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Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

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Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#11

Post by nicolashahn »

Pfhreak wrote: post #9

I was super happy with Amazon for 6 years or so. Compensated well, worked hard but fairly (and rarely more than 40-45 hours a week), great peers, good managers, and plenty of interesting work to do. I eventually left because Amazon restricted building games in my spare time with my friends. I just wanted to jam on the weekends on something that would never ship as a creative outlet. Turns out they have a policy that…

I don't understand why Amazon would call out games specifically - is there some rationale behind it?

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#12

Post by NikolaNovak »

twblalock wrote: post #2

This is the quote that stands out to me: > You won’t be promoted for doing your job, you will be promoted by focusing on your promotion. Well, yeah. That's how it is in a lot of companies, especially big ones. Doing what is expected of you in your current position is proof that you are well suited for your current position. Exceeding expectations for your current position is how you get promoted. If the company has a…

I struggled with the same concept myself. A decade ago my manager provided an additional perspective : initiative, eagerness to succeed,ambition... Desire to grow and willingness o work for it, are qualities the company appreciates in addition to "Doing your job". The onerous process is not maybe the best way to measure it, but it's the best way many big companies have. Explained that way, the 'gating' is a little bit easier to understand.

I still struggle with it every time I need to invest the work, but c'est La vie.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#13

Post by themoat »

willio58 wrote: post #3

Stories like this make me even more sure that my path is not to join a tech giant as an engineer. The money would be great, but at what cost? I think the best option for me is to not derive all of my happiness from the amount coming in to my bank, and instead work on things that I have a clear impact on. When I graduate this spring I’m going to be looking at medium-sized companies with a bright future, not the shadow…

Ask lots of questions in those interviews. There are medium sized companies try to emulate giants. You can wind up with a company that's not going to pay you as well as a giant, but tries to implement all the rigid, bureaucratic policies of a giant. Speaking from my own mistake.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#14

Post by kerng »

jurassic wrote: post #4

I think this is getting upvoted because everybody likes to dogpile on Amazon. But nothing this guy says seems to reflect especially poorly on Amazon. If the author is going through another job search now I might recommend taking the piece down; it's not doing you a ton of favors. The summary: guy interviews and accepts an SDE1 role at Amazon, guy resists building alliances with those holding power in the org, guy is…

In a smaller company even a junior person can have impact. It's more of a reflection of being a cog in the wheel of a large "soul less" corporation...

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#15

Post by paulcole »

Interesting take on getting promoted:

> It is not enough to get your job done and help the company grow.

It’s a promotion, not a participation medal. Yes, you should get a salary increase but are you qualified for a new title and responsibilities just by showing up and performing adequately at what you were assigned to do and nothing else?

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#16

Post by newnewpdro »

Pfhreak wrote: post #9

I was super happy with Amazon for 6 years or so. Compensated well, worked hard but fairly (and rarely more than 40-45 hours a week), great peers, good managers, and plenty of interesting work to do. I eventually left because Amazon restricted building games in my spare time with my friends. I just wanted to jam on the weekends on something that would never ship as a creative outlet. Turns out they have a policy that…

Where was this?

I ask because what you're describing sounds illegal in California.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#17

Post by NAHWheatCracker »

This was the least convincing blog post on this sort of topic that I've read. I didn't see anything that actually painted Amazon in a very bad light. I think anyone should expect bureaucracy to be a major problem at a large company. Complaining about promotions seems a bit unfair since he was only there for 5 months.

  Moreover, I saw quite a few senior engineers and discovered that I do not want to be alike…
This is one thing that I've seen at several jobs I've had and it seriously concerns me. I'm almost 10 years into my career and I've worked at 5 companies. I don't feel like I've ever worked with someone that I really thought of as someone who I want to be like.

The senior engineers, tech leads, and managers I've worked with are usually people with more seniority, less energy, and not much more wisdom.

It wouldn't make me so anxious, but that I'm getting to the point where I feel like I'm their position and my less experienced coworkers are thinking the same of me. I try to be better but I've gotten tired of it and I get the feeling that everyone else is tired too.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#18

Post by agoldis »

twblalock wrote: post #2

This is the quote that stands out to me: > You won’t be promoted for doing your job, you will be promoted by focusing on your promotion. Well, yeah. That's how it is in a lot of companies, especially big ones. Doing what is expected of you in your current position is proof that you are well suited for your current position. Exceeding expectations for your current position is how you get promoted. If the company has a…

Thanks for pointing that out!

I was frustrated by the expectation to focus on documenting to get a promotion. I don't think it is a good practice and was surprised to see that:

> focusing on that process (promotion) is not a distraction from doing your job: it is doing your job!

Seems like you understanding of "doing job" is different. To make it clear - I used to be promoted by helping a business grow - complete activities on time on an excellent manner, optimize, reduce costs, propose new features / work on POC.

Not by writing self-promotional documents.

> Exceeding expectations for your current position is how you get promoted.

Unfortunately, it is not by "exceeding", but documenting that you have exceeded, and knowing how to document it right, sometimes not really exceeding at all.

> It seems like the author's idea of "doing your job" was different than his employer's, so of course he had a bad time.

Do you think I came from Tel Aviv to Vancouver AND brought my family to just "do the job" and not to exceed? And, moreover, write and share an article about that? No.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#19

Post by lilyball »

jurassic wrote: post #4

I think this is getting upvoted because everybody likes to dogpile on Amazon. But nothing this guy says seems to reflect especially poorly on Amazon. If the author is going through another job search now I might recommend taking the piece down; it's not doing you a ton of favors. The summary: guy interviews and accepts an SDE1 role at Amazon, guy resists building alliances with those holding power in the org, guy is…

Someone with 10 years of experience getting offered an SDE1 role is a huge red flag for me and makes me wonder what this person's skill set actually is.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#20

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

jurassic wrote: post #4

I think this is getting upvoted because everybody likes to dogpile on Amazon. But nothing this guy says seems to reflect especially poorly on Amazon. If the author is going through another job search now I might recommend taking the piece down; it's not doing you a ton of favors. The summary: guy interviews and accepts an SDE1 role at Amazon, guy resists building alliances with those holding power in the org, guy is…

I agree that I don't think anything the author has written reflects particularly poorly on Amazon, but did you make it down to the "Summary" at the end of the article? Because the author basically says "Yeah, probably just wasn't a good fit for me."

All in all I found it was just the normal level of "big company bullshit" that is in fact a necessity whenever you have very large groups of people trying to work towards a common goal.

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