Interview with an anonymous AWS cybersecurity engineer • Hacker News Board

Re: Interview with an anonymous AWS cybersecurity engineer

#51

Post by kablow » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 12:32 AM UTC

mtnGoat wrote: post #42

iameli wrote: post #20

Kind of tangential, but > If you're working in Seattle for Amazon and you're good at your job and you want to leave your job tomorrow, you have far fewer opportunities. Where are you going to go, Microsoft? There's not nearly as much mobility. So I think a big part of the reason we have less organizing [than Google] is that people are more afraid to jeopardize their jobs. If you want to stay in the Northwest, you kee…

There a lot of tech companies in Seattle, many of which are growing their head count. I'd say it's just as good a job market as SF or NY, albeit slightly smaller. I don't buy the BS from the interview/blog article. No Amazon engineer I know was worried about leaving/loosing their job. All but one said their engineering culture wasn't fun to work in, and they all left before fully vesting... so i wouldn't say they wer…

To be fair, with the way Amazon's TC/RSUs work you always have some left unvested - I don't know if it is possible to quit "fully" vested (unless you're referring only to the initial grant.)

Re: Interview with an anonymous AWS cybersecurity engineer

#52

Post by kablow » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 12:36 AM UTC

ApicalDendrite wrote: post #9

This person is very clearly mixing things that he knows directly, things that he's read about in books (e.g. Amazon's strategy in the early days), and rumors that he's heard (e.g. Jeff Bezos' personal life). There's no way that a cybersecurity engineer at a company as sprawling as Amazon has reliable firsthand knowledge on so many different unrelated topics. The writer is a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Cent…

I'll add: even if he is speaking for AWS with some authority, he certainly doesn't speak for the rest of Amazon. I've seen some teams with _really_ bad practices (security and otherwise.)

As for your comment about the writer, the entire website feels very "off" to me - no author listed, no "About" page with names/links, nothing to give this credibility. I did see the link to the cofounder's Twitter page, so at least there is someone behind it, but it is pretty well hidden.

Re: Interview with an anonymous AWS cybersecurity engineer

#53

Post by kablow » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 12:37 AM UTC

ApicalDendrite wrote: post #36

sayhar wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The writer is a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard Law, which is an organization I have tremendous respect for, so it's really a shame that they were naive enough to publish this. I don't see a writer listed. What am I missing? (Disclosure -- I'm a BKC fellow this year)

I initially saw the link on her twitter feed: https://twitter.com/moiragweigel/status/1341414901143777280

Based on this I'm still not sure if she actually wrote the piece or just published it (as her bio lists her as a co-founder of the site.)

Re: Interview with an anonymous AWS cybersecurity engineer

#54

Post by ApicalDendrite » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 12:52 AM UTC

kablow wrote: post #53

ApicalDendrite wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I initially saw the link on her twitter feed: https://twitter.com/moiragweigel/status/1341414901143777280

Based on this I'm still not sure if she actually wrote the piece or just published it (as her bio lists her as a co-founder of the site.)

Based on this tweet, I believe she was the interviewer: https://twitter.com/moiragweigel/status/1341423429958979593

Re: Interview with an anonymous AWS cybersecurity engineer

#55

Post by antonvs » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:00 AM UTC

iameli wrote: post #20

Kind of tangential, but > If you're working in Seattle for Amazon and you're good at your job and you want to leave your job tomorrow, you have far fewer opportunities. Where are you going to go, Microsoft? There's not nearly as much mobility. So I think a big part of the reason we have less organizing [than Google] is that people are more afraid to jeopardize their jobs. If you want to stay in the Northwest, you kee…

People with the FAANG mindset have only five preferred employers, and only one of them is in Seattle.

