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Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

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Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#161

Post by VRay »

ferdowsi wrote: post #130
lakevieew wrote: post #111

I had joined Amazon as my first job out of school. I was super excited and would not mind working the long hours as the project was interesting. I enjoyed working with my team and manager. Just near the end of the year, my manager quit. The new manager ran my performance review and assessed that my performance didn’t meet expectations. I was not put on PIP. Instead, there would be a development plan that I had to com…

I still can't believe that Amazon measures performance by "numbers of commits" and "SLOC". Pure insanity.

To be fair, some morons at Microsoft do it too

My skip-level manager put me on a performance improvement plan there because he said someone else had done 10x as much work as me. It turned out that the other engineer had closed out something like 1 "bug" ticket per day, and I'd closed out 1 "task" ticket per day PLUS some bugs, so I'd done substantially more work.

I just waited until my next stock vesting, then took a severance package and left that rancid shithole. We were working on some retarded dead-end boondoggle of a device, and I'm sure everyone in the org got a frowny face on their report card when it was eventually canceled.

Ironically, I actually had a pretty decent experience at Amazon before that. I guess it just goes to show that the most important thing about any job is your manager and your team.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#162

Post by Scramblejams »

wiz21c wrote: post #136
ferdowsi wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still can't believe that Amazon measures performance by "numbers of commits" and "SLOC". Pure insanity.

I wonder if people who are hired are being told about that before signing their contract.

Amazonian here, I speak only for myself. FWIW, 4+ years in as an SDE and I've never been judged on that metric. If I had a manager like that, I would do what's best for my career. :-)

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#164

Post by bob33212 »

plank_time wrote: post #55

When the stock goes from 200 to 3500 in 10 years, and consistently goes up and to the right, you won’t find too many of the workers complaining no matter how bad the job conditions are. I have a friend up in Seattle who is suffering, to the point of being hospitalized for mental health issues, but refuses to leave. So HR and leadership believe that their system “works” but it’s really that their employees are willing…

I interviewed and got the feeling that people were not especially happy there. When I asked what they liked about AWS, 3 said "the stock price going up"

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#165

Post by titanomachy »

decafninja wrote: post #82
titanomachy wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the kind of rockstar ninja wizard that can glean multiple offers from all sorts of top tech companies" I don't think this is a helpful stereotype. I know lots of these people and they're quite normal. "Rockstar ninja wizard" makes these jobs sound a lot more unattainable than they really are.

I mean, as someone who has yet to crack one FAANG (or similar level company) offer, a FAANG engineer is someone that I look up to. But my friends and ex-colleagues who did crack FAANG did so with difficulty, and they got rejected from all but the one company that did extend an offer. They all say if they were to re-interview at their companies (or another FAANG), odds are they'd be rejected. So someone who can get of…

If you work at a top-tier company, you'll meet lots of people who can get multiple offers from top-tier companies. They are bright, but usually not geniuses. And they are often a bit obsessed with puzzles :)

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#166

Post by Apocryphon »

plank_time wrote: post #55

When the stock goes from 200 to 3500 in 10 years, and consistently goes up and to the right, you won’t find too many of the workers complaining no matter how bad the job conditions are. I have a friend up in Seattle who is suffering, to the point of being hospitalized for mental health issues, but refuses to leave. So HR and leadership believe that their system “works” but it’s really that their employees are willing…

Golden handcuffs? More like golden shackles.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#167

Post by rejectedandsad »

maybelsyrup wrote: post #158
plank_time wrote: post #55

When the stock goes from 200 to 3500 in 10 years, and consistently goes up and to the right, you won’t find too many of the workers complaining no matter how bad the job conditions are. I have a friend up in Seattle who is suffering, to the point of being hospitalized for mental health issues, but refuses to leave. So HR and leadership believe that their system “works” but it’s really that their employees are willing…

> I have a friend up in Seattle who is suffering, to the point of being hospitalized for mental health issues, but refuses to leave. It's kind of a hot take, but as someone who passed through young adulthood during peak social paranoia about suicidal jihadi terrorists lurking behind every tree, it's really interesting to see, every now and then in anecdotes like this, a weird sort of jihadi capitalism appear. It's li…

The poor fellow at Amazon can always go to Zillow or Microsoft not really the same as deaths of despair here.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#168

Post by rejectedandsad »

htrp wrote: post #134
startup_excuse wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason you wouldn’t work elsewhere and invest is the following: you get hired at Amazon with a total comp of 500k (180 base + 320k in RSUs). You have been in role for 2 years and are completely burnt out. However the stock has doubled, and your total comp (without any raises) is now 820k. That is too much money for people to walk away from. If you leave for GOOG you will get in at the current stock price with no…

You're also on a 4 year 5/15/40/40 vest

That’s irrelevant they give you the same amount in “signing bonus” with a 55/45/0/0 “vest”.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#169

Post by dragonwriter »

civilian wrote: post #121
EarlKing wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When the stock goes from 200 to 3500 in 10 years, and consistently goes up and to the right, you won’t find too many of the workers complaining no matter how bad the job conditions are. Tell that to the guys in logistics who don't get any options and bear the brunt of Amazon's bad management.

So, elaborate on your model of the world. Shouldn't the logistic employees already be leaving in droves since they're not getting stock? Why aren't they?

> So, elaborate on your model of the world. Shouldn't the logistic employees already be leaving in droves since they're not getting stock? Why aren't they?

Wait, does “logistics” include warehouse, where the article mentions they had reached 150% annual turnover prepandemic? Sounds a lot like “leaving in droves”.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#170

Post by jameshart »

tmp60beb0ed wrote: post #127
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can make great money working in tech without subjecting myself to a work environment where 6% of my colleagues will be forced out. So, in a competitive market where tech talent has its choice in the best employer... why Amazon? I've seen more articles written about Amazon being a dog-eat-dog place than any other large tech company.

I have worked at startups as well as at Amazon. I would choose Amazon over most startups. In my experience the biggest factor in job satisfaction is the manager. A good manager can create a great work environment even with stack ranking. A terrible manager can kill morale regardless of company policy. I like Amazon culture. Managers are mostly experienced and well-trained. Startups vary a lot. Could be amazing but al…

There’s a lot of jobs in the vast excluded middle between ‘Amazon’ and ‘startups’.
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