Live data from Hacker News

Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

medium.com

101–110 of 149 posts

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#101

I find it silly how he was only offered a junior developer role, but then again if it was me I'd probably tell the recruiter that I don't care about my job title, if I have a certain set of skills and experience I just want to get at a minimum the market value compensation for it, so as long as that is the case they can knock themselves out with silly job titles. If they can't pay what I'm worth then I wouldn't take…

In startups, titles are more meaningless but at large companies like Amazon your compensation is completely tied to your job title. The two are inextricably linked.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#102
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also don't understand why the candidate with 10 years of industry experience decided to move forward with interviewing after being told it was for an SDE1 position. | given the fact that I wasn’t too efficient with Java (it was not the primary tool in my past experience) Maybe because his 10 years didn’t give him the relevant knowledge? Also, his attitudes sends a clear ”I’m a junior” message, so SDE1 might have…

Please explain. I don't mind to be called "junior" or whatever title you stick on me, but what is "junior attitude"?

In my experience junior people need to be told what the problem is and directed what to do. Seniors tend to bring up the problems along with potential options.

That's one difference in attitude I can think of.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#103
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for pointing that out! I was frustrated by the expectation to focus on documenting to get a promotion. I don't think it is a good practice and was surprised to see that: > focusing on that process (promotion) is not a distraction from doing your job: it is doing your job! Seems like you understanding of "doing job" is different. To make it clear - I used to be promoted by helping a business grow - complete act…

>Seems like you understanding of "doing job" is different. To make it clear - I used to be promoted by helping a business grow - complete activities on time on an excellent manner, optimize, reduce costs, propose new features / work on POC. >Not by writing self-promotional documents. >> Exceeding expectations for your current position is how you get promoted. >Unfortunately, it is not by "exceeding", but documenting…

the issue becomes alignment of business incentives with individuals incentives. Employees who work just to check the boxes on the promotion doc do better in the system then people who move the business forward regardless if it is necessary for promotion.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#104

This is the quote that stands out to me: > You won’t be promoted for doing your job, you will be promoted by focusing on your promotion. Well, yeah. That's how it is in a lot of companies, especially big ones. Doing what is expected of you in your current position is proof that you are well suited for your current position. Exceeding expectations for your current position is how you get promoted. If the company has a…

There is one very important destinction to make here. Exceeding expectations =/= focuding on your promotion. The first thing is about focusing on your job and getting things done, improving things. The latter is about making the right connections and playing political games. At one point this means that people focusing on their job are being played by those focusing on their promotion. And tthe job-focused people become a threat as well once reality hits and performance does matter.

And if focusing on your promotion is your job according to Amazon, well than there famed leadership principles, Customer Obsession being the first that comes to mind, are just words on some document you have to use for political purposes. What that means for Amazon as a company is everyones guess.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. This reads like a fish out of water experience for someone expecting a company with hundreds of thousands of employees to act not like any other huge corporation. Of course there’s going to be politics, culture as religion, infighting, boredom etc.

Perhaps off topic, but are there any podcasts out there for learning to cope with or adjust to the sorts of things this guy talks about in his blog post?

That’s a great question. I’m not sure of any particular podcast or episode dealing with this but I, too, wish I had a podcast or something to listen to to help me know what to expect when I joined my first startup. I’ll pass this on to the Software Engineering daily podcast and Developer Tea podcast.

Update: I’ve tweeted at both podcasts your idea as it’s a great idea

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#106
post #4

I think this is getting upvoted because everybody likes to dogpile on Amazon. But nothing this guy says seems to reflect especially poorly on Amazon. If the author is going through another job search now I might recommend taking the piece down; it's not doing you a ton of favors. The summary: guy interviews and accepts an SDE1 role at Amazon, guy resists building alliances with those holding power in the org, guy is…

> Everything in this piece was completely foreseeable and does not reflect poorly on Amazon.

Most of what you say is true, except the part about expecting him to work in Seattle illegally. If true, that reflects terribly on Amazon.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#107
post #92
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the article How many years of SDE experience do you say you have? Not sure I would would count devops or IT though

I mentioned "10 years of experience in the industry", is it fair?

It is a little misleading in this context, even 25 years of experience doing IT often won't clearly mean you have the right skill set to be SDE2 (and vice versa).

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#108
Sounds just like any other large organization that I've worked at: Too much bureaucracy, mindless procedures, politics, blame deflection, responsibility avoidance, siloed teams hiding behind a black hole support email address that don't communicate with other teams, etc.

Its the same everywhere, its not just Amazon. There are only a couple of realistic solutions:

- become a freelancer: this way you can switch jobs every year with no problem. You will get new challenges and you will be able to face this bureaucracy knowing that its only temporary

- work at a smaller company: they often pay the same or more and have a much more personal work environment, with much more opportunities for gaining extra responsibility and performing tasks that are actually relevant to the company.

- start your own small business and become your own boss. This way the only bullshit that you will have to put up with is your own.

Other than that, this is the definition of being an employee working for someone else: you are either doing something that someone else doesn't want to do, or that they don't know how to do.

You will have limited responsibility, and be assigned a supervisor that will control your every move. That is not going to change, its the same everywhere.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#109
post #73

This was the least convincing blog post on this sort of topic that I've read. I didn't see anything that actually painted Amazon in a very bad light. I think anyone should expect bureaucracy to be a major problem at a large company. Complaining about promotions seems a bit unfair since he was only there for 5 months. Moreover, I saw quite a few senior engineers and discovered that I do not want to be alike… This is o…

You may have read it a bit different from what was intended. Perhaps substitute people with roles . I've been in his shoes. After a few years into a job, I looked at all the senior folks (not too senior - say 2 promotions above me), and did not envy any one of them. I did not want to work hard to get to the level they were at, because either the job sucked, the work was too much, or the politics were high (i.e. you h…

I had a similar experience. I worked for a consulting company, noticed all my bosses worked 60+hrs/week and decided that it was best to jump ship because life's too short to spend your 30s and 40s working 60hrs a week juggling a bunch of death marches.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#110
What strikes me most about the articles about the big tech giants is this:

They are hiring the brightest and best, paying them large sums of money and then completely squandering their abilities. I mean there's people who in startup could be single-handedly creating best-of-breed software and Google would have them tied up in some marginal aspect of a marginal product.

I'm not sure how that makes me feel...

Post reply on HN