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My Interviews with Amazon

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Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#211

Post by khedoros »

pc86 wrote: post #113
plandis wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked at Amazon for around 4 years now. I work 9-5 most days. The days I don't I'll work 10-6! I still work there because I get to work on interesting distributed systems. I've never really had any of the bad experiences that others have seem to had. I reasonably get along with my manager, his manager, and the VP of my organization. They are not the assholes that every complaint seems to mention. Even in Seattl…

$600k real estate puts you well above "upper middle class" nationally. Maybe not in a limited geographic area, and certainly not SF/NY/DC, but that's well over 3x the median home value for the entire country.

$600k is about 1500 sq ft, where I live, while median US home size is somewhere in the mid-2000's of square footage. Maybe when I'm house hunting, I should point out that I could get the same thing elsewhere for $200k.

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#212

Post by khedoros »

gdulli wrote: post #31
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…

You can find anecdotes about how working at any company is a bad experience and others about how it's a good experience. With Amazon, however, there's something qualitatively different. The anecdotes and evidence of it being a terrible place to work far outweigh the positive. Its bad reputation is confirmed by things you read about their policies, quotes from Jeff Bezos, etc. Poor treatment of employees is consistent…

I've heard both good and bad (bad from the internet, good from some friends working there). I get about the same feeling from their interview process as I do from most other large corporations, but the news stories about their warehouse workers are definitely troubling.

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#213

Post by adrianratnapala »

fragola wrote: post #190
larrykubin wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Seattle. I get really depressed from December-February due to the lack of sunshine, and I've found it to be a more difficult place socially compared to other cities I've lived and worked in. To the point where I have frequently thought about leaving. That said, I played beach volleyball all day yesterday with some friends as the sun set over the Olympic mountains in the background, and it was greatness. But…

I live in Seattle. I love the look on new coworkers' faces when they see Mt Rainier for the first time in April: "HOLY COW IS THAT A VOLCANO??"

I live in Munich and work in just south of it. I took my lunchtime walks down the same country path 100 times before I noticed the Alps were looming huge right in front of me.

And I think the weather here is good. (And the wheather in Seattle was wonderful on 100% of the days that I visited it).

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#214

Post by khedoros »

ryanlm wrote: post #138
throwaway52584 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I meant design discussions, etc.

I think that was understood (at least, that's how I read it). In a good environment at any company, your ideas will be fairly weighed against other options. Most environments aren't "good", by that definition. Don't be surprised if ideas that don't support the status quo are thrown aside.

> I'm sorry you think it is funny that I actually want to participate in the development process.

They weren't making fun of you because you'd like to take part in the process. They were making fun of you because you think it would be that simple.

> I've been keeping busy by having personal projects that most enterprise developers would probably not be able to understand.

Condescending statements like this make me glad not to know you. I've done things that some of my coworkers don't understand, and they've sometimes done things that I never have. Personal projects are fine, but there's a difference between the short+sharp bits of brilliance that you might put in a personal project of a few thousand lines and introducing a major feature into a project that has a whole file for every line that your personal project has.

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#215

Post by voltagex_ »

serge2k wrote: post #74
Bartweiss wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I was expected to be on webcam the entire time to verify identity and prevent cheating. No joke about the entire time part - there was a reminder to get any water or office supplies I would need before sitting down, because the interview would be terminated if I left the frame of the cam. That's new and stupid. I'd tell them to get fucked.

You're lucky we're in a market that allows you to make that choice.

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#216

Post by msie »

derefr wrote: post #187
serge2k wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Experience is more than just being able to code Necessary, but not sufficient. If you can't code you're worthless as a developer. You can be a great coder, but if your other skills are poor you aren't worth a senior engineer salary.

I've had points in my programming career where I felt completely burnt out. I would open up a text-editor and just stare at it. I didn't want to create. But, separately from programming, I absolutely love teaching/mentoring. I found that, if I was helping someone with a programming problem, I could code just fine while burnt out. As long as someone else was doing "the programming"—the part involving wanting to create…

Code Midwife?

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#217

Post by voltagex_ »

coredog64 wrote: post #81
cookiecaper wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends on the individual situation. The biggest cost variance is in housing. In the Midwest, you can get a 2,500 sq ft home for ~1.3k +/- $350. [0] Under normal leasing standards (no more than 1/3rd your income to rent), you can pay that if you have a job in the $50k-$60k range. And that's almost the standard -- big houses and big yards for everyone. In LA or SEA, you're looking at 2.5x-4x that, which is a…

> The other option is to live way out in the burbs, where prices are probably closer to 1.5x-2.5x, and spend 2.5 hours commuting every work day. I think I've mentioned this before, but when I interviewed at Amazon, the topic of affordable housing came up. I asked the interviewer what was affordable these days, expecting Kent, Auburn, or maybe even Buckley. His answer was Puyallup.

I'm on the other side of the world so I have no idea how realistic this is, but Google Maps says it's around 1 hour 15 by bus each way from Puyallup to Amazon's office at 440 Terry Ave N, Seattle. That's not too bad.

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#218

Post by ohstopitu »

jgn wrote: post #125
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'd be happy to get you into the interview process, or at least point you in the right direction. My experience at Amazon has been great. I don't know anyone who cries at their desk, works 80 hours per week, or feels like they're being pushed through a meat grinder. I worked for Microsoft before Amazon, and that was brutal. You'll find bad teams at every large company. One of my friends was on one at Google.

I'd love to have a go at the interview process if it's possible. I had an interview process a while back (at the end of April I believe) but I don't know what went wrong -

I kept getting calls from Amazon (Seattle number) claiming I had not done the test (which I had already done) and the HR folks mentioning I was not selected - and to try 6 months later.

I would definitely like to have another go at it, if possible.

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#219

Post by mjevans »

derefr wrote: post #187
serge2k wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Experience is more than just being able to code Necessary, but not sufficient. If you can't code you're worthless as a developer. You can be a great coder, but if your other skills are poor you aren't worth a senior engineer salary.

I've had points in my programming career where I felt completely burnt out. I would open up a text-editor and just stare at it. I didn't want to create. But, separately from programming, I absolutely love teaching/mentoring. I found that, if I was helping someone with a programming problem, I could code just fine while burnt out. As long as someone else was doing "the programming"—the part involving wanting to create…

What (lowest tier) management material SHOULD (IMO) be.

You might still need someone above you to function as the team's abstraction layer to the company at large, but it sounds like you'd be a great leader among the actual workers.

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#220

Post by kafkaesq »

ex_amazon_sde wrote: post #185
dominotw wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I applied to amazon last month, they asked me to do interviewstreet coding for 2 hrs. After that Recruiter didn't even have the minimum courtesy to let me know what happened. He simply stopped all communications with me. Reflects their attitude of treating ppl as mere 'resources' , I would work for amazon if I have no self-respect.

Ex Amazon here: that's not supposed to happen.

But it does all the time, of course.
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