Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week • Hacker News Board

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

#541

Post by dboreham » Mon, Sep 16, 2024, 11:46 PM UTC

rybosworld wrote: post #221

Demanding that folks work in the office 5 days a week does not make sense. Might be an extreme take but, I think engineers have some onus to stop agreeing to work there, lest the amazon corporate culture spreads further.

Amazon has been a known "do not work there" employer for a very long time. At least since 2008 in my recollection.

Yes there are people here who consistently post on Amazon threads that they enjoy working there. I even know a couple such people personally. But it's always with the disclaimer "you need to be in a good team". OK but is there a field in the offer letter that denotes "Good_team: TRUE". Nope.

So you can like the idea of competing in "The Hunger Games" while trying to write and fix code. Or not..

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

#542

Post by keyle » Mon, Sep 16, 2024, 11:48 PM UTC

ryukoposting wrote: post #490

As a firmware engineer, my job demands more "in-office-y" stuff than most other engineers on HN. I have specialized equipment. Hardware. I need to interface with manufacturing. So on. Guess what? I'm going on 1 year fully remote, and I'm doing great! Turns out, all that fancy equipment can be brought home with you. We deal with a contract manufacturer, and emailing them from home is no harder than emailing them from…

I'm in a similar situation, but no hardware involved. Just the flexibility to juggle the kids at pick up times is godsend.

I have much better no-interruption stretches of programming which yields better results overall.

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

#543

Post by insane_dreamer » Mon, Sep 16, 2024, 11:48 PM UTC

Some companies have used this "technique" to reduce their headcount without having to fire people. Maybe Amazon is doing the same thing.

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

#544

Post by insane_dreamer » Mon, Sep 16, 2024, 11:48 PM UTC

drawkbox wrote: post #531

Looks like they have until January to change to fully on-site. That isn't much time to make life changes that allow using 2+ hours extra per day that was typically remote. > The decision marks a significant shift from Amazon’s earlier return-to-work stance, which required corporate workers to be in the office at least three days a week. Now, the company is giving employees until Jan. 2 to start adhering to the new po…

Some companies used this to reduce their headcount without having to fire people. Maybe Amazon is doing the same thing.

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

#545

Post by heavyset_go » Mon, Sep 16, 2024, 11:48 PM UTC

sbaidon94 wrote: post #536

pknomad wrote: post #117

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…

Spent 5 years there, I definitely know the experience varies wildly between teams and orgs so take all of this as just my personal opinion. I was part of the Amazon Luna team and Devices org. Yes oncall is super rough, yes people are very demanding. Internal documentation sucked. But overall I had a really great experience, there was a strong sense of “ownership” on the stuff we built due to how teams are expected to…

> But overall I had a really great experience, there was a strong sense of “ownership” on the stuff we built due to how teams are expected to be run. We owned all the infrastructure ourselves, costs, QA, deployments, technical decisions, you name it.

This is one of those terms that drive me nuts, because actual ownership implies revenue/profit sharing, decision making, and property rights.

Sounds like you're getting all the responsibilities of ownership, but none of the tangible benefits.

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

#546

Post by varispeed » Mon, Sep 16, 2024, 11:49 PM UTC

ryukoposting wrote: post #490

As a firmware engineer, my job demands more "in-office-y" stuff than most other engineers on HN. I have specialized equipment. Hardware. I need to interface with manufacturing. So on. Guess what? I'm going on 1 year fully remote, and I'm doing great! Turns out, all that fancy equipment can be brought home with you. We deal with a contract manufacturer, and emailing them from home is no harder than emailing them from…

My friend's job pays him enough he could lease his own office near where he lives. He has all the "toys" he needs, space for his own research and he doesn't have to waste time to commute.

My view is that offices were a thing because there was no technology to do otherwise and back then equipment was too large / expensive to be kept at employee's place.

Now only reason to go to office is to artificially maintain property value so landlords don't lose money.

Often the owners also have shares in the business and influence this return to office aka sustain my property portfolio nonsense

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

#547

Post by jgalt212 » Mon, Sep 16, 2024, 11:49 PM UTC

Tons ICs on here saying how great and productive remote is for them. But, we rarely here the same from managers. Of course, there are more ICs than managers, but the skeptic and manager in me is suspicious of remote work (in the general case).

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

#548

Post by FuckButtons » Mon, Sep 16, 2024, 11:50 PM UTC

drawkbox wrote: post #531

Looks like they have until January to change to fully on-site. That isn't much time to make life changes that allow using 2+ hours extra per day that was typically remote. > The decision marks a significant shift from Amazon’s earlier return-to-work stance, which required corporate workers to be in the office at least three days a week. Now, the company is giving employees until Jan. 2 to start adhering to the new po…

“Just seems a bit heartless” which, from everything I’ve read about Amazon as an employer, sounds completely on brand.

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

#549

Post by varispeed » Mon, Sep 16, 2024, 11:50 PM UTC

pknomad wrote: post #117

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…

Ask how much they pay and the itch will be gone in no time.

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

#550

Post by akira2501 » Mon, Sep 16, 2024, 11:51 PM UTC

drawkbox wrote: post #531

Looks like they have until January to change to fully on-site. That isn't much time to make life changes that allow using 2+ hours extra per day that was typically remote. > The decision marks a significant shift from Amazon’s earlier return-to-work stance, which required corporate workers to be in the office at least three days a week. Now, the company is giving employees until Jan. 2 to start adhering to the new po…

> Just seems a bit heartless.

The writing has been on the wall for a while. Aside from that, Amazon decided to convert their workforce to work from home rather quickly, and shelled out the money and the effort in order to actually achieve that.

> Remote jobs just allow a team to be more robust and dynamic to life changes.

If you weren't hired into a remote job then you don't have much a right to expect or demand this.