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My Interviews with Amazon

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Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#131

Post by happypants23 »

larrik wrote: post #3

Interesting, I get pestered by them constantly, and never actually considered going for it. For one thing, the common sentiment on HN seems to be 'friends don't let friends work for Amazon'. Amazon seems like a meat grinder, where getting hired isn't as hard as it seems, and they just burn through young people who don't know better. This is as someone completely on the outside who's only heard stories, though. When I…

Ex-AWS engineer here. The Amazon experience can differ wildly between teams and orgs. Best thing is to find some peers that work there and get the inside loop on which teams are sane.

I worked on some really cool stuff there, and learned a lot. But then after a while AWS grew rapidly and I ended up spending most of my time on pretty boring stuff, such as operational firefighting, endless deployments, config updates, and of course that oncall thing.

That said, in my experience, Amazon was still a bit of meat-grinder. I've come to realise though that its just part of an extremely long interview process, with the goal of weeding out those who just aren't thriving in Amazon's environment of "organised chaos". New grads who don't make SDE2 within a certain amount of time will eventually be PIP'ed, which is basically a signal that its time to find greener pastures.

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#132

Post by superswordfish »

linkregister wrote: post #67
larrik wrote: post #3

Interesting, I get pestered by them constantly, and never actually considered going for it. For one thing, the common sentiment on HN seems to be 'friends don't let friends work for Amazon'. Amazon seems like a meat grinder, where getting hired isn't as hard as it seems, and they just burn through young people who don't know better. This is as someone completely on the outside who's only heard stories, though. When I…

> unlike HN, I've never seriously considered joining a mega-corporation Isn't the startup deified on HN more than any other type of company? Of course there are all kinds on here; it seems strange to stereotype HN posters that way.

Once upon a time. Sadly, now a position as a Google SRE seems most prized here, followed by work for other big corps.

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#133

Post by zo1 »

ruddct wrote: post #94
ytanotheramzn wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I've seen this with people interviewing in Amazon, it's generally because they're tagged to a higher level position, and during the interview, they decide they're not a fit at that level, but possibly at the one below it. i.e., he might have originally been interviewing for an SDEII position, but they felt his skill-set was closer to what they look for in an SDEI, but still wanted to make him an offer to join th…

Ex-Amazonian here, this is indeed the answer to this question.

Then the issue is the fact that this exact point was not communicated to the author. "Sorry, we really think you'd be more suited to role X rather than Y, and the range for that role is B rather than A. But we'd still like you to work for us in role B!"

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#136

Post by Joof »

Bartweiss wrote: post #7
larrik wrote: post #3

Interesting, I get pestered by them constantly, and never actually considered going for it. For one thing, the common sentiment on HN seems to be 'friends don't let friends work for Amazon'. Amazon seems like a meat grinder, where getting hired isn't as hard as it seems, and they just burn through young people who don't know better. This is as someone completely on the outside who's only heard stories, though. When I…

Interestingly, I opened the Amazon door as a new dev and found something very different than what this post describes. The first step - before speaking to anyone about my background or interest - was going to be an intensive, one-hour coding session. It looked like it would be more "independent proof of competence" than "friendly programming task to evaluate you". I was expected to be on webcam the entire time to ver…

My webcam doesn't work in Linux; and you won't find me programming in Windows under ordinary conditions. I guess I can't work at amazon?

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#137

Post by vonmoltke »

pc86 wrote: post #123
hellogoodbyeeee wrote: post #12

I'm a little confused. The recruiter said that $170-$200k was an acceptable range. Then they offered him the position for significantly less than that. I don't understand why he even considered the offer. I would have been really upset that they wasted my time with a bait and switch. Am wrong for feeling that way? Are there other factors to consider?

You are not wrong, but there are always other factors to consider. The recruiter has no incentive to tell the truth regarding salary unless it's way off. Think of it this way: worst case scenario, exactly what happens happens. The recruiter gets someone to apply who everyone likes but they don't accept an offer. Best case scenario, something makes the guy take the lower offer - whether it's his wife losing her job or…

I would imagine a recruiter who has a track record of declined offers is not going to be viewed very well by their managers.

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#138

Post by ryanlm »

throwaway52584 wrote: post #91
ryanlm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll work for them in a heartbeat. Seriously, I want to work somewhere where I'm never bored, and can take part in conversations, etc. It seems like a good place for an ambitious new grad for a few years. If there are any Amazon employees reading this, please reach out!

I'm picturing a wide-eyed lamb wandering into the lion's den. "Hai guys! Let's have conversations LOL."

I meant design discussions, etc. Not just a code monkey. I'm sorry you think it is funny that I actually want to participate in the development process. Don't worry, at my current job, I know my place. I make sure not overstep bounds, etc.

Also, maybe I haven't been an Enterprise Fizzbuzz Java Developer for 6 years, but I've been keeping busy by having personal projects that most enterprise developers would probably not be able to understand.

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#139

Post by superuser2 »

wyldfire wrote: post #116
superuser2 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not defending it, but when you and your fellow engineers are spending a majority of the time interviewing instead of programming, such a system is certainly tempting.

Maybe that problem only impacts productivity significantly when attrition is high (suggesting that the problem might be with talent retention and not engineering effort spent on interviewing)?

Perhaps Amazon has an attrition problem - at the company I'm talking about, it's just extremely rapid growth.

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#140

Post by jmcgough »

larrik wrote: post #3

Interesting, I get pestered by them constantly, and never actually considered going for it. For one thing, the common sentiment on HN seems to be 'friends don't let friends work for Amazon'. Amazon seems like a meat grinder, where getting hired isn't as hard as it seems, and they just burn through young people who don't know better. This is as someone completely on the outside who's only heard stories, though. When I…

> Amazon seems like a meat grinder, where getting hired isn't as hard as it seems, and they just burn through young people who don't know better.

It's still like that. All of my friends who've worked for Amazon burned out within a year or two.

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