Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#181

Post by biafra » Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 7:30 AM UTC

BookingPotions wrote: post #139

abbasaamer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Amazon is a sweatshop" I wouldn't agree with this broad generalization. I work in Alexa and the work environment on my team is pretty awesome. Lots of freedom to try new things, good work life balance, and generally a high level of respect for engineers. I turned down Google to come here and I have no regrets (though not to imply that Google isn't equally awesome).

I'd have to disagree. I've been at Amazon for 2 years, and while it's not a sweatshop, it's definitly a challenging environment where I know of no one who works an exact 40h week at all times. There's zero buffer to slack off, a less productive day is followed by a longer one. I like working at Amazon. I like the challenge, the projects, the people I work with are fun and smart, but it is not a place where you can ea…

> I'd be curious to know though, and be honest, you've really ever only worked 40h weeks? You havnt logged in on a weekend or an evening, stayed longer on an Thursday, checked your mails when off work? Not ever? Ignoring on call time offcourse.

I work 40 hours per week on average. For the 20 years I have been in the industry.

I solved some problems in the shower, but I also slack away on my desk sometimes.

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#182

Post by grecy » Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 7:46 AM UTC

pjmorris wrote: post #36

'Amazon is piloting 25% pay cuts'. I wonder if the group that does this will be viewed as lesser, e.g. work on less interesting projects, be less likely to be promoted, than the "40" hour employees.

> 'Amazon is piloting 25% pay cuts'.

Great!

Let's be honest - most working professionals (especially in Software) earn more money than they need. I think it's much better to have more time - time with you family, time to be outdoors, time to be healthy - than it is to have more money

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#183

Post by barrkel » Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 7:48 AM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #118

gfody wrote: post #37

Something about this bothers me. Time-keeping is already not straightforward for an engineer. Because the work is done in our heads and doesn't necessarily stop just because the workday is over. You don't have to be sitting at a keyboard for your head to be grinding on a problem. More often some problem takes hold of you, occupying some mental bandwidth even while you're away, at home trying to enjoy time with your f…

I'm skeptical of claims that developers are underpaid. Maybe I feel differently about this because I'm not in a major tech hub and am not faced with the prospect of buying a multimillion dollar cottage, but when I compare my life as a software developer to that of more or less anyone else I know, including doctors and lawyers, I struggle to find a single person who seems to have a more comfortable life than me. I'm n…

Plenty of people work much harder than dentists, lawyers etc and get paid an order of magnitude less. Supply and demand sets prices, not worthiness or fairness.

Personally, I feel like I sold my teenage years as a price for my edge in tech. I'm not always sure it was worth it.

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#184

Post by tezza » Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 7:54 AM UTC

cstejerean wrote: post #157

lettergram wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can usually just do the math. Let's assume last year I decreases the loading time of our website by 50%, taking it from 2 seconds to 1 second. This reduces the drop off rate of customers (people who switch websites before it loads) by about 15%. That means a 15% increase in overall sales. Now let's assume it was a $10 million a year business. That means it's now making $11.5 million dollars a year because a softw…

$10M in sales with what profit margin? 20%? In that case the $1.5M in extra sales is $300k in profit. Also a developer with $100k in salary costs about $125k when you consider payroll taxes, insurance, 401k matching, etc. If you factor in the cost of office space, equipment and support staff the total cost per employee could easily be $200k. Most developers also don't increase revenue by $1M per year on a regular bas…

You make some excellent points and I completely agree with the thrust of your argument that people should not be so quick to judge.

However, from my empirical observation of many executives, there are two broad groups.

The ones you described, those that are worth their salt and have carved out their position through helping the business.

Then there is a large group of executives who exist mainly because similar companies have similar structures and they have expectations of roles for say CFO , COO. Then there are roles required by the industry or market: Head of Compliance, Head of Risk, Head of Auditing.

Those executives have not earned their place, they are appointments by pattern matching corporate structures

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#185

Post by solotronics » Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 7:55 AM UTC

crazy_ant wrote: post #166

wallacoloo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting to me, because I have never experienced anything of what you describe when working for somebody else. Maybe it's because I work in an office, and so there's a very clear change in environment that affects my ability to focus on different things: office=paid work, anywhere else=not paid work. In any case, what you describe seems like a pretty big limitation to me. If your employer isn't asking you,…

That's cute but not how the world works. Employers will rarely explicitly ask you to do free overtime because that's illegal in many jurisdictions. What happens instead is this: an unrealistic deadline will be imposed and you will be expected to meet it. How you will go about doing that is up to you, but it usually assumes working overtime if you want to keep your job.

Maybe push back? You aren't a slave and by allowing yourself to be forced to work for free you devalue your work and ours as well.

