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

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

#201

Post by CamTin »

pc86 wrote: post #180
CamTin wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's mainly a way to avoid having to pay out unemployment insurance: it provides documentation that you were fired "for cause". Most US companies do it, so you can't ever really count on getting unemployment benefits.

My wife and I own a business in a rather pro-employer state and even our DOL does not consider being bad at your job just cause for denying unemployment. We had an employee use company resources to actively plan opening a competing business half a mile away and still lost our request that he be denied unemployment benefits after we fired him for gross misconduct. If you get unemployment benefits denied, especially in…

I'm in Texas. I've never experienced this myself, and haven't ever had to apply for unemployment benefits (knock on wood), but I know plenty of people (5-6 in as many years, all with different companies) who have been fired or laid off and none of them has ever received unemployment, even after fighting their former employer on it.

My point is that you should NEVER count on getting it, and especially not with getting in quickly. I got laid off in Michigan and was eventually accepted, but by that point I had burned through all my savings (I was pretty young, so there wasn't much to burn through) and already accepted a job here in Texas. It was a nice bonus, but didn't really help me with my unemployment situation in any way.

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

#202

Post by sadamznintern »

mter wrote: post #21

I work under 40 hours a week with no pressure to work more, I get along with my coworkers and look forward to going to work in the morning. I have worked a crunch time that was pretty terrible, but that was a once off. It's been almost 2 years since my last crunch time. The comp is decent. It doesn't match google/fb but it's better than a non tech company. I have a target of ~170 total comp as an SDE II with just und…

> I have a target of ~170 total comp as an SDE II with just under 4 years of experience out of college.

This is honestly lower than I expected. I have friends who are new grads at Facebook that make more than that with 0 years of experience.

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

#203

Post by sadamznintern »

frmramzn wrote: post #3

Moved to Google and TBH have cried once or twice because I didn't realize an employer could be so humane. Amazon was terrifying, but the academic culture I came from normalized self brutalization to succeed,so I didn't realize how much they were relying on my lack of a sense of boundaries and personal priorities to extract excess labor.

I wish I could do that.

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

#204

Post by throwaway84742 »

freeone3000 wrote: post #163
throwaway84742 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn’t know. Then, Microsoft, take notice. :-)

Microsoft starts vesting immediately at 20% every 6 months. Amazon, take note.

Are you sure? This means the whole grant vests in 2.5 years. Their vesting period used to be much longer than that.

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

#205

Post by amenod »

CalRobert wrote: post #92
sjapkee wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>no free food/drinks It's sooooo important.

To each their own. I struggle with compulsive eating and free food at a workplace correlates with weight gain for me. Of course, that's just me. I'm not saying you should be deprived. I like getting a free beer or two on Thirsty Thursdays but if I were a recovering alcoholic I would hate it.

I believe GP was being sarcastic... That said, while I don't mind free food and drinks, I also don't mind taking care of it on my own. The only difference is if there is a weekly event for all company with food + drink, sort of a gathering. That does wonders for morale.

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

#207

Post by dang »

leohutson wrote: post #109
Eldandan wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounded like a dark, tongue-in-cheek response to the "never work for amazon" advice. Like, his only other option is death according to HN commenters, since the only place he got an offer from was amazon. Or so I hope...

I didn't interpret that way at all, read their other comments. Even if they are just trolling they clearly aren't healthy right now, because that's a pretty fucked joke. I know people here as a rule aren't very empathetic, but the responses to this person are particularly cold.

The top voted responses are empathetic, which suggests that the bulk of readers are as well.

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

#208

Post by dang »

cylinder wrote: post #112
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…

This guy is obviously some sort of satirical troll. Stop feeding it.

That word 'obviously' is dangerous here. People vastly overinterpret online comments, especially when it comes to who's trolling (or astroturfing or shilling, etc.) They routinely accuse others of this when it turns out not to be the case. From a careful reading of their comments I don't think that user is trolling at all, but rather is telling the truth (and such data as we can find in the logs confirms it).

Now consider the downside if you're wrong. Isn't it obvious that posting like this is a terrible idea?

People with suicidal feelings often say things that don't make sense to others. That's a consequence of their being—for whatever reason—in an extreme situation. The particular detail they're expressing the most pain about can seem absurd, if you don't know what else it connects to. But if you were to find out what it connects to, you'd no longer find it absurd, nor would you feel annoyed or dismissive, and you'd surely feel bad about hurting someone in that position.

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

#209

Post by tsycho »

joshuamorton wrote: post #178
tsycho wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has done this for at least 6 years now, I don't know when they started doing this. Source: Spouse works at Google

No they haven't. There's always been an initial 1 year cliff. This changed in the past year. Source: I joined google less than 6 years ago and had a 1 year cliff.

Hmm, maybe different people have different contracts. In our case, the 1 yr cliff was about the signing bonus, not the vesting.

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

#210

Post by sjg007 »

GFischer wrote: post #128
sjapkee wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>no free food/drinks It's sooooo important.

Well, it's kind of a signal, see Steve Blank's essay: https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear... Sometimes financial decisions that are seemingly rational on their face can precipitate mass exodus of your best engineers.

I don't think Amazon ever had free food and drinks so that's a difference.
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