Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

seattletimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 310 posts

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#201

Post by epicureanideal »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #185
epicureanideal wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good engineers seem to cost quite a lot everywhere. I have yet to see the mythical $10 per hour amazing engineer from overseas, although I’ve seen several amazing but expensive engineers from overseas. I think the era of wage arbitrage is over. This myth is perhaps perpetuated to scare the talent over here into accepting worse conditions. Any small gains they can make through arbitrage are eaten by time zone issues,…

To put some real numbers on it. An average React developer in London would charge around £650/day as a contractor. In a second city like Manchester they would charge say £500/day. In Eastern Europe it would be like £220/day. Yes there are trade offs, but wage arbitrage hasn’t gone away.

I hear you, and I think there's some truth in what you're saying, and probably the truth is somewhere between our statements, but I suspect it leans closer to my own position (although of course I'd think so...).

I think making an accurate comparison is very complicated, and if we looked at a large number of factors the wage arbitrage advantage would shrink. I think the seeming "wage arbitrage opportunity" is partly due to mis-assessment of the "sameness" of the contractors being compared.

For example, the average software engineer on the US coasts is much more likely than a software engineer in the US midwest to have gone to a top tier university, and although that doesn't guarantee they are better, there may be some advantage. The extra depth of knowledge or extra grit to grind through a slightly harder education might not show up in an interview or even on an average day's work, but might show up sporadically in ways that save or create significant amounts of money.

(To use a more obvious example, if a bootcamp coding school graduate and a graduate from Stanford both pass a coding interview, and both write a similar amount of "similar-seeming" code on an average day, I still suspect that when hard problems arise, or more sophisticated architecture or algorithms are needed, the Stanford or other top-school graduate is going to more reliably solve the problem and in a long-term better way.)

Similarly, they might live in a tech hub where they are constantly learning new technologies, or the general pace of their life and work might be ever so slightly higher. They might spend more of their free time getting better at their profession. Anyway, I won't try to provide an exhaustive list of possible differences, but these are some things I see that aren't usually accounted for.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#202

Post by danbolt »

knifie_spoonie wrote: post #186
lettergram wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I managed a remote team and man is it harder than in person. One common remote work thought is “you get more heads down time” I’ve found almost the opposite. You have to be way more regular about engagement with each person. I would do 20 min meetings with every team member, every week. Team lunches over zoom twice a week, daily standup (1 min per person, plus breakout rooms for further discussions), Friday afternoon…

> In an office I can walk around the block with you and chat. In a remote setting I have to schedule some time This is exactly what I love about remote work. Being able to schedule activities ahead of time and avoid my flow being interrupted makes me so much more productive.

Likewise; I really appreciate being able to section off time and plan my tasks around the availability. If a manager wants to book a meeting for something, there’s usually a bit of runway to get my notes organized.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#203

Post by fzeroracer »

goostavos wrote: post #173
fzeroracer wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're honestly out of touch with the software market. I earn around $110k a year after seven years of working and I'm nowhere near being able to afford a house. The fact that you think everyone is a FAANG engineer is part of the problem; the majority of us are not earning those top end salaries and the fact that you think we can buy a home after 5 years in Seattle is a massive joke.

I think houses are for the duel FAANG income, no kids crowd. Even on a senior FAANG salary, there's no knob I can turn on the calculator that ends up making sense for me to buy at these interest rates (in a part of town that doesn't leave me with a >1hr commute). I remain a renter. Dump it all into stocks and hope for the best!

That's basically me; I keep a decent chunk in savings in case of emergency / downturn and then the rest in stocks / retirement etc. I hate having to invest in the stock market because most of it is gambling and speculation, but at least I can dump it in an index fund and it'll be fairly safe.

There's a reason why a significant number of millennials and below are cheering on for a housing bust and it's because it's possibly the only way we can afford a home.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#204

Post by osigurdson »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #35
btbuildem wrote: post #18

Wow, the pro-corp tone in some of the comments is surprising. Software jobs are one of the few remaining ones where we still hold the means of production -- and can withhold them to our leverage. These folks are walking out for the right reasons -- big f-off to RTO, and even if a bit late, the layoffs.

