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Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

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Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#21

Post by xenocyon »

lowiqengineer wrote: post #14
Klonoar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're certainly allowed to be proud... but others don't have to respect your career choices (and many won't, which is fine). Personally speaking, I've had Amazon try to pull me a few times and I just stopped responding to their emails. It's a large company and I can agree that there's leagues of separation between, say, AWS and warehouse operations... but I also just don't care, I can't co-sign the kind of stuff tha…

I've been rejected at Google and Facebook and most of HN doesn't think my total compensation is all that impressive, so, I probably don't have many options to be real with you.

Why do you care whether HN thinks your comp is impressive?

Money is a tool. Once basic material needs are met, tying personal self-worth to a numeric value is not a recipe for happiness, and chasing other people's expectations of what you should be earning is even worse.

I would say you probably do have options, if you choose to go for them.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#22

Post by Pfhreak »

bakenator wrote: post #7
Pfhreak wrote: post #2

One of the things I really liked about working for AWS was the accessibility of the S-team. Even as a fairly junior engineer I was in meetings where you could get their opinions, see where they were going, and understand their goals. AWS has a lot of things I don't love (not least of all, their policy towards developing games in your spare time), but they had a ton of rigor around setting goals while still giving dev…

I'm just curious, what was your experience trying to develop games in your spare time? Were you told to stop?

There's an explicit company policy about game development that is separate from their open source policy. It, among other things, prevents you from working on a game project with anyone else.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#23

Post by plicense »

jessriedel wrote: post #19
Pfhreak wrote: post #2

One of the things I really liked about working for AWS was the accessibility of the S-team. Even as a fairly junior engineer I was in meetings where you could get their opinions, see where they were going, and understand their goals. AWS has a lot of things I don't love (not least of all, their policy towards developing games in your spare time), but they had a ton of rigor around setting goals while still giving dev…

Everything after your first two sentences is off-topic. If the comments on all articles about Amazon devolve into general complaints about Amazon, there will never be quality discussion.

Umm I guess you could ignore the comment then. Part of what I like about HN is the tangential discussion and the personal experience that commenters share.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#24

Post by Pfhreak »

lowiqengineer wrote: post #16
bakenator wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just curious, what was your experience trying to develop games in your spare time? Were you told to stop?

People sometimes do, they just don't publicize it. It's specifically noted in the intellectual property agreement, though nobody seems to be sure why.

Search inside for the 'Game Development Policy', it's separate from the intellectual property commitment. Reasoning is likely from Amazon Games Studios? I think there may be a concern that someone at Amazon might make the next flappy bird or Minecraft and Amazon couldn't capitalize on it.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#25

Post by Pfhreak »

nickbauman wrote: post #8
Pfhreak wrote: post #2

One of the things I really liked about working for AWS was the accessibility of the S-team. Even as a fairly junior engineer I was in meetings where you could get their opinions, see where they were going, and understand their goals. AWS has a lot of things I don't love (not least of all, their policy towards developing games in your spare time), but they had a ton of rigor around setting goals while still giving dev…

Average tenure of an Amazon employee on the tech side is something like a year or so.

The number I heard (which was years ago) was that 18-24 months was closer to the truth. But yeah, not long either way.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#26

Post by jdck1326 »

xenocyon wrote: post #21
lowiqengineer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been rejected at Google and Facebook and most of HN doesn't think my total compensation is all that impressive, so, I probably don't have many options to be real with you.

Why do you care whether HN thinks your comp is impressive? Money is a tool. Once basic material needs are met, tying personal self-worth to a numeric value is not a recipe for happiness, and chasing other people's expectations of what you should be earning is even worse. I would say you probably do have options, if you choose to go for them.

>not a recipe for happiness

And certainly not a recipe for morality

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#27

Post by Pfhreak »

jessriedel wrote: post #19
Pfhreak wrote: post #2

One of the things I really liked about working for AWS was the accessibility of the S-team. Even as a fairly junior engineer I was in meetings where you could get their opinions, see where they were going, and understand their goals. AWS has a lot of things I don't love (not least of all, their policy towards developing games in your spare time), but they had a ton of rigor around setting goals while still giving dev…

Everything after your first two sentences is off-topic. If the comments on all articles about Amazon devolve into general complaints about Amazon, there will never be quality discussion.

I disagree. S-teams set the culture. They drive their organizations in a way that is very, very active (especially relative to places I've worked elsewhere.) When there are cultural issues at Amazon, I believe that they can be at least partly traced to the s-team leaders.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#28

Post by [deleted] »

lowiqengineer wrote: post #20
SamBam wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The tech industry is large enough that if you're good enough to work at Amazon, you probably have options. > I've been rejected at Google and Facebook These two statements are not contradicting each other...

Perhaps, but my goal is to make ~$250k a year as fast as possible. To do so at my current company would take at least 3 years and 2 promotions, whereas even James Damore was making $400k+ 4 years into his tenure. I can't get offers at trading firms, so I'm kinda SOL overall.

[deleted]

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#29

Post by heymijo »

lowiqengineer wrote: post #14
Klonoar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're certainly allowed to be proud... but others don't have to respect your career choices (and many won't, which is fine). Personally speaking, I've had Amazon try to pull me a few times and I just stopped responding to their emails. It's a large company and I can agree that there's leagues of separation between, say, AWS and warehouse operations... but I also just don't care, I can't co-sign the kind of stuff tha…

I've been rejected at Google and Facebook and most of HN doesn't think my total compensation is all that impressive, so, I probably don't have many options to be real with you.

> my goal is to make ~$250k a year as fast as possible. To do so at my current company would take at least 3 years and 2 promotions

Hi,

I don't want to dunk on you, but I would truly encourage you to gain some perspective on just how myopic a view this is.

(I couldn't reply to your comment below where you said this)

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#30

Post by Dig1t »

Pfhreak wrote: post #2

One of the things I really liked about working for AWS was the accessibility of the S-team. Even as a fairly junior engineer I was in meetings where you could get their opinions, see where they were going, and understand their goals. AWS has a lot of things I don't love (not least of all, their policy towards developing games in your spare time), but they had a ton of rigor around setting goals while still giving dev…

Man I'm glad these threads pop up. Every so often Amazon starts to look tempting as a place to work, and I need threads like this to remind me that it sucks and isn't worth it.
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