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Hire-to-fire at Amazon India?

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Re: Hire-to-fire at Amazon India?

#271

Post by amazon_throw »

tmarthal wrote: post #238
amazon_throw wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said, I don't doubt that they happen, but given that you've also left the company and seem to have hit one of these areas of toxicity yourself, I'm not surprised you'd think so. Who was your last manager? I'm curious if it's anybody I know?

> seem to have hit one of these areas of toxicity yourself Have you considered that the original poster's experience is actually the norm and that your experience is the one that is the anomaly? I was 1 for 2 in organizations with shitty leadership, and the organization that was run properly had zero open headcount. Everywhere people are hiring into is not one of the "good ones". Check out the old-fart tool, 85% of t…

I have considered it. I don't see the pattern widely, and I'm watching for it. I've seen teams implode because of it, and other toxic patterns, so it's not that they're not there... they just seem to be in the minority. There are teams I won't send friends to work for, for sure.

Re: Hire-to-fire at Amazon India?

#272

Post by varispeed »

cduzz wrote: post #72

An important lesson I've learned is to ask in the interviews "how is employee performance evaluated?" If the response is blather about 360 peer review, be wary. Also scan all available information about if they perform any stack ranking. I worked at a place where managers would bring in other people just so they could meet their "must fire" quotas but keep their existing teams intact. I left shortly thereafter. An or…

The problem is that this is a "factory worker" mindset applied to creative and IP based work.

When a factory worker makes a chair, company does not profit from it indefinitely.

When a developer creates code he or she gets paid once, but company profits forever.

So even if they fire a developer, they still are profiting the from work they did. Question is, why developers sign IP transfer and royalty waiver in their contracts?

Re: Hire-to-fire at Amazon India?

#273

Post by amznthrow0000 »

I joined Amazon and was soon put on the devlist (i.e. preparatory chopping board) by a new manager.

I only knew that I was at risk of losing my job after 4-ish months, at which point the secret deadline was very close.

That period was extremely stressful and honestly left some scars (that have mostly healed).

I saw friends with families and fresh mortgages get fired instead of me. I was essentially fighting against them (who were unbeknownst to them also on devlist) to showcase my deliverables to leadership and demonstrate I pass the bar.

After that I moved to a team in AWS that I love. Management puts focus on our health, invests in operational improvements, and people work normal hours. Senior SDEs are vocal about taking it easy and taking care of ourselves when we need to.

Re: Hire-to-fire at Amazon India?

#274

Post by UK-Al05 »

alwayshasbeen wrote: post #228

I was contacted by an Amazon recruiter some month back. The experience was so unpersonal, I felt like a soulless robot: I just got a link to a HackerRank test and solved some automated puzzles with no one but me and the clock ticking. How I understand coding tests is that there should be a human being that evaluates how you approach a problem, not a fully automated assignment.

That's just the initial filter. You'll eventually get a in person interview. Tbh its pretty standard.

Re: Hire-to-fire at Amazon India?

#275

Post by api »

Question: is it possible to achieve the heights of human achievement and capability / productivity without an abusive culture?

It’s a legitimate non-ironic question. I ask because I’ve vowed to try to build something great without that and I often wonder if it can be done.

I don’t see many examples. Most high achieving top of their field groups seem abusive and dominated by abusive personalities.

Re: Hire-to-fire at Amazon India?

#278

Post by [deleted] »

baby wrote: post #241
nobleach wrote: post #215

I interviewed with Amazon and Facebook in the Spring/Summer of 2020. The difference was night and day. Amazon felt like I was part of a huge cattle herd. The recruiter contacted me and told me they needed to hire a bunch of people in my area. I was immediately given a course of study, link to common LeetCode questions and told I had a couple of weeks. That fine. I enjoy solving puzzles. Facebook felt VERY different.…

I interviewed with google, fb, and amazon and fb really felt like the more human interview of the three. Now, do I like the leetcode/system designs interviews of fb? Nope. But definitely the least bad.

[deleted]

Re: Hire-to-fire at Amazon India?

#279

Post by hintymad »

salil999 wrote: post #18

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…

What I don’t get about Amazon is that AWS customers have way less oncall load, particularly Netflix, whose engineers could afford oncall 24x7 for weeks or months with perfectly normal work-life balance. Why can’t Amazon, the pioneer of cloud computing, achieve the same level of effectiveness?

Re: Hire-to-fire at Amazon India?

#280

Post by danbrooks »

nobleach wrote: post #215

I interviewed with Amazon and Facebook in the Spring/Summer of 2020. The difference was night and day. Amazon felt like I was part of a huge cattle herd. The recruiter contacted me and told me they needed to hire a bunch of people in my area. I was immediately given a course of study, link to common LeetCode questions and told I had a couple of weeks. That fine. I enjoy solving puzzles. Facebook felt VERY different.…

I had a very similar experience with Amazon and Facebook interviews.
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