Very eye opening, thank you. I had no idea Amazon treated their employees this way.
I turned down two amazon interviews because I asked them if they still did the whole whiteboard-leetcode-type interviews, and they did so I passed.
Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer
21–30 of 365 posts
Re: Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer
#22Same happened to me. A few years back, I got an offer from Amazon after going through the interview pipeline and the non-compete and outside-of-work IP assignment were the only thing I asked to be changed since they were draconian given Amazon's wide breadth of products. They declined to make the change so I declined to accept their offer.
In general, Amazon doesn't make positive impressions on potential employees by saying "work for us and we could easily prevent you from working anywhere else for a year and a half (and please trust us that we won't)".
Re: Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer
#23So this has mostly to do with a non-complete clause. The author is pretty explicit in their view:
> This clause is, to be direct, abusive.
As far as I'm aware this is something that has been apparent for quite some time, and isn't limited to just Amazon. I can't personally conceive of why anyone subject to one of these would have any reason to believe that this isn't just another tool that benefits the company alone, and could perhaps even be used against you.
A discussion about clauses such as this is well needed in general, not just the tech industry. Honestly, the real story that perhaps has more relevancy to tech is having (as the author correctly recognizes) the kind of privilege to turn down a job with Amazon. I'm no fan of Amazon but that would be something very difficult to turn down.
Re: Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer
#24I've also turned down countless Amazon interview offers. In fact, I don't get how I'm still on their recruitment lists after asking several times to be removed. Amazon has arguably the worst culture out of any large tech company, and generally treats its workers like dirt. Given all my friends that worked for them, almost all have quit within 5 years. Given their abysmal warehouse management, it's no surprise they ha…
I've never worked at a tech job for more than 5 years so I'm not sure that is a great metric.
Re: Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer
#25I've also turned down countless Amazon interview offers. In fact, I don't get how I'm still on their recruitment lists after asking several times to be removed. Amazon has arguably the worst culture out of any large tech company, and generally treats its workers like dirt. Given all my friends that worked for them, almost all have quit within 5 years. Given their abysmal warehouse management, it's no surprise they ha…
There is no such thing as a "recruitment list" to be removed from, unless you remove all traces of yourself from the internet. Sourcers don't work from a shared list.
Also, you might be surprised to hear how often people will say "no" at one point, and later say "yes." Circumstances change. Asking again later works.
Re: Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer
#26I've also turned down countless Amazon interview offers. In fact, I don't get how I'm still on their recruitment lists after asking several times to be removed. Amazon has arguably the worst culture out of any large tech company, and generally treats its workers like dirt. Given all my friends that worked for them, almost all have quit within 5 years. Given their abysmal warehouse management, it's no surprise they ha…
> Given all my friends that worked for them, almost all have quit within 5 years.
5 years is pretty darn high by tech company standard, as people already mentioned. Partly because of the culture of "you have to jump ship to make more money and promotions", but even the most employee friendly company will barely edge that, just because software engineers have a huge "grass is greener" syndrome.
Re: Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
How many friends do you have who worked for a company more than 5 years? Work for Amazon for 2 years, learn a lot, get paid a lot, move on.
Except the vast majority of your equity award, which itself makes up the vast majority of your total compensation at Amazon as an engineer, vests in your third and fourth years. Your first and second years you vest 5% and 15% (reportedly).
Being an intern is a huge bonus here. My wife got a decent equity grant under the terrible 5/15/../.. plan, but also a 20k cash bonus for each of the first two years for being a returning intern.
This makes it very attractive to quit after two years, imo
Re: Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer
#28So this has mostly to do with a non-complete clause. The author is pretty explicit in their view: > This clause is, to be direct, abusive. As far as I'm aware this is something that has been apparent for quite some time, and isn't limited to just Amazon. I can't personally conceive of why anyone subject to one of these would have any reason to believe that this isn't just another tool that benefits the company alone,…
> A discussion about clauses such as this is well needed in general
We can have a discussion, but because money is speech, the voices of individuals will be drowned out by the voices of corporations.
Re: Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer
#29How does refusing to sign a non-compete clause typically play out? I imagine it goes back and forth, and I'm trying to imagine a tactful way to do it that doesn't burn the relationship.
Some non-competes are written in a way where they are effectively asking you not to practice your profession for a year or whatever after leaving the company. You wouldn't ask a lawyer for that, or a doctor, etc., and shouldn't ask an engineer either.
Sometimes the company can justify it if they provided something compensatory, like months of company-paid high-value training and skills development that significantly advanced your profession. Especially if the non-compete duration begins after that training ended buy while you still work for the company. Finish your training, stay at that company for the duration of the non-compete, then you're free to leave and work for a competitor if you want. Company gets their money's worth, and you're not stuck with a non-compete that begins the day you leave.
Re: Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer
#30I've also turned down countless Amazon interview offers. In fact, I don't get how I'm still on their recruitment lists after asking several times to be removed. Amazon has arguably the worst culture out of any large tech company, and generally treats its workers like dirt. Given all my friends that worked for them, almost all have quit within 5 years. Given their abysmal warehouse management, it's no surprise they ha…
Given their abysmal warehouse management, it's no surprise they have the second highest employee turnover out of all Fortune 500 companies[1].
Do you think any of the tech companies would treat their blue collar workers any better? It just so happens that all of the products produced by Google, Microsoft and Apple that need a lot of blue collar workers are done by contractors in a different country. I bet none of them think they are being treated especially well.
I bet if any of the other companies had to include their outsourced workers, they would be in the same boat.