Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started • Hacker News Board

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#141

Post by rburhum » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 8:30 PM UTC

solatic wrote: post #138

rburhum wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He should not have accepted the job if he wasn't happy with the SDE position in the first place. It would have saved Amazon and him money if he would have been upfront about what he wanted.

And I'm sure that he agrees with you now. Recall that the guy moved his wife with him halfway across the globe to Vancouver to get the job, and has to move all the way back again now that he has left it (because of work visa limitations). If you think he didn't spend sleepless nights thinking through the consequences, you're (probably) mistaken. Hindsight is 20/20. The opportunity to make a FAANG salary, even if it r…

So then you do it like we used to back in the day, where we do our time (at least one year) while you look for a different job. Then your visa does transfer over. Choosing to leave before the one year is up is his fault, too.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#142

Post by Jach » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 9:15 PM UTC

hackcasual wrote: post #22

nicolashahn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Probably because they're in the game business now.

The policy predates their entry though.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#143

Post by sridca » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 9:22 PM UTC

encoderer wrote: post #137

sridca wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In any case, why do we humans persistently depend on the emotion of trust instead of using our native intelligence to appraise each situation as they come? Trust is an archaic emotion that may have had its value in primitive societies living amidst predators and such demanding instant reactions. However we now live in a safer modern society where newcomers to the team don't come with an intention to kill and plunder…

On any functioning team, you are trusted to do your job on day one. But one of your first jobs is to learn team customs and share the burdens of the team, and by doing that you earn not trust but true respect . Only with respect can you have influence.

That's the best one can manage when confined by the debilitating emotion of trust/distrust/respect/disrespect. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to rely on human intelligence? (It is a question I've been asking myself lately).

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#144

Post by agoldis » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 11:01 PM UTC

throwaway648 wrote: post #120

agoldis wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain. I don't mind to be called "junior" or whatever title you stick on me, but what is "junior attitude"?

For one, you accepted a junior position. Then you seemed to expect to be treated as a senior. Then you seemed to be surprised by the issues, again showing you lacked the experience of a senior. I feel you got good guidance but it feels it was not well received. The away team experience also felt a bit juniory. Your requests we not priotorized high enough but you didn’t find the tools or means to go around it. Underst…

Reading your comment I see a fundamental problem: you treat people... as A or as B, but not as a reasonable person, a peer and a colleague.

> Then you seemed to expect to be treated as a senior.

no, no.... treated like a human and a professional :)

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#145

Post by gspetr » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 11:10 PM UTC

shortoncash wrote: post #80

gigatexal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. This reads like a fish out of water experience for someone expecting a company with hundreds of thousands of employees to act not like any other huge corporation. Of course there’s going to be politics, culture as religion, infighting, boredom etc.

Perhaps off topic, but are there any podcasts out there for learning to cope with or adjust to the sorts of things this guy talks about in his blog post?

Michael O. Church has interesting meta posts on engineer careers dealing with politics at big orgs: https://web.archive.org/web/20160113210613/https://michaeloc...

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#146

Post by gspetr » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 11:12 PM UTC

gigatexal wrote: post #130

gigatexal wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2016/08/07/you-are-not-...

This takes a bold stance but it’s something

Is it that bold or novel?

patio11 wrote about it back in 2011: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#147

Post by purplezooey » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 11:45 PM UTC

"...trying to only work on projects that contribute to your promotion..."

Too many people like this in medium/big companies. Don't be that guy.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#148

Post by austincheney » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 3:05 AM UTC

adregan wrote: post #125

austincheney wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the people that I wanted to be like, growing up as a developer, were people who seemed more focused on their programming hobby than their programming job. Here is the take away that I noticed about those people and have attempted to apply to myself: * Extremely focused on product quality and defensive code * Maintenance focused more than feature focused * Excellent with documentation * Indirectly focused on self-…

That's a great list and echos what I have noticed about developers I want to emulate as well. Any tips on how to be "Maintenance focused more than feature focused" if the culture is focused on pumping out features on tight deadlines? I have, of late, found myself engineering more on nights and weekends—trying to clean up and refactor the code that we have to pump out to meet the deadlines. However, I'd love to find a…

Spend a lot of time on reported issues from users. If a user is willing to spend time to report a defect spend time to ensure you really understand what they are reporting and solve it as completely as you can.

Don't wait for users to report defects. You have to constantly use the software you write. Stress the hell out of it and really try to make it fail. Write tests to ensure the edge condition is covered against future regression.

Attempt to automate everything. Adding new options and features in the previous version of my application was a pain in the ass. Now they are all listed in a single JSON file. The build adds the options into the supported interfaces as well as the documentation. Now all I have to do to add a new option is update the JSON file, add the desired result into the application logic, and write tests.

Ensure your documentation is well structured. You want to ensure all the features are mentioned, but its helpful when reading the docs if there is a uniform organization that explains the purpose, data type, compatibility, and options of each feature.

The challenge with supporting many features is that collisions of various features can result in unexpected outcomes. You have to really look for these things before your users do.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#149

Post by joffotron » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 6:10 AM UTC

faitswulff wrote: post #5

> Supposedly, every employee should be guided by the leadership principles during their day-to-day routine. The principles actually make a lot of sense, when used appropriately. As time went, I discovered that the most common application of the principles was to creatively find a leadership principle that best supports the situation. Bryan Cantrill has a sometimes hilarious takedown of Amazon's "leadership principles…

Honestly, everyone needs to watch this. It's not just Amazon, but so many companies have these absolutely toxic and ridiculous "principles"