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Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

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Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#121

Post by [deleted] »

lowiqengineer wrote: post #46
heymijo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my goal is to make ~$250k a year as fast as possible. To do so at my current company would take at least 3 years and 2 promotions Hi, I don't want to dunk on you, but I would truly encourage you to gain some perspective on just how myopic a view this is. (I couldn't reply to your comment below where you said this)

I don't think it's myopic if everyone I follow on twitter and see on instagram is getting Hawaiian offsites and European work trips at Google and Hudson River Trading while I can't even go to Seattle for our internal ML conference because it got filled up too quickly for the last 3 years or whatever. I enjoy what I work on..I just wish I was treated more like all of my friends and former coworkers.

[deleted]

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#122

Post by smartsystems »

paganel wrote: post #112
dextralt wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose you have similar concerns about men occupying the overwhelming majority of physically taxing and hazardous jobs, correct? Obviously, we both know there are no intrinsic differences between men and women, so this is a great injustice that women's representation among miners, construction workers, metalworkers, truckers, heavy machinery operators, fishermen, foresters, waster disposal workers, and so on, is v…

[flagged]

I am super upset about what the left did to Star Trek. You want more Africans? Then get at least somebody from Africa. But I guess that's a little too real. I mean they are only 17% of the world population. You want a female captain? How about the much loved captain Janeway? Also, where are all the Mexicans? Where are all the Indians? Based on that alone Star Trek is ignoring 50% of the population. It seems the show has become nothing nothing more than a vehicle for the left wing.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#123

Post by jessriedel »

wpietri wrote: post #53
jessriedel wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If "you should ignore it"/"just downvote it" was sufficient, we wouldn't need site guidelines or moderators. Off-topic Amazon hate will always win the upvote wars unless people are principled.

We have site guidelines and moderators, neither of which seem to have taken exception to somebody posting honestly about their experience relating to the article topic. Maybe you don't need to be sheriff of HN for this? I thought it was a useful and interesting comment. If you've had your fill of some subtopic, do what I do: keep scrolling.

There are moderators for egregious indisputable violations, just like there are police for lawbreaking. But there are also murky or less clear-cut cases that nevertheless clearly degrade the quality of the discussion over time, just like there are lots of mean things people do to each other in the real world that appropriately are not punished by the police. The way these are dealt with is by telling the person they shouldn't do what they've done, and by arguing to others that it shouldn't be supported.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#124

Post by MisterPea »

paganel wrote: post #104
dextralt wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you: - suggesting that Amazon is passing over better qualified minorities in favor of less qualified white men? - bemoaning that Amazon is passing over less qualified minorities in favor of better qualified white men? I mean, I already know the answer, as does everyone else who is paying any attention to the shift in the narrative, but I just want you to remind everyone else that meritocracy is fascism and people…

I'm just stating the fact that the current societal status quo is such that no black person is part of the executive-team of one of the first biggest three companies in the world and that the women that are part of said team have been put in positions that have been usually associated with women, the positions usually associated with men are occupied only by, well, men. I personally believe that all men and women are…

I agree with you in some points, but overall I do believe that a lot of progress is being made with respect to qualified POC and women rising ranks - it just takes time to reflect.

It's easy to dissect on one company and criticize them for their lack of diversity, but amazon is only a little over 20 years old despite its immense success and most of its S-Team has stuck around since its inception.

I'm reminded of a quote from 30 Rock about corporate structure, "When a big one falls, four little ones rise up". Its just the case that the 'big ones' have rarely fallen in the S-team. For positions like these, in the apex of the business world, only time will tell.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#125

Post by amf12 »

jcims wrote: post #80
lowiqengineer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been rejected at Google and Facebook and most of HN doesn't think my total compensation is all that impressive, so, I probably don't have many options to be real with you.

The HN salary dick swinging contest is absurd and not something you should factor into your overall happiness.

HN is still tame. Blind is cancer about comp related dick swinging.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#126

Post by hello_moto »

DarthGhandi wrote: post #83
hello_moto wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep hitting leetcode, try again, and pray harder... that's what everybody else is doing. I had a co-op who used to be chill, laid back, and wasn't strong from engineering perspective (a wee bit lack of passion too). All he did was leetcode and he got MSFT -> Google.

> that's what everybody else is doing Bit scary to know that yet say it. There's many ways to scale the same mountain, perhaps going the packed out tourist route isn't the best for most? Might take a bit longer.

Alternatives:

build a startup and pray to get acquired

join a startup and pray to get acquired (there's still a post acquisition interview though)

contribute to OSS and pray G/F noticed and maybe ask to hire you (still have to go through some interview)

This ain't the old Silicon Valley anymore. Majority of the companies in SF applies Leetcode as filters.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#127

Post by amf12 »

lowiqengineer wrote: post #47
stevejb wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody but yourself has to give you permission for this. It's an honest living. Lots of people who would give you shit about this are in the VC-funded "Uber eats for dog treats" world and may have an over-inflated sense of the social value their jobs are supposedly creating.

That's fair. I think what I work on is infinitely more important even though it's a piece of a larger puzzle given how rapidly we're adding to the bottom line (just look at the last earnings call - ). But those are the people that are still negotiating compensation packages of hundreds of thousands more than me, and seem to get everything through life, from Harker to Stanford to Google/Stripe to YC W20, etc. I'd rath…

> than be considered a "blue collar engineer" as I currently am considered by my peers.

I might be completely wrong about this, but I feel you have low-self esteem and you are tying your sense of self-worth to where you work.

Whenever I have heard something negative about Amazon is that they overwork people and there is no work life balance. But almost all of them have said it was worth it in terms of growing and learning.

If you feel that what you are working on has enough impact, and you are learning a lot. Put your head down, fuck what others think of Amazon, and grow as an engineer. After that a lot more opportunities might open for you.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#128

Post by offbyone »

Pfhreak wrote: post #37
anonu wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the parent comment as mostly positive. The average tenure of the s team sits at 16 years. That's a long time to be working in one place. So the negative press about working there is maybe a bit sensationalist

I think I still feel mostly positive about working at AWS. I'm glad I did it for six years, but I'm in a different place in my life. I value different things now. I'm not the young, work driven person I used to be. (Or at least not as much.) Edit: That said, I don't think the negative media is sensationalist. I would absolutely believe that some people cried at their (door) desks. I would believe that people were ver…

Yeah... BT is still pretty great. Good leaders for the most part, and the opportunity to have huge positive effects on many fronts.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#129

Post by offbyone »

jessriedel wrote: post #42
Pfhreak wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article itself discusses inferring Amazon's priorities from changes to their s-team, including doubling the number of AWS s-team members. I'm not sure I'm allowed to disclose which events/meetings their s-team regularly attends. I will say that I did have several opportunities to interact with them directly in meetings, and indirectly via goals setting and annual planning exercises. Peter Desantis is a long time…

But priorities is not the same as culture! This is such a broad and vague connection. The "priorities" in the article are all about different markets (fashion, Alexa, AWS, etc.). I'm not going to litigate this further with you.

Probably for the best.. you're not really coming off very well here.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#130

Post by okr »

dkersten wrote: post #92
okr wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why morally? If you go for the money and you do not steal it, you certainly bring value into the world, that people are willing to pay for. Do not see what is morally wrong about it.

> you certainly bring value into the world Just because someone is willing to pay for it, doesn’t mean it’s good for society or the world.

Do you buy something, that harms the society or the world, why?
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