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Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

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Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#221

Post by MatteoFrigo »

zz865 wrote: post #172

Is Amazon really such a bad employer? I've just started process with them now. I dont want to work for Facebook, there is no local Netflix and I'm probably not good enough for Google - Amazon is the only FANG company I'm realistically going to get.

Please be aware that Amazon will insist on a non-competition agreement. Depending on your seniority level and whether such agreements are enforceable in your jurisdiction, there is a high chance that this will limit your opportunities after you leave Amazon. Don't overlook this aspect when evaluating offers.

This is an example of how this interferes with the career of a very senior executive: https://www.geekwire.com/2021/microsoft-standoff-amazon-big-... However, this problem also affects junior engineers, more junior than you may think.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#222

Post by AdrianB1 »

zz865 wrote: post #172

Is Amazon really such a bad employer? I've just started process with them now. I dont want to work for Facebook, there is no local Netflix and I'm probably not good enough for Google - Amazon is the only FANG company I'm realistically going to get.

It is all relative. In comparison with the other FANG companies, the people that I know told me Amazon has worse work-life balance and a more stressing environment, but it can be fine versus other companies outside the FAANG group, especially with the top compensation you get for that.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#223

Post by roland35 »

thehappypm wrote: post #120
roland35 wrote: post #13

I am noticing a lot of the big tech companies are becoming more flexible about remote work, but they are still far away from a true remote friendly option for me at least. It seems the expectation is that they want people to be available to come to the office on demand every once in a while, so you need to be living within at least a 1-2 hour drive from the office. While that is certainly an improvement, it isn't tru…

1-2 hours away from a major city is actually kind of a sweet spot, IMO. Big cities have things like major hospitals and major employers, they have airports, they have baseball stadiums. They've also got social networks -- it's much easier to make friends in a place with 100,000 people your age than 50. Now, escaping to the undeveloped areas is cheap, and many of them have access to things like beautiful mountains or…

Yeah I agree it is helpful to be close to a large city, but unfortunately for me it isn't the right city for most tech companies! I am also closer to the east coast, so less convenient for Seattle or SF.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#224

Post by matthewfcarlson »

spacedcowboy wrote: post #131
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"- 4 straight hours inside a room - every hour the interviewer changed - got asked the same questions over and over again" It's the same in UK, at least they standardised it!

It's the same in the US too. My last (internal transfer) job interview at Apple was 8 hours long, 8 interviews.

I think I might have you beat with 9 hours, but that was an external interview

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#225

Post by mabbo »

smashem wrote: post #206
mabbo wrote: post #189

I quit Amazon 3 weeks ago after nearly a decade. Work from home was one of the biggest reasons. In my view, the personality traits that are conducive to promotion up the Amazon leadership ladder are strongly aligned with loving work-from-office. Most people L10 and higher not only don't understand the desire for permanent work from home, I think maybe they cannot understand it. It's just too foreign to many of them.…

Funny, I left Amazon two weeks ago because WFH burned me out. I'm currently taking a sabbatical. * Zoom fatigue is real. * I find it much harder to collaborate with peers. * I feel like less of a part of the company. Not being in the office, so I'm no longer seeing that busy bee activity on the floors, not able to mingle with other people from other teams, not seeing new faces, no team activities, and no desk with my…

And that's a totally valid view. Strangely enough, I suspect Amazon will be a great company for you long-term if you go back. Management is aligned with your needs, not mine.

The question is whether there are enough developers like you to run one of the largest software companies in the world, while maintaining 'the bar'.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#226

Post by vesuvianvenus »

zz865 wrote: post #177
ferdowsi wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you should back up and ask why you are limiting your search to those four/five companies?

No other companies pay >250k in NYC.

Plenty pay >$250k remotely and in large cities such as SF and NYC-- For Engineers, Managers/Executives (Eng, Mktg, other), Salespeople, etc. You just have to ask for it. If you're unfamiliar, join TeamBlind.com

A company sent me roles at $125k recently. I wrote them back with a polite variation of "heck no, my rate is $250k".

I'm currently quite broke-- $5k to my name (too many sabbaticals, plus only recently paid off student debt and pivoted into engineering). But I bluff every time and sometimes it works out. Nothing to lose: there seem to be infinite employers in need of software engineers.

They wrote back to schedule an interview.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#227

Post by alistairSH »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #57
ashtonkem wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is putting the cart in front of the horse. The thing you should be optimizing for is not geo-location, but time zone . The latter is only weakly related to the former. It doesn't matter if someone is within driving distance of the office so long as they are in (or willing to work in) the time zone that the office works at. Rejecting someone in Los Angeles because they're not within driving distance of Se…

I don't know how productive it is to search for the true definition of "WFH". Regardless of what we call it, it seems reasonable to have an intermediate model like Amazon's proposing, where you can mostly work from wherever you'd like but you have to be available for in-person meetings because the company thinks they're valuable.

That’s sort of the worst of both models. You have to pay expensive rent/mortgage to stay within range. You’re commuting at the whim of your boss.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#228

Post by dudul »

kodah wrote: post #164

My company said they'd let people work remotely, but based on my observations from friends on other teams and my own, this is more of a last resort. If you're going to quit and are not a lead engineer, then they'll offer you remote. If they can't fill a position in a timely manner, then they'll start looking remote. My takeaway is that maybe the C-Suite has been convinced, but now you need to convince line-managers a…

It reminds me of the "will consider remote for strong candidates" that you can see on job postings. There aren't many bigger red flags for me for how the company treats remote employees.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#229

Post by jjtheblunt »

georgeburdell wrote: post #209

Since they're having problems with retention, I wonder if they'll also get rid of that 6 month rejection cooldown? I had an Amazon recruiter cold e-mail me 2 months ago and me, being off the market for 8 years, had no idea software engineering interviewing was its own skillset, and subsequently bombed the online assessment. 2 months later, I've "grinded Leetcode" and passed a few phone interviews, but I'd be interest…

I'd recommend scanning all the "leaks" publicized about 4 months ago from internal Amazon HR policies. They're real, and why I was like eff this, and quit. It is plausible they're very varied across divisions and teams.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#230

Post by rodgerd »

josiahsiegel wrote: post #31
docflabby wrote: post #9

One of the things that's been missed is that remote working has been a big part of counteracting the massive inflation that's been caused by covid. Making people go into the office is a effectively a pay cut with all the price increases. Start forcing people in and salary expectations will rise accordingly.. .

Productivity has also appeared to increase with remote work (at least at my job), yet I keep seeing articles from high-profile CEOs on how remote work is bad for business. I'm not quite sure where all the resistance to remote work is coming from.

> I'm not quite sure where all the resistance to remote work is coming from.

You are assuming that the people who make decisions are somehow more rational than anyone else.

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