11–20 of 21 posts
I have (successfully) interviewed with Amazon. One of the reasons I turned the job down was my experience in the interview. My "loop" was done by people who spend an hour with me asking my questions designed to see if I fit into these "principles". After the third interview, I was exhausted by parroting the same damn story multiple times - I mean, how many stories can you come up with? The bar-raiser was changed at t…
Also, 1) Work new hires to death, 2) Make employees cry, 3) Pay like sh*t
* $24,000 signing bonus, $28,000 in NYC/SF (even more if returning intern)
* $7,000 tax-assisted relocation bonus
* $3,000 stock yr 1, $10,500 yr 2, $28,000 yr 2.5/3.0/3.5/4.0
These are not "shit" numbers for a new graduate with only a bachelors degree.
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Edit: Here’s my comp progression at Amazon for those curious:
2010: €50K - Joined Amazon in Dublin, Ireland as an SDE-1 (entry level) in the AWS CloudWatch team.
2011: €75K - Still at Amazon, same team.
2012: $120K - Moved to Seattle with the same team. Promoted to SDE-2.
2013: $150K - Still at Amazon, same team.
2014: $185K - Promoted to SDE-3 (senior level), same team.
2015: $230K - Still at Amazon, same team.
2016: $390K - Still at Amazon, same team.
2017: $470K - Still at Amazon, same team.
2018: $511K - Still at Amazon, same team.
2019: Left Amazon last February. You can read more about why here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19135399
All figures are gross income as shown in my W2. My last 3 year-end (Dec) paystubs: http://imgur.com/a/EgIVQln
I have (successfully) interviewed with Amazon. One of the reasons I turned the job down was my experience in the interview. My "loop" was done by people who spend an hour with me asking my questions designed to see if I fit into these "principles". After the third interview, I was exhausted by parroting the same damn story multiple times - I mean, how many stories can you come up with? The bar-raiser was changed at t…
I'm not sure how long ago this happened, but I'm surprised that your recruiter did not prep you for this. They tell you about the LPs and to prep 1-2 stories to demonstrate that LP, so you don't feel that you overlap.
LPs are used as a determiner of cultural fit and most other companies have their own version of this (e.g., "Googliness"). It may seem more cult-ish, and I thought that too when I joined, but it helps to move the business forward.
FWIW, I left Amazon a while ago for unrelated reasons.
Shrug I would take these more seriously if I felt amazon was executing at an impressive level. Honestly though, I feel like AWS (what I consider their flagship, most-profitable product) runs on a windows-95-level interface and is missing the most rudimentary features for over a decade. If your results aren't successful, then your methodology must not be successful.
Also, 1) Work new hires to death, 2) Make employees cry, 3) Pay like sh*t
* $108,000 base salary, $120,000 in NYC/SF * $24,000 signing bonus, $28,000 in NYC/SF (even more if returning intern) * $7,000 tax-assisted relocation bonus * $3,000 stock yr 1, $10,500 yr 2, $28,000 yr 2.5/3.0/3.5/4.0 These are not "shit" numbers for a new graduate with only a bachelors degree.
Shrug I would take these more seriously if I felt amazon was executing at an impressive level. Honestly though, I feel like AWS (what I consider their flagship, most-profitable product) runs on a windows-95-level interface and is missing the most rudimentary features for over a decade. If your results aren't successful, then your methodology must not be successful.
Also, 1) Work new hires to death, 2) Make employees cry, 3) Pay like sh*t
* $108,000 base salary, $120,000 in NYC/SF * $24,000 signing bonus, $28,000 in NYC/SF (even more if returning intern) * $7,000 tax-assisted relocation bonus * $3,000 stock yr 1, $10,500 yr 2, $28,000 yr 2.5/3.0/3.5/4.0 These are not "shit" numbers for a new graduate with only a bachelors degree.
Shrug I would take these more seriously if I felt amazon was executing at an impressive level. Honestly though, I feel like AWS (what I consider their flagship, most-profitable product) runs on a windows-95-level interface and is missing the most rudimentary features for over a decade. If your results aren't successful, then your methodology must not be successful.
What features are they missing? Which competitors have these features? Are AWS’s results not indicative of success?
- Ability to show all EC2 instances by creator (e.g. David quits, what servers did he make?)
- Ability to sort EC2 instances by date of creation
- Ability to show instances that seem inactive (- Ability for searches on instance names to support partial matching.
- Ability to change PEM file associated with a server
- Option to resize instance HD size and have it immediately extend the FS
- Status indicator on instances that show when the server is under so much load it may not be responding to SSH
- I'm seeing a glitch lately where dialogs follow my cursor.
These are just a few very basic things I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there are hundreds that other people have come up with.
An organization that cannot successfully direct such requests to the teams to build them, and then make it happen, within a decade is not an organization I would model after.
They may be market successful, because they were the first mover, but they aren't taking basic steps to solidify that dominance imo.
I worked at AWS for 8 years. Overall it’s a good place to work, and I’d highly recommend it to junior developers just starting out. I left 4 months ago, but it wasn’t Amazon’s fault. I was treated well, was paid very well, and I liked the work. But I was always going to be working on someone else’s terms there, and I realized that wasn’t the ideal career path for me. I like working for myself better, but I don’t regr…