Live data from Hacker News

Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week

cnbc.com

171–180 of 1001 posts

Re: Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week

#171

Other companies will follow soon. A tough job market will allow them to do anything they want with you.

Tough job market or tough market? Seems a lot of companies are struggling right now, so attracting top talent on its own terms seems like the only chance for survival (or in Amazon's case, treading water).

Re: Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week

#172
post #135

Genuine question for the folks over at Amazon: What is the value of working at Amazon (or even just AWS) these days? Every now and then I get a ring from a recruiter gauging my interest and sometimes I get the itch to just to go through the process so that I can have a FAANG in my resume. I've heard from others that Amazon could be an amazing place to work, citing fantastic colleagues and work opportunities. But then…

If you work in Seattle it's one of only a few options. A lot of folks in the Bay Area (including former me) don't understand how much of a monoculture this place is. There are really only 2 major places to work as a software engineer and very few startups or small companies. Nearly every SWE I meet works at Microsoft, Amazon, Google, or Meta (the last 2 have smaller offices here).

I think there's tons of companies in Seattle, but the sheer size of Amazon and Microsoft skew the distribution massively. I've spent my whole career so far ignoring the big companies you mention. There's lots of engineers working at the big names but there are also hundreds of smaller companies in the area.

Re: Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week

#173
post #135

Genuine question for the folks over at Amazon: What is the value of working at Amazon (or even just AWS) these days? Every now and then I get a ring from a recruiter gauging my interest and sometimes I get the itch to just to go through the process so that I can have a FAANG in my resume. I've heard from others that Amazon could be an amazing place to work, citing fantastic colleagues and work opportunities. But then…

If you work in Seattle it's one of only a few options. A lot of folks in the Bay Area (including former me) don't understand how much of a monoculture this place is. There are really only 2 major places to work as a software engineer and very few startups or small companies. Nearly every SWE I meet works at Microsoft, Amazon, Google, or Meta (the last 2 have smaller offices here).

Google and Meta have thousands of SWEs and multiple buildings up here, I don't know if I'd call that a smaller presence. Smaller than the bay area, sure, but still a major employer.

Re: Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week

#176
post #135

Genuine question for the folks over at Amazon: What is the value of working at Amazon (or even just AWS) these days? Every now and then I get a ring from a recruiter gauging my interest and sometimes I get the itch to just to go through the process so that I can have a FAANG in my resume. I've heard from others that Amazon could be an amazing place to work, citing fantastic colleagues and work opportunities. But then…

If you work in Seattle it's one of only a few options. A lot of folks in the Bay Area (including former me) don't understand how much of a monoculture this place is. There are really only 2 major places to work as a software engineer and very few startups or small companies. Nearly every SWE I meet works at Microsoft, Amazon, Google, or Meta (the last 2 have smaller offices here).

very true.

Re: Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week

#177

I can believe that 3 days a week in the office is more productive than 0, and maybe 4 slightly more than 3, but I wonder if 5 is any more productive than 4, or if Amazon is mostly trying to reduce headcount. Are there studies on productivity vs. # of days in office for white collar workers?

Any days in the office a week is going to filter out your talent pool to people who live by the office, thus giving you orders of magnitude less choice or opportunity to hire the best candidate.

Re: Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week

#178

i can't believe how out of touch some of these rich corporate execs are, as if everyone's aim in life should be to pour every ounce of their energy to make some massive trillion dollar corporation even richer this capitalistic yearn for endless growth is such a parasitic meat grinder they write these memos with "touching" stories, i started from the bottom here, 27 years, amazon is my life, blah blah, as if anyone, p…

They've been successful by, been selected for, being "out of touch". Why would they stop now?

Re: Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week

#179
post #135

Genuine question for the folks over at Amazon: What is the value of working at Amazon (or even just AWS) these days? Every now and then I get a ring from a recruiter gauging my interest and sometimes I get the itch to just to go through the process so that I can have a FAANG in my resume. I've heard from others that Amazon could be an amazing place to work, citing fantastic colleagues and work opportunities. But then…

If you work in Seattle it's one of only a few options. A lot of folks in the Bay Area (including former me) don't understand how much of a monoculture this place is. There are really only 2 major places to work as a software engineer and very few startups or small companies. Nearly every SWE I meet works at Microsoft, Amazon, Google, or Meta (the last 2 have smaller offices here).

Theres more to Seattle than that. But Amazon and Microsoft are HUGE so they are a very disproportionate amount of the people you’ll meet.

The upside is you don’t have to live in the Bay Area! Couldn’t pay me enough to move down there.

Re: Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week

#180
post #37

As a reminder, https://www.amazon.jobs/content/en/our-workplace/leadership-... > Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer > Leaders work every day to create a safer, more productive, higher performing, more diverse, and more just work environment. They lead with empathy, have fun at work, and make it easy for others to have fun. Leaders ask themselves: Are my fellow employees growing? Are they empowered? Are they ready for…

> Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos saw his warehouse workforce as necessary but replaceable, and feared that workers who remained at the company too long would turn complacent or, worse, disgruntled.

https://www.vox.com/recode/23170900/leaked-amazon-memo-wareh...

Post reply on HN