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I Got Fired from Amazon as a Software Development Engineer

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Re: I Got Fired from Amazon as a Software Development Engineer

#2
“Being an engineer who wasn’t happy with a situation like this, I gave my manager a piece of my mind. She brought gender into the equation and said that I couldn’t speak to a girl like that, so I decided to hang up the phone.”

If this is an accurate description of what went down, including verb tenses, it’s bad for multiple reasons: leave gender out, don’t refer to oneself in the 3rd person and watch what you say as nobody should willingly be an asshole.

Perhaps the lesson is also that we have to aggressively cya. With records of the no answers and the like, it reduces the who said what bs. And maybe, we have to train people to act professionally vs. putting up with bs.

Re: I Got Fired from Amazon as a Software Development Engineer

#3
I also work at Amazon, and I can tell you, your experience was pretty unique. Some teams are worst than others, of course, but no one expect you to pick up a project by yourself, fresh out of onboarding and own it end to end. After you clear your interview loops, you get the chance to match with several teams (not always) and that is your chance to figure out what the team does, whats the situation over there, etc... if you were hired for a specific team, and you feel is a bad match, you can talk to your recruiter/hiring manager and they will find you another team. Is more expensive to let you go, after you cleared the interviews, than to send you to another team. Most teams are always hiring, they even pouch engineers from another orgs, etc... I'm by no means saying Amazon is a paradise, as I said, it highly depends on the team. But for them to fire you like that you have to be doing pretty bad, or maybe your manager felt you were a bad person. For other folks reading this: The team matching rounds are *very* important, if you get assigned a bad team, you need to react quickly, and move on. I feel sorry for OP, I wish him/{*} well.

Re: I Got Fired from Amazon as a Software Development Engineer

#4
If you got fired over this it's highly likely you said something pretty bad. The only times I have seen anyone get instafired at Amazon is when they have done something that could be deemed as harassment. (eg. making sexual or racial advancements towards a direct report) Anybody else who gets fired for performance reasons knows they are thin ice for a long time.

Re: I Got Fired from Amazon as a Software Development Engineer

#5
post #2

“Being an engineer who wasn’t happy with a situation like this, I gave my manager a piece of my mind. She brought gender into the equation and said that I couldn’t speak to a girl like that, so I decided to hang up the phone.” If this is an accurate description of what went down, including verb tenses, it’s bad for multiple reasons: leave gender out, don’t refer to oneself in the 3rd person and watch what you say as…

[deleted]

Re: I Got Fired from Amazon as a Software Development Engineer

#6
post #2

“Being an engineer who wasn’t happy with a situation like this, I gave my manager a piece of my mind. She brought gender into the equation and said that I couldn’t speak to a girl like that, so I decided to hang up the phone.” If this is an accurate description of what went down, including verb tenses, it’s bad for multiple reasons: leave gender out, don’t refer to oneself in the 3rd person and watch what you say as…

Giving someone a piece of your mind or hanging up on them, regardless of the provocation, is a risky move in any job. It's an essential job skill to be able to phrase and rephrase issues with sufficient neutrality, and to practice that religiously. Being calm and responsive -- the opposite of hanging up -- is difficult when you feel you are being insulted. But it's the correct strategic move, even if you're updating your resume at the same time.

Re: I Got Fired from Amazon as a Software Development Engineer

#8
post #2

“Being an engineer who wasn’t happy with a situation like this, I gave my manager a piece of my mind. She brought gender into the equation and said that I couldn’t speak to a girl like that, so I decided to hang up the phone.” If this is an accurate description of what went down, including verb tenses, it’s bad for multiple reasons: leave gender out, don’t refer to oneself in the 3rd person and watch what you say as…

In my opinion, these two quoted sentences are doing pretty much all the work in this article. I'm kind of surprised this article is on the front page, given the lack of detail.

Re: I Got Fired from Amazon as a Software Development Engineer

#9
I won’t comment on whether the action is justified or not in this instance, but:

Never hang up on a colleague. Ever. As far as social phone etiquette goes that’s probably one of the most egregious things you can do.

Instead, humble yourself, politely disagree and document over email, copying another colleague who witnessed, or if unavailable the manager (in this case the skip).

Re: I Got Fired from Amazon as a Software Development Engineer

#10
Amazon is actually really hard to get fired from. I knew this one guy who used to binge drink during while working all day. He only got fired after he brought production down for the third time in six months. I left because I had higher pay offers. I'm an idiot to say the least, but a person who can acknowledge their faults is likely to be someone who gets hired persistently because they know to address it.
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