There are so many people that stand to lose if a fully remote work force came to pass. Building management, HR, middle managers, property investors, they're the ones you're hearing I'd guess. Pure software dev jobs are very easy to do remotely, it's not like we spend all day talking to people any way.

If these jobs need to go then so be it. It is a net positive to have people allocated to where they are needed.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#205

Post by exelm9 »

nitinreddy88 wrote: post #100
btbuildem wrote: post #18

Wow, the pro-corp tone in some of the comments is surprising. Software jobs are one of the few remaining ones where we still hold the means of production -- and can withhold them to our leverage. These folks are walking out for the right reasons -- big f-off to RTO, and even if a bit late, the layoffs.

What many of you are missing is, its gonna hurt US in the long run. 1. If US people wouldnt want to RTO, these jobs will be moved out to India. You can get to hire 3 people for same pay and they are happy to work. Or you can definitely hire pretty good engineer with half cost and same output 2. Unlike labour work, you are not competing with local people or can benefit from unions. You are competing with world and the…

At the large company I work at, offshoring jobs to India was announced in December 2021. Same company is now in the process of re-hiring in house because they realized what kind of offshore programmers are willing to work PST hours.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#207

Post by osigurdson »

jayd16 wrote: post #195
user_named wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like helicopter management

These comments are so reactionary and low effort. A daily standup, plus 20 minutes a week, plus putting in the effort to be available as the manager is helicopter management?

I just sounds like the commenter doesn't have a good concept of "why". They are going through the motions, booking meetings etc. but are not really leading anything, just doing stuff.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#208

Post by knifie_spoonie »

jayd16 wrote: post #200
knifie_spoonie wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In an office I can walk around the block with you and chat. In a remote setting I have to schedule some time This is exactly what I love about remote work. Being able to schedule activities ahead of time and avoid my flow being interrupted makes me so much more productive.

I kind of hate it. The meeting is going to disrupt my flow no matter what. I'd rather bang out the day's meetings in an ad hoc but back-to-back way. With remote meetings it feels like there's so much scheduling overhead and in between meeting dead time.

I always found there to be much less overhead and dead-time for remote meetings. Mainly due to the fact that you don't have to find a free meeting room, and then having to move between them.

I and the people I work with also like to organise meetings back to back. We spend our mornings getting through all our meetings by 11am, and then we've got the whole day to get work done without any interruptions.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#209

Post by somsak2 »

robomartin wrote: post #170
mbgerring wrote: post #10

This is long overdue. It is well past time for tech workers to organize and demand a larger share of the billions in wealth we’ve generated for the VCs and CEOs.

> demand a larger share of the billions in wealth we’ve generated for the VCs and CEOs Yeah, well, thoughts like that only come from a context in which there is zero understanding of the realities of business and what it takes to profitably run one. I always find this interesting. Not sure if people just say this kind of thing to just be one of the bro's or because they really believe it. I hope it isn't the latter.…

VCs aren't risking their own money. But yes, on the whole active investors must make less than passive ones if fees are included.

CEOs are hardly the only ones with health issues from their jobs. Hell Amazon specifically is so insanely bad about this that Bernie has basically been taking just about them in regards to an exploitive employer that leaves people disabled.

Maybe we shouldn't be normalizing unsustainable work that creates health problems for people, whether at the CEO or the regular worker level.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#210

Post by jayd16 »

osigurdson wrote: post #207
jayd16 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These comments are so reactionary and low effort. A daily standup, plus 20 minutes a week, plus putting in the effort to be available as the manager is helicopter management?

I just sounds like the commenter doesn't have a good concept of "why". They are going through the motions, booking meetings etc. but are not really leading anything, just doing stuff.

How are you getting that? Where did they say it wasn't effective project management? They just said it was harder.

And it is harder. For example, it's way easier to see when a junior dev is lost when you can see pain in there face from across the office instead of hoping it shows in one of the check-in meetings.

Post reply on HN