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Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

seattletimes.com

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Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#391

Post by 8note »

taurath wrote: post #7
KallDrexx wrote: post #2

From the blog post > At this stage, we want most of our people close enough to their core team that they can easily travel to the office for a meeting within a day’s notice. We also know that many people have found the ability to work remotely from a different location for a few weeks at a time inspiring and reenergizing. We want to support this flexibility and will continue to offer those corporate employees, who ca…

Really curious why only within country? Security reasons? Also why 4 weeks? Just to be available for meetings? I find it funny that this is the American version of a nice holiday - go pay money to rent an Airbnb so you can work in a different environment.

What you can do is be working while travelling, extending your vacation by 2 days. One on the way to the location, and one on the way back.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#392

Post by 8note »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #229
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.

All I saw was "return to office is going to be pushed out by another 4 months, every 4 months for the foreseeable future"

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#393

Post by xyzzyz »

deanclatworthy wrote: post #355
xyzzyz wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know why this is downvoted. This is very much true. Outside of a handful of largest cities, Europeans are as car-dependent as Americans, and if they drive less, it’s mostly because they are poorer, while cars and gas are more expensive: instead of replacing what in the US would be car trips with public transit, they simply travel less and stay home more. As European nations get wealthier, car ownership rises,…

I’d like to point out that the correlation between size and public transport isn’t always applicable. Helsinki has a fantastic and uncrowned public transport system. It’s also affordable (50-60e) a month. And it’s a tiny city when you compare to other capitals.

And yet despite that, Uusimaa still has 0.4 cars per capita, so that great majority of households own a car anyway.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#394

Post by sneak »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #317
baby wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this theory that one of the contributing factors to the "I don't want to go to the office" trend in the US (which I'm part of), is that cities are also not made for commuting. Coming from Europe, where public transport is really practical, and cities are built for density, your commute is often much less cumbersome AND you can enjoy some social life after work since you're in the city. Here (the bay) it was ju…

I've never lived in the US, so I can't comment on the commute situation there, but I live and work in Paris proper and one of the main reasons "I don't want to go to the office" is the commute. I need 30-45 minutes to get there, and our public transit system is supposedly good. But the metro's still too crowded, dirty, smelly, etc. And I even usually avoid rush hour and take an automated, hassle-free line. Commuting…

> Commuting by personal motorized vehicle is hell, so you can forget that.

This is the standard way of commuting in most of the US.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#395

Post by throwawayam »

I interviewed at amazon,India last year for their Arora DB team. It was one of the worst experience I ever had interviewing at any company. I was asked to come to their office on a week-end, the HR calls me a day before to remind me that I have to be there at sharp 8:30 AM. I was living bit far from their office, but I made sure that I was there at their office well ahead of time. Turns out there are 50 odd candidates waiting there. They had never informed me that it was a mass interview. They then asked us to assemble in a room and told that interviews will start soon. Turns out the people who were supposed to interview us were flown down from their HQ and they were running late. So, to our frustration, they arrived 4 hours later. They provided us some average lunch and interviews started in the afternoon. The initial interviewers were fine, but in the later rounds(in late evening) I felt that the interviewers did not seem interested. In the last interview, the interviewer( I guess he was one of the directors), was not even making eye contact. He asked me a data structure question and asked me solve it on the white board, but then he got busy with his laptop. My solution was not very efficient one, but there was no hint or discussion on how to make it better and he then suddenly started talking about how great Amazon is as a place to work for!

After few days, they arranged for next set of interviews and the HR mailed me bunch links I had to study. Then I got a call from one their senior managers to inform me that there will be lot of leadership principles questions and they are very serious on them and I have prepare for them thoroughly! They took another month to complete like next 5 rounds and at the end the HR calls me and say that I had to take one interview again as one of the the directors had lost the feed back on me!. I said no, then he comes back and says that they have found the feedback.

They took another few days and sent me a rejection letter. I wasn’t expecting an offer from them as I did sort of average in the interview, but the whole experience made me think how unprofessional they were!.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#396

Post by nelox »

ekianjo wrote: post #325
baby wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this theory that one of the contributing factors to the "I don't want to go to the office" trend in the US (which I'm part of), is that cities are also not made for commuting. Coming from Europe, where public transport is really practical, and cities are built for density, your commute is often much less cumbersome AND you can enjoy some social life after work since you're in the city. Here (the bay) it was ju…

Europe only has good public transport in very few selected cities and you have to ignore strikes in France to pretend its working well and is reliable. The city with the best public transport in the world is probably Tokyo in terms of frequency and service reliability but it is constantly over capacity and things are not getting better. Crowded trains are hell. so no commute is certainly better pretty much just anywh…

Many Tier 2/3 cities in Europe do it best in terms of access to great public transportation and an easy going lifestyle.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#397

Post by deanclatworthy »

xyzzyz wrote: post #393
deanclatworthy wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d like to point out that the correlation between size and public transport isn’t always applicable. Helsinki has a fantastic and uncrowned public transport system. It’s also affordable (50-60e) a month. And it’s a tiny city when you compare to other capitals.

And yet despite that, Uusimaa still has 0.4 cars per capita, so that great majority of households own a car anyway.

Uusimaa is a huge area, covering far more than Helsinki. I'm talking specifically about the metropolitan area.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#398

Post by novaRom »

cerved wrote: post #373
Talanes wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually wondering what you consider not a long commute if 30 minutes hits the threshold. I've known plenty of people who have longer commutes driving directly from home to work.

30 minutes is still 5 hours a week

Times 50 weeks is 250 hours or literally 250/8= 31 active days wasted per year! A month of your life!

It's fine if you walk you can think about anything, but if you drive a car you waste your time.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#399

Post by baby »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #317
baby wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this theory that one of the contributing factors to the "I don't want to go to the office" trend in the US (which I'm part of), is that cities are also not made for commuting. Coming from Europe, where public transport is really practical, and cities are built for density, your commute is often much less cumbersome AND you can enjoy some social life after work since you're in the city. Here (the bay) it was ju…

I've never lived in the US, so I can't comment on the commute situation there, but I live and work in Paris proper and one of the main reasons "I don't want to go to the office" is the commute. I need 30-45 minutes to get there, and our public transit system is supposedly good. But the metro's still too crowded, dirty, smelly, etc. And I even usually avoid rush hour and take an automated, hassle-free line. Commuting…

I’d take your commute, in exchange I’ll give you my daily 3 hours in a shaky shuttle round trip I used to do at fb

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#400

Post by sails »

whatshisface wrote: post #174
bluedino wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can hire new grads every year Getting expensive to move to Seattle though

Running a giant company with nothing but new grads is really asking for every project management problem ever discovered.

Let alone the project management problems, what about the "Worst Case" from yesterday.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28825009

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