Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

benadam.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 706 posts

Re: I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

#171

Post by benadam11 »

swyx wrote: post #165

this actually turned out a lot more evenhanded than i was expecting from the title. i took a job at AWS myself, and left after 8 months. partly it was pull factor to a more exciting offer, but i wont deny some push factors. Amazon hires generally very smart people, but the bureaucracy and legacy is just stifling for someone used to a faster pace in tech. After a while I identified the 4 things I felt that we had to s…

I actually loved the "Day 1" philosophy but you are 100% right, it is no longer Day 1.

Re: I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

#173

Post by prirun »

kahrl wrote: post #101
netizen-936824 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does PIP stand for? I haven't run into that acronym before

Performance Improvement Plan: "We're trying to fire you but need to do it by the books as to mitigate liability."

I don't understand why people keep saying this. Every state except Montana in the US is "at will": the employer can fire you at any time with no reason. I suppose you could try to prove discrimination because of age or something else, but just like you can walk out and never come back, the employer can ask you to leave and you're done. Companies have no liability if you are fired other than a discrimination lawsuit.

https://work.chron.com/fire-state-mean-20994.html

Re: I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

#174

Post by commandlinefan »

pram wrote: post #26

A couple years ago I turned down an offer at AWS as a Solutions Architect. The same day I did that, the hiring managers director requested that I speak with him. He was basically selling the job and saying what a mistake it was to turn it down. It felt really high pressure! I’ve literally never had that happen in my life. Most companies just immediately ghost me if I turn down an offer. This isn’t covert bragging abo…

> it just felt like they were desperate

That's what it sounds like. I had a guy from my past (somebody I had worked for years ago, but didn't know that well) call me up out of the blue once, basically begging me to come work for him. I was flattered, and looking forward to (finally) being treated like a human being instead of a replaceable cog for once in my programming career, so I took the job. Good lord, what a mistake. The reason he was begging was because he was a totally abusive asshole and couldn't keep anybody for any amount of money. You would think that watching people come and go would make these people re-evaluate their approach, but in their minds, it's always the "peons" that are wrong.

Re: I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

#175

Post by sushisource »

_moof wrote: post #148
dudus wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respect your view and while that may be true on a lot of cases that's not what the company represents a pip to be. A PIP is a situation where you are told you are not performing at the desired level and needs to improve. In a respectable company being on a pip can be good for you. In my personal case I was not performing well due to personal issues. Getting on a pip saved my job. It gave me the resources and attent…

I've put people on PIPs. I genuinely wanted them to do better. They did. Like you said, they are a tool for laser-focusing attention on specific, well-defined issues. There is no actual ass-covering need to put someone on a PIP. If a company in the U.S. wants to fire you, they generally don't need a reason. Individual company cultures will, of course, vary. There are a lot of shitty managers out there.

It's not that they need a reason intrinsically, it's that if the person being fired is of a protected class, the company wants to protect against that person suing for discrimination. Those sort of suits are definitely filed without grounds sometimes, and it's expensive to prove it's baseless, so the PIP can be a way to establish cause.

All that said I agree they can be genuine. They also can be ass-covering.

Re: I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

#176

Post by yelling_cat »

dpark wrote: post #68
klodolph wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do consider retention, make no mistake.

I’m sure they do. They just also don’t care until it becomes a critical issue. I am contacted by an Amazon recruiter at least once a week. I’m sure every engineer I know is. I wonder how much of their money they blow on recruiting and how much engineering time is spent in interviews replacing all the burned out engineers. Plus all the talent that won’t even entertain a job at Amazon.

Lately I've seen less recruiter pitches from Amazon and more personalized messages from managers there about specific roles on their teams, which is a new wrinkle. I doubt that those people would add hours of recruiting to their weekly workload unless the standard candidate pipeline was really running dry.

Re: I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

#177

Post by bluedino »

tablespoon wrote: post #91
MattGaiser wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon has to be at the point of literally running out of nearby human beings to be concerned about retention. https://www.essence.com/news/amazon-burning-through-workers/

> Amazon has to be at the point of literally running out of nearby human beings to be concerned about retention. It seems like they're more than willing to hire imports. I get more recruiter spam from them than anyone else, and I don't live anywhere near any of their major offices.

They have lots of remote jobs now as well.

Re: I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

#178

Post by lovecg »

_moof wrote: post #148
dudus wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respect your view and while that may be true on a lot of cases that's not what the company represents a pip to be. A PIP is a situation where you are told you are not performing at the desired level and needs to improve. In a respectable company being on a pip can be good for you. In my personal case I was not performing well due to personal issues. Getting on a pip saved my job. It gave me the resources and attent…

I've put people on PIPs. I genuinely wanted them to do better. They did. Like you said, they are a tool for laser-focusing attention on specific, well-defined issues. There is no actual ass-covering need to put someone on a PIP. If a company in the U.S. wants to fire you, they generally don't need a reason. Individual company cultures will, of course, vary. There are a lot of shitty managers out there.

Legally yes but large companies generally have rules in place that go beyond legal requirements. One of those rules could be “you can’t fire someone for performance reasons without putting them on a PIP first and documenting why it failed”. Middle managers have very little power in bending those rules.

Re: I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

#179

Post by pkaye »

emptybottle wrote: post #80

It's really a shame what many of the "FAANG" companies (and the companies who admire/adopt their practices) are doing to tech work. My own experiences, the horror stories I've read, the broken/horrible interview trivia loops, the nonstop crunches, the nonstop on-call escalations, the difficult ethical positions that come with working at some companies, etc. have me feeling worse than ever about this profession. It di…

Seems like you just need an job aggregator that skips particular companies you dislike.

Re: I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months

#180

Post by tiredofU2 »

oblio wrote: post #159
colinmhayes wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Leetcode is systematically favoring candidates who have months of free time to memorize arbitrary logic puzzles Finding people who are willing to spend months in order to get the job is one of the biggest reasons companies use leetcode.

Well, he did say: > ego-driven hazing ritual :-)

No post body was provided.
Post reply on HN