Out of the 6 coworkers I’m close with, I’ve seen every single one of them cry for work related reasons at least once over the past year. Peak is hell.
Ask HN: Amazon software engineers, how is the work culture now?
81–90 of 268 posts
Re: Ask HN: Amazon software engineers, how is the work culture now?
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, but is this a serious post? Honest question. > My total comp for the first year is only $145k out of undergrad with a base of $106k. My friends at places like Google, FB and Cruise are making more like $180k-$230k by comparison. Heaven forbid someone is making more money than they know what to do with than you are. > Im honestly terrified that the value on the resume will decline over time and i will never be…
Nothing wrong with chasing money and status, especially in the initial stages of one’s career. If that’s what _really_ makes him/her tick, great. Money especially tends to have multiplicative effect over time, most jobs you take will necessarily pay more than the previous job. But notice the “really”. There’s 45 years of work in a lifetime, and one needs to find a deeper motivation than money and status.
Re: Ask HN: Amazon software engineers, how is the work culture now?
#83I 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.
Same here. Looks like AMZN these days is way easier to get into compared to Google and Microsoft. I couldn't even clear the first rounds at others, but got an offer from Amazon.
Re: Ask HN: Amazon software engineers, how is the work culture now?
#84No change since the NYT article. Amazon only changes things when it has to, and only in a lip-service kind of way. There was a flurry of discussion and proposals when the article was published, but it's all died down and we're back to where we were beforehand. Compensation, culture, and perks are infinitely better at Google, Facebook, Lyft, Uber, etc. All of them start vesting your stock monthly after 1 year, whereas…
>no free food/drinks It's sooooo important.
Re: Ask HN: Amazon software engineers, how is the work culture now?
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same here. Looks like AMZN these days is way easier to get into compared to Google and Microsoft. I couldn't even clear the first rounds at others, but got an offer from Amazon.
The person you replied to is considering suicide, and your only response is to ignore that and agree with the rationale that led them there?
Re: Ask HN: Amazon software engineers, how is the work culture now?
#86Re: Ask HN: Amazon software engineers, how is the work culture now?
#87The talk here about sticking at a job that makes you cry, when you have in demand skills and can work anywhere, is nuts to me.
Yeah it's insane. I can't tell if the people who say it isn't bad just have good teams or are lying. The fact that there is a chance of crying at work based on your manager is absurd and washes away any good of working at that company.
They purposely break up teams that get too big in order to keep with the idea of "two pizza teams", that is, a team small enough that two pizzas would be enough to feed everyone. The team and managers set the tone of culture at this level. At the next level up, the smaller teams coalesce into the upper org headed by a vp or whatever. The upper management here and the team managers sets the culture for cross team interactions.
It can therefore be possible to be on a good team if your managers are proactive and shield their team, but managers also have a ton on their plate and are beholden to the same power structures that are attempting to grind them into dust.
There was one manager that was beloved by all in the org because he took care of his direct reports - he saw the writing on the wall and jumped ship to a greenfield project in a different org. A bunch of senior engineers followed along shortly after.
Re: Ask HN: Amazon software engineers, how is the work culture now?
#88No change since the NYT article. Amazon only changes things when it has to, and only in a lip-service kind of way. There was a flurry of discussion and proposals when the article was published, but it's all died down and we're back to where we were beforehand. Compensation, culture, and perks are infinitely better at Google, Facebook, Lyft, Uber, etc. All of them start vesting your stock monthly after 1 year, whereas…
Re: Ask HN: Amazon software engineers, how is the work culture now?
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Performance improvement plan. Basically a chance to get your act together before they fire you.
Some would argue it's more of a "start looking for a new job, we're about to fire you" warning.
If it's the latter, I'd like to challenge the assertion that a PIP is necessarily the company trying to get rid of someone. In my experience as a manager, I've always made sure that PIPs are as honestly designed to get people back on track as could be. In, say, the last five years as a manager, and in my organisation of a couple hundred engineers, there were exactly two cases (and the key point is that I recall both specifically) where a PIP was primarily motivated to document the already extremely obvious (to anyone far and wide) underperformance and attitude problem. And even then, the managers in question had the professionalism to design the PIP to be eminently achievable.
Generally speaking, I find the likelihood of a PIP to be adversarial and/or a tool to be able to fire somebody to be much more strongly connected to whether there has been an adversarial relationship between the employee and their manager. For that reason, I found that it paid off hugely to make sure people move to different teams & managers and get a reset there before taking any drastic action. In the same way as people are said to leave due to their managers, not jobs, it's key to take that personal component out of a bad situation.
Re: Ask HN: Amazon software engineers, how is the work culture now?
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, but is this a serious post? Honest question. > My total comp for the first year is only $145k out of undergrad with a base of $106k. My friends at places like Google, FB and Cruise are making more like $180k-$230k by comparison. Heaven forbid someone is making more money than they know what to do with than you are. > Im honestly terrified that the value on the resume will decline over time and i will never be…
Nothing wrong with chasing money and status, especially in the initial stages of one’s career. If that’s what _really_ makes him/her tick, great. Money especially tends to have multiplicative effect over time, most jobs you take will necessarily pay more than the previous job. But notice the “really”. There’s 45 years of work in a lifetime, and one needs to find a deeper motivation than money and status.