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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

#71

Post by hef19898 »

whateveracct wrote: post #52
whoevercares wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The length of tenure by level would make more sense. Senior and Principal SDEs (L6&7) in Amazon are like semi and full god, while lower level ICs are design to “hire fast, fail fast”

I think you gave it backwards. Or at least it goes both ways. Long tenure naturally results in becoming L6 if you have a boss who develops you and aims to get you there (+ understands how to work in the review/promotion system and check the boxes.) Maybe I misinterpreted, but it sounds like you deify L6 engineers as "better" and that's why they remain. I don't think that's exactly it lol. Also..people leaving in 2 ye…

Which is a very sensible plan to have. My biggest mistake was to not have an exit strategy I followed from day one. But than LVL 5, or 4, at Amazon isn't that bad. You have probably more responsibility than a LVL-6 equivalent at any other non-FAANG corp.

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

#72

Post by luckylion »

okr wrote: post #66
jdck1326 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

> 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.

Opioid manufacturers bribing doctors to prescribe more opioids so people get addicted and will buy more opioids.

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

#73

Post by luckylion »

Supermancho wrote: post #43
ahelwer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you're working in ads you are working to surveil & modify the behavior of your fellow humans against their consent. Make your own judgement about whether you should be proud of that.

> against their consent I have worked in ads for over 15 years. I certainly don't believe it's any more "against your consent" than stores coloring their walls to modify behavior or placing goods in a more visible location to sell more, or that fluffy animals are perceived as cute. The work is good and I have never been happier than when I work in adtech.

It's a bit more invasive than "coloring the walls", right?

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

#74

Post by Rebelgecko »

tasogare wrote: post #68
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 was oncall 24/7 for months in the worst times and received no extra comp How is that even legally possible?

presumably by being a salaried exempt employee

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

#75

Post by chrisseaton »

tasogare wrote: post #68
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 was oncall 24/7 for months in the worst times and received no extra comp How is that even legally possible?

If you're paid a significantly large salary then you are 'exempt' overtime and they can ask you to be available at any time. The expectation is that you're being paid as a professional to achieve something, not to clock-in and clock-out. If you want to work hours only with formal overtime you can get a job that's paid less and paid hourly so that you are eligible for overtime, or you can ask for extra compensation and negotiate those terms yourself, but they may say no in which case you should look for a different job if it matters to you.

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

#76

Post by ericmcer »

lowiqengineer wrote: post #46
heymijo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

I don't think it's myopic if everyone I follow on twitter and see on instagram is getting Hawaiian offsites and European work trips at Google and Hudson River Trading while I can't even go to Seattle for our internal ML conference because it got filled up too quickly for the last 3 years or whatever. I enjoy what I work on..I just wish I was treated more like all of my friends and former coworkers.

There will always be people who seem to have it better than you do. Maybe really analyze what you want to get out of your time on this earth?

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

#77

Post by chrisseaton »

Klonoar wrote: post #10
lowiqengineer wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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…

> Personally speaking, I've had Amazon try to pull me a few times and I just stopped responding to their emails.

Good for you, but some people have to take whatever opportunity they can get.

Tech interviewing is so fickle that just because you pass an Amazon interview doesn’t necessarily mean anywhere else would take you.

We shouldn’t criticise anyone for taking a job to support themselves and put food on their family table.

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

#78

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

#79

Post by ansgri »

chrisseaton wrote: post #75
tasogare wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was oncall 24/7 for months in the worst times and received no extra comp How is that even legally possible?

If you're paid a significantly large salary then you are 'exempt' overtime and they can ask you to be available at any time. The expectation is that you're being paid as a professional to achieve something, not to clock-in and clock-out. If you want to work hours only with formal overtime you can get a job that's paid less and paid hourly so that you are eligible for overtime, or you can ask for extra compensation an…

But what would they actually do if you’d say that you’ve been on call enough already, not going to continue for a week or two? sure they wouldn’t terminate you, that’d be too expensive for a skilled employee of which there is rumored to be a great shortage.

American work culture seems very strange.

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

#80

Post by jcims »

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.

The HN salary dick swinging contest is absurd and not something you should factor into your overall happiness.
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