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

An Amazon programmer’s perspective (2015)

pastebin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 281 posts

Re: An Amazon programmer’s perspective (2015)

#191

Post by dlp211 »

sokoloff wrote: post #113
dlp211 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is only true in the sense that there is a cost to move goods, but it is not true in the sense that retailers charge more to move the good to you. If it were, I wouldn't be able to reliably purchase goods shipped to my door for equal or less than what I pay in physical stores. When shipping is included in the price, that means that the shipper bears the cost of shipping by taking a smaller margin. If I were to be…

Higher cost than what ? By the same argument, customers are paying the costs for Best Buy's internal logistics and retail floor operations to enable “free browse and instant pickup”. If those costs are higher than Amazon/NewEgg's costs for "free shipping", I'd expect to see exactly the relative prices that you're seeing.

I'm sorry, but I can't track the point you are trying to make.

I'll reiterate my point that shipping is a cost that has to be paid, but who bears that cost is not necessarily the customer. If it was the case that the customer was the one bearing that cost, there would be a difference in the price you pay for goods at a physical store vs. goods shipped to your home, implicitly or explicitly. There is generally no difference, and in many cases, ship to home is cheaper because you can select from more retailers.

Re: An Amazon programmer’s perspective (2015)

#192

Post by foo321 »

Dunno, I read through half of the post and have not figured what actually the problem there? If 15 minutes you have not responded while on "pager duty" your manager get notified? Phew. I mean if you are infrastructure worker, you kinda need to go and fix the infrastructure that is expected by everyone to be efficient and up 24/7. Imagine, your internet goes down once a month, you will be among first to complain how sh... I mean bad, your internet provider is and threaten to switch to other option. Internet goes down often, and there is a person or a group that goes to the affected location and fixes the issue during day/night/rain/snow. Now think about people who's livelihoods depend on AWS to be up, or customers being able to purchase products on amazon.com... business owner, track driver, manufacturing worker, and bunch of people who have work and income because those workers do. If programmer's job was so easy, everyone would be able to do it. Problem with today's society is that we see people's success and desire a piece of it, we do not see work and sweat that was put into achieving that success. Programming not for everyone, if you not used to stare at the screen 16 hours/day, maybe there is different career for u somewhere.

Re: An Amazon programmer’s perspective (2015)

#193

Post by hckr_news »

majewsky wrote: post #172
rootusrootus wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing seems to have changed since the OP wrote their post -- managers at AWS are open about the on-call requirement. At least the ones in Portland. They were proud that they owned the product all the way from the code on the back to the customer at the front. So if you didn't want to be responsible for some level of ops, you knew that going in. I didn't move forward to an interview, this was just from a meet-and-…

> They were proud that they owned the product all the way from the code on the back to the customer at the front. So if you didn't want to be responsible for some level of ops, you knew that going in. There's a huge difference between being responsible for (some level of) ops and literally climbing out of bed when the pager rings. At work, I'm responsible for the operations of the services I develop, which means that…

I've always wondered how these sort of pager-duty notifications worked for heavy sleepers.

Re: An Amazon programmer’s perspective (2015)

#194

Post by thorwasdfasdf »

MattGaiser wrote: post #57
samirillian wrote: post #4

This is what I don't understand. When Tbray left, he said he was doing so in solidarity with the distribution center types, but he held to the line that AWS was great. This despite nightmare stories like this one regularly bubbling up, and I've heard similar from friends. What is it about tech culture that people within it refuse to admit the level of abuse-by-design that happens at these companies? Is it that they w…

> What is it about tech culture that people within it refuse to admit the level of abuse-by-design that happens at these companies? The Amazon example is extreme, but a lot of tech workers fit the stereotype of people who don't have a lot else to do. I spend 100+ hours at my computer a week, so if you want long hours, I can live with that. I am up at 1AM anyway, so if you need something done at that time, sure. I jus…

this is very informative. I wouldn't have believed it, without the first person perspective. Before i read this, it was simply unbelievable to me that people could be that bored without any life outside work. Speaking as someone who really values free time and has tons of hobbies and things to do outside of work, it's just unbelievable.

Re: An Amazon programmer’s perspective (2015)

#195

Post by dufymano »

lowiqengineer wrote: post #36
redredrobot wrote: post #15

I appreciate this being shared, but I have some qualms. I think talking about the Leadership Principles as a 'typical corporate motto' is unfair. Amazon lives their leadership principles far more than the other companies I've seen. They don't include things they don't actually care about, like most corporate mottos do (you'll notice the lack of 'we care about our employees' or 'do no evil' LPs). At least in my experi…

> 'we care about our employees' or 'do no evil' LPs). Customer Obsession is "do no evil".

No. Customer Obsession is Customer Obsession. You can do plenty evil in the name of satisfying customers. They aren't even remotely the same thing.

Re: An Amazon programmer’s perspective (2015)

#196

Post by ryanmaclean »

hckr_news wrote: post #193
majewsky wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They were proud that they owned the product all the way from the code on the back to the customer at the front. So if you didn't want to be responsible for some level of ops, you knew that going in. There's a huge difference between being responsible for (some level of) ops and literally climbing out of bed when the pager rings. At work, I'm responsible for the operations of the services I develop, which means that…

I've always wondered how these sort of pager-duty notifications worked for heavy sleepers.

They didn't for me - it meant my SO would wake me up after they'd been woken up.

I then started wearing headphones to bed so that I would hear the phone ring and not disturb them, but when you're rolling out of bed and hopping on a call at 3AM it's difficult.

What I seriously underestimated was the strain that being on-call can put on a relationship, it's a massive regret.

Re: An Amazon programmer’s perspective (2015)

#198

Post by bougiefever »

w0mbat wrote: post #132

Amazon's 401k plan is terrible when compared to competing companies. I cancelled my Amazon interview the second I saw the terms of it. I had to find the details for myself because the info packet the recruiter sent me, conveniently left out any details except that there was a 401k plan and some matching. Only 50% match, and the maximum match they will pay is 2% of salary. (Competitors match 1:1, high or no limit). Th…

Yea, that is not very good for such a wealthy company. Other companies match up to the max allowable with no vesting period.

Re: An Amazon programmer’s perspective (2015)

#199

Post by unbalancedevh »

>- Near-Instant Gratification

>There is something great about having code you wrote be actually executed by thousands of people every day. So few people get to show their friends and family a site they visit often and say "I did that thing there." Maybe it will wear off eventually, but it's still my favorite.

It has never worn off for me! I've worked in automotive for over 20 years, and it feels great every time I see something I worked on drive by.

Re: An Amazon programmer’s perspective (2015)

#200

Post by rantwasp »

majormajor wrote: post #28

> Remember when I mentioned Amazon's moving and signing bonus? Little caveat on that, if you leave or are fired within 2 years, you have to pay it back. Paying back a signing bonus if they fire you seems super rough. Is this common elsewhere? 2 years also seems high - the time I got a signing bonus, it was "pay back if you leave voluntarily in 1 year" which was much nicer than the described. Unfortunately, much of th…

it’s usually split in 24 monthly payments. also, when it was a large chunk the contract said it would be pro-rate it.

also, anecdotally, it you were fired they would not ask for the bonus back - it opened a whole can of worms in the wrongful termination bucket

so op definitely did not read his employment contract

Post reply on HN