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Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

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Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#91

This isn't a very good rant, and I'm not sure I respect the author's decision (though ultimately of course it's a very personal one so we have to respect that). From his essay ... Amazon seems like reasonably well run large company by most standards. The author maybe doesn't seem to grasp that large teams doing big things don't seem hugely efficient. The bit about the Canada/US border trip was rich, they're trying to…

Thank you for your comment and advises. My target wasn't to disgrace Amazon and tell people how terrible it is. I wanted to share my experience, possible help others to get better idea about what to expect.

I do not neglect the qualities and agree that "Trust, relationships, competency - those are real things.", but I like them pure, non-situational and not manipulative. And that was not the case.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#92
post #90
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at IT department of Intel for 6 years. Then for about a year as a DevOps. Then for 3 years as JS developer at a startup. Plus few open source contributions and side projects. I wasn't strong in Java or other fundamental languages. == That is my skillset

Thanks for the article How many years of SDE experience do you say you have? Not sure I would would count devops or IT though

I mentioned "10 years of experience in the industry", is it fair?

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know engineers in your situation. I've interviewed a few. It is unusual for someone with 10+ years of experience to be considered for an entry-level job, no matter what kind of education they have.

With the type of interview and questions at those places I would probably fail. I’ve read stuff on algorithms but I’ve never been in a job needing to use this stuff so if you asked me anything about them I wouldn’t have a clue. Yet it seems this sort of thing is a key requirement for interview process at these big companies.

so, from experience? Interviews can be the best way to learn algorithms for the interview.

First trick? there are fads in interviews. When I go through a round of interviews? there is always a lot of overlap between one company and another in the same location at the same time.

Second trick? Most places are cool with interviewing you once a year. In my experience? the second interview at the same company a year later is more different than a second interview at a different company a week later, but still, there's a lot of overlap, and most companies are actually pretty okay with you trying again every year, if you are close (and if you aren't close, you usually won't make it past the phone screen)

When I was a contractor, I lumped all my interviews into around the same time of the year, and I interviewed with all the top tier companies, a few of the second tier companies, and occasionally one of the not so second tier companies. (The latter mostly because those are usually the easiest interviews and they usually got back to you fastest, so it was a good ego boost, and a good way to negotiate my yearly raise as a contractor) I didn't have a spreadsheet or anything, but often the recruiters at my targets would hit me up when that year was up. Or I'd start wondering how long it had been since my last raise.

But, point being, when you interview? always remember the questions you got wrong. I put any memorization/trivia into flashcards the night after, and I practice the flashcards year round. Keep the old ones; you won't get those questions as often, but you still get 'em. And they are usually interesting bits of trivia that can come in handy in other cases where you want to look smart.

Go through any algorithms you didn't get with a friend to make sure it is what you think it is, and then with a book or online resource. Note, it's totally okay to ask the interviewer what algorithm it was supposed to be if you get it wrong; I mean, you still got it wrong, but if anything, it shows enthusiasm and willingness to learn.

Also, interview in clusters. At least in silicon valley, the fads change pretty quickly, so the more interviews you can do in a row, the better.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#94
post #74

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…

> Exceeding expectations for your current position is how you get promoted. That was exactly his point though. He hoped that he would get promoted by doing an awesome job, by going beyond what was merely expected as "done". I know where he's coming from. I've had one job in my career that was exactly like that (and I miss it dearly). I never really worked on promotions while on that job. I was very passionate about t…

very exact description! thank you!

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#95
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…

Why is it "completely foreseeable" and normal to you? OP had a work visa for Canada and he and his colleagues were forced to break the terms of the visa and do work in the US.

That alone is such a major clusterfuck that it should push everyone away from working at Amazon Canada.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#96
post #89
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the part where they offered him an SDE I position despite his 10 years of experience was pretty bad. It does seem like standard policy among tech companies though. I came to the US to work for Microsoft (I'm no longer there) as a level 59 (lowest SDE level), despite having almost 6 years of experience at that point. My wife (an SDET) had even more experience than me (she was a Senior SDET before we moved he…

Why did you accept a lower level position? How long did it take you to get promoted back to your level ?

>Why did you accept a lower level position?

Isn't that clear by now? People want to get into the most famous companies. They think that by osmosis they'll be better engineers themselves, it looks good on the resume, they may be exposed to some brilliance, and, surely, once they're there, these companies will recognize their mistake and promote them into their rightful position. Not to mention that it's notoriously hard for people to self-assess their level, also because the coding gods of one company can be the low performers for another company. And personally, I have no reason to believe that Amazon, Facebook, Google or Microsoft are necessarily on either one far end of that spectrum.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#97
I find it silly how he was only offered a junior developer role, but then again if it was me I'd probably tell the recruiter that I don't care about my job title, if I have a certain set of skills and experience I just want to get at a minimum the market value compensation for it, so as long as that is the case they can knock themselves out with silly job titles.

If they can't pay what I'm worth then I wouldn't take the job even if my title was CTO.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#98
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…

so, just a datapoint, but I personally am much more consistently happy with my situation at large companies. Smaller companies tend to be dominated by how good your boss is (or isn't) - and even when you get a good boss, the small companies just don't have the resources, usually, to treat you as well.

There's also the other side of impact. Sure, it's easier to have a larger impact the smaller the company is. But... the other side of that is that there is a lot of pressure. At least on the ops side of things, a lot of my happiness has to do with how often the pager goes off. I mean, I don't mind being on pager; I can stay sober. But... if the pager goes off too often? we've got a problem, because my performance degrades as my sleep does. You can wake me up once a week. Maybe twice. More than that? and yeah, I'm not going to be so useful.

Larger companies have a lot more bureaucracy, sure, but that's good in some ways. For me? the biggest way that the bureaucracy is good is that it makes my relationship with my immediate supervisor (and those up the chain) feel a lot less feudal. It feels like it's a lot less dependent on my personal relationship with this person. (I mean, sure, your supervisor and your personal relationship with them is still important... just not as important)

But... a lot of people like smaller companies, too. It's a good idea to try both. But if you do get the chance to try working at a FANG company, I recommend you take it; If you don't like it and you leave after a few years, it will make it a lot easier to interview at smaller places.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#99

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 o…

Wow your comment really made me think. I too have been in the industry for over a decade. Thinking back, I can not think of a single manager or lead that I wanted to be like, as well. In fact, because of my last horrible manager, the worst I've ever had, I want to exit the industry all together. I just want to go my own way and have my own small business.

Isn't it incredible how much one bad manager can make you think about leaving a domain you genuily like and are really good at?

Best thing to do, from my experience, is to take some time off (if you can afford to) and get your head clear. Distance really helps.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#100
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 act…

> 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: This was apparently a relatively recent change. Until about a year ago, apparently managers wrote this document. Previous feedback that the promotion process seemed random, obscure, and allowed favoritism resulted in this change being made, where employees are involved i…

Or maybe you just had a good manager. It not fair to judge the whole company because it was ok for you. I came into amazon via acquisition. My manager never explained the process to me, and I wast even aware there were promotion documents for a very long time. And when setting my level on acquisition, we were told “don’t worry about it. The leveles dont really mean anything”
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