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Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff

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Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff

#111

Post by gohrt »

sssilver wrote: post #49

Following some of the discussion on this thread, I am constantly reminded of a priceless advice I got from a senior friend years ago. When thinking about an employer, above a certain size threshold, never judge a company. Always judge a department. You don't work for a company. You work for a department. Above a certain (fairly small) size, the only thing you'll share with the employees in the other departments will…

A bad team at a good company -- quite possible.

A good team at a bad company -- unlikely.

Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff

#112

Post by jasonkester »

linkregister wrote: post #43
kafkaesq wrote: post #2

The man had recently put in a request to transfer to a different department, but was placed on an employee improvement plan, a step that can lead to termination if performance isn’t improved, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing company personnel matters. PIPs are bullshit, and fundamentally degrading. Just tell people "Maybe it's your fault, maybe it's our fault - but either way, it's not worki…

Can anyone think of a single instance where an employee survived the PIP in any organization? I've never heard of one.

Naturally. A cog can turn the machine if he knows how it works:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1823103

Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff

#113

Post by Buge »

jonathankoren wrote: post #85
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only stayed at Amazon for one year, but I was told that if I'd stayed for two years they would have offered me more equity. So yes, there are refresh equity grants. I've heard from a good source that they do that at Apple as well.

I've heard Apple's equity grants are stupid though. Instead of the standard grant-value / share-price-at-hire = number of shares, and then then vesting the number of shares over 4 years, Apple vests the grant-value over 4 years and then converts to stock using the share price at the time of vesting. This of course results in lower compensation over the vesting schedule assuming an appreciating stock price.

That seems useless to me. I thought the whole idea of stock grants is to motivate employees by rewarding them when the company does well and the stock goes up.

Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff

#114

Post by wbsun »

amazon_employee wrote: post #42
rdtsc wrote: post #22

I was interviewing for AWS, and it was a circus. Completely disorganized. However, I have to say, I enjoyed the parroting back of "the leadership principles" part. It was like being in the Soviet Union again and singing praises to the great party leaders. Very much worth wasting a day over it. However my nephew didn't have such a fun time. He was working for one of their warehouses in Kentucky and they were ruthless…

Sorry to hear that. I work for AWS, and I like to think we're pretty organized. I'm not sure what part of your experience was "unorganized". You probably caught the team on a busy day or something. LPs are just guidelines for what the company "wants" out of its employees. They're used heavily in hiring to weed out small thinkers and bad culture fits, and a bit in performance reviews. Outside of that, nobody really ca…

> Judging corporate based on fulfillment center working conditions isn't fair. One is a $15k job, and the other is a $115k job.

Yes, yes, because you earn more, you'd better work as a slave... wait, do slaves get salary at all? Ah, no, okay, so everyone who earns money must work harder than a slave!!!

Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff

#115

Post by sulam »

throwbsidbdk wrote: post #66
amaks wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Amazon seems to have seriously cutting edge infrastructure" How do you know? Based on what they sell through AWS? This is not super evident - they might have duct taped bunch of shitty stuff and rely on people on-call 24x7 to keep system running.

I have heard whispers of this, and the mention of common on call hours seems to lend it some credibility

Yes, seriously legacy software (still a lot of Perl in their production web code, including ancient Perl template engines) and the on-calls are truly bad. AWS is more modern, but still not entirely awesome from what I've heard.

On the plus side, hiring people out of there after a year is usually pretty easy.

Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff

#116

Post by dward »

vonklaus wrote: post #36
u489utaa wrote: post #19

Amazon screws employees in ways unseen in other companies. From the perspective of an engineer, this is a terrible place for people to work and grow. To list a few things: - Equity vesting schedule is 5%, 15%, 40%, 40% over 4 years - Relocation package is prorated for TWO years. If you leave after staying for a full year, you still need to return 50% of it. - 401K matching only vests after working for 3 years. If you…

I don't understand this. Amazon seems to have seriously cutting edge infrastructure; they sell it as a service and operate more servers than google. Also, according to the article 20k people work for them, although I am not sure if that was total or engineers. I am curious how they can retain people to manage all of their operations. Those terms sound terrible and not competitive. I would take those terms, but I am d…

Curious, why do you think they have more servers than google? A quick search didn't turn anything up.

Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff

#118

Post by gohrt »

madman2890 wrote: post #39

268,900. That is the number of employees amazon has. According to this article, we should expect 25.2 suicides out of these employees.

Most of those are warehouse employees whose suicides might not make Bloomberg. And people who die quietly at home (which I've seen a few times in my career) likely don't either.

Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff

#119

Post by tedmiston »

quanticle wrote: post #86
brazzledazzle wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know not every part of every company is the same since your direct manager plays a big part in your experience but I have to wonder why people put up with the bad experiences. Maybe the pay for AWS consulting gigs is worth a couple years in that kind of environment.

Not so much the pay, as the wonders it works for your resume. Prior to Amazon, I tried applying to Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. Nothing. After Amazon, recruiters from those companies started contacting me.

I've had recruiters from 3 of the big 4 reach out over the past few years without having worked at one. It's hard to generalize across recruiters and the four companies, but I think they pay more attention to your number of years than where they were at in the early recruitment stage.

Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff

#120

Post by gohrt »

jonathankoren wrote: post #85
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only stayed at Amazon for one year, but I was told that if I'd stayed for two years they would have offered me more equity. So yes, there are refresh equity grants. I've heard from a good source that they do that at Apple as well.

I've heard Apple's equity grants are stupid though. Instead of the standard grant-value / share-price-at-hire = number of shares, and then then vesting the number of shares over 4 years, Apple vests the grant-value over 4 years and then converts to stock using the share price at the time of vesting. This of course results in lower compensation over the vesting schedule assuming an appreciating stock price.

They don't convert like you say, what they do it cut refreshes. Example:

You get $100K and $50K of stock (grant value): "target compensation" = $150K

Next year, when stock vests, your target compensation is $160K, so you get $110K cash plus a stock refresh grant: * Stock went down to $0 -> $100K refresh to make up. * Stock stayed flat: -> $50K refresh * Stock went up to $100K: -> 0K refresh to cancel out. * Stock went up to $150K: -> 0K refresh to cancel out, but you still come out ahead.

So, you get upside if the stock shoots up enough, and you are protected from downside, but you lose upside if stock grows insufficiently.

It works well if you like guaranteed income, but you have to ignore a lot of the "expect" upside potential. And it makes you wonder why they bother giving so much equity, doesn't it? 1. They don't give a lot of equity. 2. It's a shell game and most new hires don't value the offer accurately.

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