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#186

Post by rad88 » Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 7:57 AM UTC

cstejerean wrote: post #157

lettergram wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can usually just do the math. Let's assume last year I decreases the loading time of our website by 50%, taking it from 2 seconds to 1 second. This reduces the drop off rate of customers (people who switch websites before it loads) by about 15%. That means a 15% increase in overall sales. Now let's assume it was a $10 million a year business. That means it's now making $11.5 million dollars a year because a softw…

$10M in sales with what profit margin? 20%? In that case the $1.5M in extra sales is $300k in profit. Also a developer with $100k in salary costs about $125k when you consider payroll taxes, insurance, 401k matching, etc. If you factor in the cost of office space, equipment and support staff the total cost per employee could easily be $200k. Most developers also don't increase revenue by $1M per year on a regular bas…

According to this logic, our developer has actually earned his wages in perpetuity from this single year of work (or at least so long as that 15% value added lasts). But that's clearly not how it works either.

The issue in this example is ownership. Executives add value and they are granted large ownership stakes in the business. Workers are not. You use the example of the executive who figures out how to grow the business to prove that he is entitled to appropriate some of the other employees' added value -- since otherwise that value wouldn't exist in the first place. But our developer can't take his yearly salary out of the 15% increased revenue he enabled back in 2012, on top of compensation for whatever value he creates this year.

In any event, the example is very contrived. $10M in sales is as arbitrary as 20% profit margins. Margins could be any amount less or a great deal more. Revenues could be sky high or non-existent. You might expect to find a developer making $100k regardless.

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#187

Post by jsemrau » Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 8:07 AM UTC

andrewguenther wrote: post #40

gtrubetskoy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which way is "working from home" "taking it easy"?

Because working from home is usually light on working.

I usually work from home when I have a full schedule of back-to-back calls. This quite frequently happens in my role.

Looking at a slide deck listening to people talk can be done everywhere.

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#188

Post by belovedeagle » Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 8:11 AM UTC

vectorjohn wrote: post #175

zeeveener wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programmers can suffer from this problem as well as engineers. The project never fully leaves your mind and often I'll go home and mull over the reasons why things might not be working or how to start another task. No "actual" work gets done, but I'm still working; just as you described.

Nope, you're not working. You or the parent. That's a nonsensical definition of work. Nobody is making you mull things over, you're doing it because you want to, because you find your job interesting. Some may try to claim the contrary, but I'm sure if you're doing something other than a mundane task like driving or cleaning, your mind instantly gets sidetracked from "working". You can't possibly actually be thinking…

> Do you think carpenters never think about work after hours?

This is a false analogy, because on the whole, carpenters aren't paid to think. A better analogy would be if the carpenter kept on building the house (or whatever) even after leaving work - an impossible feat, which just shows the unique challenges of knowledge work.

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#189

Post by Symbiote » Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 8:18 AM UTC

jdavis703 wrote: post #116

jchendy wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, I'm a software engineer who is able to keep a clear separation between work and personal life, and I would very much appreciate the ability to spend fewer hours on work. Though as others have suggested, a 3 month vacation every year might be an even better approach to a 75% work schedule.

And you wouldn't worry about people plotting on either how to get you fired, or I suppose in the "best" situation loosing out on working on the good/funner projects? From what I've seen from other people taking extended time off from work, it is super dangerous. Hell, I took three extra days for Thanksgiving and found myself removed from an interesting project and placed on some maintenance tasks afterwards.

If you work in a country with mandatory leave, like anwhere in the EU, this couldn't be a problem.

Everyone has 4/5/6 weeks of leave, and is expected to take them. Planning around people on leave is a normal part of management.

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#190

Post by rad88 » Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 8:20 AM UTC

jchendy wrote: post #156

nilkn wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, my own experience is that the $1.49 million would more likely be reinvested in the company as a whole: hire more developers, more salespeople, expand the office, etc. That money would also take an entire year to materialize and would require your back of the envelope math to pan out perfectly. Requesting a $1.5 million dollar bonus for making the website faster seems a little ludicrous and potentially hostile t…

> Well, my own experience is that the $1.49 million would more likely be reinvested in the company as a whole: hire more developers, more salespeople, expand the office, etc A lot of it also goes to essential business expenses: HR, legal, the AWS bill, the new feature that's currently losing money but will pay off in the long term. And the person who made the $1.5mm code fix didn't do it on their own. They wouldn't h…

Yep, a great division of labor created that wealth for the company, and the developer is not entitled to 15% of it's revenue (or even profit) just for that work. This isn't a practical issue though. The everyday situation is not that a undeserving worker is granted a large ownership stake, it's that an undeserving financier/executive/founder is.