51–60 of 589 posts
“ If you're someone who likes your 7 hours of sleep a day, stay away.” how do people function long-term with so little sleep? I need at least 9 hours to not be a useless husk the next day.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Code quality was atrocious. We had one enormous Java method (>1000 lines) which would take care of nearly every single request coming into our service... With only about 7-8 unit tests AWS is pretty reliable for the most part so I am pretty surprise that the code quality is that bad.
I think one thing I learned from AWS is that there's so much hidden away from the customer. There definitely were (and probably still are) many issues which the customers won't actively experience. Reliability doesn't necessarily equate to good standards and good practice. But yes, from a customer point of view, AWS is pretty nice.
”Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made.”
I’m guessing another lousy side of this is the toxic HR as mentioned in the post. Let’s say you lasted a year and left. Now you can put Amazon on your resume. However, HR is so toxic that they’ll never give you a good reference if someone calls in. Now all that work and effort was really for nothing. Edit: I meant if someone calls into HR to verify employment. You run the risk of HR secretly bad mouthing you. Yes, it…
Former AWS engineer here. I worked on a pretty critical product in AWS (big AWS service with lots of traffic) and I can safely say that it's totally up to your manager and pre-existing conditions which make up the job. My manager was great as a person but would always lack in my career-oriented goals (bigger projects, promotions, etc) But what really sucked for me was the pre-existing conditions. Our on-call was pret…
> Code quality was atrocious. We had one enormous Java method (>1000 lines) which would take care of nearly every single request coming into our service... With only about 7-8 unit tests AWS is pretty reliable for the most part so I am pretty surprise that the code quality is that bad.
I'm not totally surprised because of two factors: very stable product definitions and lots and lots of users.
A number of years back, I was talking with people at a famous and popular site with a broad audience. I asked them how much unit testing they did. They said that particular isolated pieces sometimes had tests. But most of the user-facing stuff didn't because they had one-button rollout and one-button rollback. Instead of bothering with unit tests, they'd just frequently release changes, watch the metrics and the customer support queue, and quickly roll back if they'd introduced a bug.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>AWS, which could be run by less than 50 engineers)? What the... > (Not a software engineer Ah, yes. It shows. 50 engineers is probably less than the size of some support teams within Amazon that handle a single large corporate AWS customer.
This is a peak HN comment (the one you are replying to)! The other day on the Wikipedia thread, there was a data scientist who said he could run a website like Wikipedia all by himself. "How hard it is?". And here we have the same thing for Amazon..
“ If you're someone who likes your 7 hours of sleep a day, stay away.” how do people function long-term with so little sleep? I need at least 9 hours to not be a useless husk the next day.
People have very different metabolisms and lifestyles. I know people who need less than 5h per night and are completely healthy. I myself feel like shit if I wake up before 9am.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Consider this metaphor: You go on vacation. You stay at a hotel, not a “B&B.” Your vacation, your money, so you find a place close to the things you want to see, with plenty of free amenities like free continental breakfast and free WiFi. It’s somewhat reasonably priced, too. Now you go on a business trip financed by your employer, who books you into a “business class” hotel. It’s also close to things you want to see…
While I don't disagree with your general point, I'm not sure it broadly applies here. Honestly, a nice B&B is probably priced pretty similarly to a business-class hotel. Why do I usually stay in business class hotels in cities? Chain hotels like Marriott's brands are pretty consistent quantities. A random B&B really isn't. Business class hotels also tend to have 24-hour desks, I can leave my luggage after checkout, e…
1. Hotels that appeal to guests who pay their own way, and; 2. Hotels that appeal to companies with business travel needs.
The second type of hotel has the massive machine hidden from guests.
I’m guessing another lousy side of this is the toxic HR as mentioned in the post. Let’s say you lasted a year and left. Now you can put Amazon on your resume. However, HR is so toxic that they’ll never give you a good reference if someone calls in. Now all that work and effort was really for nothing. Edit: I meant if someone calls into HR to verify employment. You run the risk of HR secretly bad mouthing you. Yes, it…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People have very different metabolisms and lifestyles. I know people who need less than 5h per night and are completely healthy. I myself feel like shit if I wake up before 9am.
Do they "only" need 5 hours of sleep or do they say they need it? Are they as productive as they could be when fully rested, or will they "sleep when they are dead". Arianna Huffington also thought she was being greatly productive at no sleep, until her body told her to fuck off and she collapsed in her office from exhaustion.
I've had two job offers from AWS for SA and TAM and I turned both down. The actual position was always lower than what I was originally interviewing for (Senior instead of Staff) Literally the only company I've seen that does that. It's like a bait and switch. If I'm not actually qualified just say no lol
This might be a dumb question but if it's standard to drop everyone a level (I've heard this too) is it possible to interview for Principal or something where they would drop you back to Staff?