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

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61–70 of 147 posts

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

#61
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…

Phil S? Is that you?

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

#62
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about that has to do with the contents of the article ? You didn't make contact with anything besides the term "S-team" in the headline. And even then, you say they drive all this culture, but you don't say anything substantive. How? What events?

The article itself discusses inferring Amazon's priorities from changes to their s-team, including doubling the number of AWS s-team members. I'm not sure I'm allowed to disclose which events/meetings their s-team regularly attends. I will say that I did have several opportunities to interact with them directly in meetings, and indirectly via goals setting and annual planning exercises. Peter Desantis is a long time…

Did you ever meet Peter's dog Moose? That was the biggest dog I've ever seen in an office.

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

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought that they were doing it because they had a really low opinion of their own game studio. Maybe they were trying to kill as much future competition as they were able to (legally).

I’d say that opinion is fair considering I had no idea they even had their own game studio.

Their first (and only) title they seem to be pushing hard to the public (in my opinion, at least. The Grand Tour Game wasn't really marketed): https://www.newworld.com/en-us

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

#64
post #54
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Let’s also not forget that Amazon are war profiteers: https://aws.amazon.com/government-education/defense/

Another way of looking at it is that they are using their technology to help defend the country where the company was created.

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

#65
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 agree with this.

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

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why morally? If you go for the money and you do not steal it, you certainly bring value into the world, that people are willing to pay for. Do not see what is morally wrong about it.

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

#67
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…

> Well, I'm not sure I'd come back, actually I’m at Amazon right now (Ads) and honestly this makes me really sad. It feels like I’m not allowed to be proud of where I work.

I encourage you to speak with a therapist about how you feel.

Money is not going to make you happy or proud, comparing yourself to others is a zero-sum game, and living to work comes at a cost.

Seriously, find and talk with a professional. How you are feeling now is probably not going to change even if you achieved everything you want.

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

#68
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 was oncall 24/7 for months in the worst times and received no extra comp

How is that even legally possible?

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

#69
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not just for the techies, other white collar employees have more or less the same tenure, from what I know.

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

#70
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one time I met an Amazon games studio employee my response was, “Amazon has a games studio?” He said it was a common response.

Heh. I worked in Amazon Games for a bit. It was a very common question. Along with, "What games have they made?" (Breakaway a 'sports brawler', The Grand Tour game a tie in for the show, New World an mmo about being a colonizer, Crucible a third person shooter.)

Woah, totally surprised by the New World mmo.

That looks like a PR landmine.

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