection doesn't mean personally close. Are you willing to be held responsible for the misdeeds your own 1st level connections might get up to?