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

benadam.me

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

#231

Post by NotVerstappen »

benadam11 wrote: post #36
teg4n_ wrote: post #8

The idea of leaving before the year mark at a company that does signing bonuses stresses me the fuck out. Don't you have to pay back the bonus? When I got an Amazon offer that was the case

Its "sign-on payments" now - so essentially you get a salary augmentation for your first 2 years (and its applied to each paycheck) so you don't need to pay anything back when you leave.

Think this depends on the amount - my sign-on bonus worked as you described, but some others I know got a lump sum (they were more junior and getting a smaller bonus).

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

#232

Post by rland »

UncleMeat wrote: post #210
kahrl wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If this were true, why are PIPs not universal across virtually every industry? It isn't like fired employees in software would be uniquely litigious.

I've worked on employment litigation in several industries (white and blue collar), they are everywhere.

Defense usually wins if they have good documentation of putting employees on a PIP, even if the reason is obviously dubious*.

Maybe I'm cynical because I've only seen it in a lawsuit context, but if you're put on a PIP, start applying. There's no out.

* like, discrimination, company wants to fire long-term employee because of an injury, company wants to fire an employee for union organizing, etc.

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

#233

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

monkeybutton wrote: post #191
geodel wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It makes me sad for the less privileged candidates who might be working a job while also trying to break into the IT field. Very good point. I didn't really think about it much before. It is even difficult for candidates who are in IT field but not in FAANG type companies.

Depends on how motivated you are to to your current job. On two occasions I've witnessed a fellow developer mentally check themselves out after a round of layoffs, start doing the minimal amount of work necessary, and then spending the rest of their time cracking coding problems. When the next round of layoffs came, they were gone to Amazon and Google.

Where are they now?

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

#234

Post by colinmhayes »

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 :-)

Finding hard workers isn't easy. Leetcode is not a bad way to do it. It's not a great way, but it works and more importantly it scales well to the organization level.

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

#235

Post by CrazyStat »

taurath wrote: post #220
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I hear, Amazon is incredibly uneven in org quality, so it is really possible your friend got unlucky. My wife works at Amazon and seems to have a pretty good balance and has good things to say about her work environment, but she is not a SWE (rather a designer). Still, I don't think I would ever work there without a lot of careful research about the group I was going into.

This is what they always say but they never say which orgs are good or bad. When you’re a candidate you are rolling the dice

Perhaps every other org is a good one.

---

"I'm sure I'll take you with pleasure!" the Queen said. "Two pence a week, and jam every other day."

Alice couldn't help laughing, as she said, "I don't want you to hire me – and I don't care for jam."

"It's very good jam," said the Queen.

"Well, I don't want any to-day, at any rate."

"You couldn't have it if you did want it," the Queen said. "The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day."

"It must come sometimes to 'jam to-day'," Alice objected.

"No, it can't," said the Queen. "It's jam every other day: to-day isn't any other day, you know."

"I don't understand you," said Alice. "It's dreadfully confusing!"

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

#236

Post by exlurker »

matsemann wrote: post #62

> When I read through they offer they were pushing aggressively for a start date (2 weeks from the offer). Huh, in Norway the normal resignation period is 3 months. Maybe long, but goes both ways, so you always know your job isn't swept away from under your feet one day.

Only if you worked for 10 years in the same company. 1 month is the regular for <5 years tenure. However, the employee may actually demand 3 months.

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

#237

Post by lotsofpulp »

jjoonathan wrote: post #35
jsiaajdsdaa wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business moves at the speed of now.

This sounds like a '90s marketing meme -- do I have that right? I didn't enter the industry until after.

It sounded like I had heard that in a commercial when I was a kid, but all I could find was “move at the speed of business”.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ijaz9OaCo7Y

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

#238

Post by tablespoon »

User23 wrote: post #217
tablespoon wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basically every manager is forced to stack-rank their entire team, and the bottom N percent is put on a PIP. So even if your entire team is comprised of very top-notch engineers you will see forced attrition. I've heard this leads to a "hire to fire" strategy: managers hire some schmuck that's not expected to succeed in order to protect the rest of the team from the policy. Which is another reason I'd never touch A…

Six months of a six figure salary to take an on-the-job sabbatical sounds like a pretty good deal, from a certain point of view. It's a shame the hiring managers in question are unlikely to be transparent about the role's actual requirements.

> Six months of a six figure salary to take an on-the-job sabbatical sounds like a pretty good deal, from a certain point of view. It's a shame the hiring managers in question are unlikely to be transparent about the role's actual requirements.

I agree, but the managers are gaming the system so there's no way they could be transparent about it. As a new hire, it would be a huge punch in the gut to be setup for failure like this and not be in on it from the start.

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

#240

Post by that_guy_iain »

robby_w_g wrote: post #125
sharkweek wrote: post #25

Hey congrats on making it 10 months! "Urgent to not block progress, but also ironic that they are asking a person who has no clue what they are doing to deliver critical work" Friend of mine started a role there (this was 4-5 years ago) and was fired (sorry... more or less asked to leave, being told he could keep his signing bonus if he just left) within about six weeks because he wasn't immediately delivering on som…

> I bag on Amazon a lot on here (which if I were to review with my therapist is likely because I had an absolutely HORRENDOUS experience in an interview loop with them my first step out of college that still makes me nervous in interviews, even 15 years later). Hey, I had a similar experience with Google! It was my first technical interview for my first job out of college. The interviewer laughed at my code, and then…

> My biggest gripe is that Leetcode is systematically favoring candidates who have months of free time to memorize arbitrary logic puzzles.

For me, leetcode is basically just what is taught at university level. So they're hiring people based on if they know stuff they would learn and forget from university.

The thing is, it's not about having free time, it's about being so dedicated to getting the job that you'll spend ages learning things you would never do during your day job and if you did do them during your day job you would be considered a cowboy because there are predefined libraries that are optimised to do those things.

For me, the main reason I don't want to work for FAANG is they have a reputation for long hours and that the hardest thing at the companies is the interview process.

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