Re: Interview with an anonymous AWS cybersecurity engineer

#56

Post by notretarded » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:04 AM UTC

CapacitorSet wrote: post #38

This reads a lot like a PR piece for Amazon, with most "answers" promoting Amazon nearly like a press release and very little negative points. A few sentences that stand out: > If you have a ton of data in your data center and you want to move it to AWS but you don't want to send it over the internet, we’ll send an eighteen-wheeler to you filled with hard drives, plug it into your data center with a fiber optic cable…

I find it very hard to belive a cyber security engineer knows that much of the wider company and it's history.

Re: Interview with an anonymous AWS cybersecurity engineer

#57

Post by ttam » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:42 AM UTC

ApicalDendrite wrote: post #28

bosswipe wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving the benefit of the doubt, he sounds like an experienced senior guy so he's surely plugged in to internal communications, discussions, and rumors. And a lot of times in security there are opportunities to work with a large cross-section of teams.

I've worked with engineers at Amazon up to the senior principal level. Even if you grant that people in cybersecurity see a broader swath of the company, there's just no way that he can talk authoritatively about everything from AWS sales tactics, to hiring practices for former DoD procurement people, to real estate strategy to Amazon's own supply chain, to Jeff B.'s personal life. It would be like a mid-level employ…

I don't think he said anything particularly insightful irt all those topics. A lot of the statements were superficial things that you'll pick up while working on adjacent areas (and as we know, it's pretty easy to jump around different teams/fields in Amazon) or from Amazonian friends.

Interesting things he didn't really talk much about: Alexa (there was 1 like 1 very superficial reference to it), Kuiper, and others.

I don't think this is a PR piece, and most likely it is not approved by the company (the reference about Jeff's Sex Life would've been removed). This does feel like a real view from an insider, it's very opinionated, and not all of it is right.

Re: Interview with an anonymous AWS cybersecurity engineer

#58

Post by zaltekk » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:42 AM UTC

antonvs wrote: post #55

iameli wrote: post #20

Kind of tangential, but > If you're working in Seattle for Amazon and you're good at your job and you want to leave your job tomorrow, you have far fewer opportunities. Where are you going to go, Microsoft? There's not nearly as much mobility. So I think a big part of the reason we have less organizing [than Google] is that people are more afraid to jeopardize their jobs. If you want to stay in the Northwest, you kee…

People with the FAANG mindset have only five preferred employers, and only one of them is in Seattle.

Facebook and Google both have multiple offices around Seattle. I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple or Netflix were interested in hiring in Seattle either.

Re: Interview with an anonymous AWS cybersecurity engineer

#59

Post by dtrailin » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:47 AM UTC

iameli wrote: post #20

Kind of tangential, but > If you're working in Seattle for Amazon and you're good at your job and you want to leave your job tomorrow, you have far fewer opportunities. Where are you going to go, Microsoft? There's not nearly as much mobility. So I think a big part of the reason we have less organizing [than Google] is that people are more afraid to jeopardize their jobs. If you want to stay in the Northwest, you kee…

It's also not that uncommon to see people go from Amazon go to Microsoft especially in teams like Azure. There's more difference between teams within the two of them than there is between the two as a whole. Although, people generally go to Microsoft for better work life balance and benefits. Going from Microsoft to Amazon to boomerang back to Microsoft is also quite common.

source: work at MS

Re: Interview with an anonymous AWS cybersecurity engineer

#60

Post by amursft » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:52 AM UTC

notretarded wrote: post #56

CapacitorSet wrote: post #38

This reads a lot like a PR piece for Amazon, with most "answers" promoting Amazon nearly like a press release and very little negative points. A few sentences that stand out: > If you have a ton of data in your data center and you want to move it to AWS but you don't want to send it over the internet, we’ll send an eighteen-wheeler to you filled with hard drives, plug it into your data center with a fiber optic cable…

I find it very hard to belive a cyber security engineer knows that much of the wider company and it's history.

This seemed like a fairly normal level of knowledge to me, honestly. There's a lot of public information about the company, and you work there so you want to learn and know more - from both internal/external sources. Anything you found particularly surprising?