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

Then why are they (and you after witnessing this) still there?

Joined Amazon Dublin in the Summer of last year as SDE2 (that's the category where most engineers will fall into), so way after the NYT article. Pay is very good for Europe - AFAIK one of the best for the position and above G/F/MS in Dublin (according to Glassdoor), though I think that at the end of the day you might take more home if you're working for G/F and living in London/Switzerland (due to lower taxes).

As for the work environment, like in all big companies, it really depends in which team and project you land. My team and adjacent teams are full of respectful people and work is pretty good. We're building some "large scale" systems, and technology wise it's pretty cool. But I've heard stories from people in other teams where they were relegated to doing oncall and fixing bugs. I also know 1 person that didn't make it through the probation period (he was in one of those oncall teams). The company is big and has a lot of different projects, so YM(will definitely)V. I've had to interact with a lot of different people across the company and my impression is overall positive.

In terms of work load, it's not light. At the same time, right now, it's not that high, but that will probably change once we're closer to the deadlines. I enjoy it, it keeps me active and not bored at work. I know people who do 8-17 (1 lunch hour) EVERY DAY. Pretty much everyone around me works 8-9 hours. The teams around me are also very flexible with remote work (a lot of us work remotely 1-2 days a week). In term of the actual work, me and my team have had to design systems, write documents (the 6 pagers, design reviews, etc), and we're implementing them. A lot of technical freedom. I also hear manager refer to people as resources and I dislike it - not sure why/where that terminology comes from, but I think it's something common inside and outside the company.

Yes, perks are pretty much non-existent. No snacks, no free lunch/dinner, no gym, just water, fruit, and coffee. Heck, not even free tshirts and the employee discount is ridiculous. But if that's what you're looking for in a company, then I'm sorry, you won't find it here. Yes, you'll also get stack ranked at the beginning of the year, and getting promoted to SDE3 is not easy.

One interesting thing, at least around me, the vast majority of people seems to be 30+ old. From the teams around me, I think no one (apart from me) reads HN. People come from all around Europe (and some from Asia).

Perhaps it would be better to actually have knowledge about the topics on which you're commenting?

Plenty of people are self aware enough to know they don't have what it takes to [start,own,run] a business. They can still be passionate about the work they're doing.

And those people who use that as a blanket statement for the entire industry are objectively wrong. There are a handful of things being on a PIP could mean.

1. You're not really trying because you're used to the work being relatively easy. It means you need to actually try, and barring evidence to the contrary, you have no reason to believe you'll be fired if you shape up.

2. You're trying your hardest and the work just isn't good enough. This is a bad sign, and you'll likely fail to meet the requirements of the PIP so you should start looking.

3. Your company is using a PIP to cover their ass for legal reasons. In the US, this makes no sense at all, especially for folks in the $170k+ total comp bracket, because you can be fired for any or no reason (barring certain protected classes). It's unlikely the company is going to spend $100k to cover their ass if you don't fall into a protected class.

I have seen multiple folks at multiple companies put on PIPs both formal and informal, and I have never seen it used as a cover for someone to get let go.