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

Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 292 posts

Re: Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

#231

Post by throwayyy479087 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #153
bgro wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you help explain why the general consensus seems to consider Amazon as a just given backup and easy interview path (but the hard part is the actual job crunch apparently)? They still do leetcode screening don’t they? IMO they’ve been harder than the others because the process is so automated that you either pass or fail on the code test. There’s no tech interviewer to give you a hint unless they changed that re…

They're well known for having one of the lowest hiring bars of the major tech corporations, certainly out of the traditional "FAANG" they are by far the easiest to get hired at. N > F = G > Apple > Amazon in terms of hiring difficulty, from my impression. Until recently, their pay was also not as competitive and they had massive turnover rates.

They have the highest salary now

Re: Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

#232

Post by fzil »

shuckles wrote: post #217
malfist wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a question bank that we are required to ask from that can be found online. Coding questions and system design challenges are individual to the interviewer. Some are good, some are bad, some are leet code, some are reasonable, it's kinda a crapshot. I saw a bar raiser (a bar raiser!) asking path finding algorithms as his coding challenge which is nuts to me. All that signals is if you've worked with path findi…

It's hard for me to interpret your comment since you never state who "we" refers to.

not the person who wrote the comment, but "we" -> Amazon.

Re: Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

#233

Post by throwayyy479087 »

Chamix wrote: post #180
zwkrt wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon got that reputation a decade ago when they were vigorously growing in user base and revenue. They couldn't hire fast enough if they even wanted to without wrecking the organization, so there was a ton of teams/people that felt immense pressure. These days things have leveled out a little bit and I think of Amazon as a new IBM in the making. More corporate, more cruft, more politicking. This is especially true…

For fun, there are currently precisely 312 employees under DynamoDB directors/VPs that are categorized at "Software Development". Including systems engineers ups it to 348.

Do you realize how big and profitable DynamoDB is? How much data they manage?

Re: Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

#234

Post by whimsicalism »

throwayyy479087 wrote: post #231
whimsicalism wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're well known for having one of the lowest hiring bars of the major tech corporations, certainly out of the traditional "FAANG" they are by far the easiest to get hired at. N > F = G > Apple > Amazon in terms of hiring difficulty, from my impression. Until recently, their pay was also not as competitive and they had massive turnover rates.

They have the highest salary now

As I said, until recently.

Now they are a bit more bimodal, but they do not necessarily have the highest (certainly they do not beat netflix).

Re: Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

#235

Post by morelisp »

senderista wrote: post #219
Kranar wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While memorization is involved, people make it seem like you need to memorize specific solutions to specific leetcode problems, and that's just not only false but also a bizzare and almost impossible strategy. What you do need to memorize are a small group of algorithmic designs and have a good sense of when to apply each one. The main ones include divide and conquer, greedy, graph, and what seems to be the hardest o…

I have literally seen interviewees expected to come up with Floyd’s linked-list cycle-finding algorithm independently (or rather, pretend they did).

Chapter 2 (iirc, or at least an early one) of a well-known textbook also expects you to do this. It is non-obvious, but so are a lot of real problems.

I agree it’s probably mostly memorized as an answer today, but I don’t think it’s fundamentally a bad question.

Re: Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

#236

Post by pmoriarty »

turdprincess wrote: post #230
malfist wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a question bank that we are required to ask from that can be found online. Coding questions and system design challenges are individual to the interviewer. Some are good, some are bad, some are leet code, some are reasonable, it's kinda a crapshot. I saw a bar raiser (a bar raiser!) asking path finding algorithms as his coding challenge which is nuts to me. All that signals is if you've worked with path findi…

It could also signal that you got motivated and took many hours out of your busy day to do a meaningless task like memorize a path finding algorithms. This might be a good signal that you will also be motivated to spend many hours doing meaningless things at your job. Actually, if you think about it, the whole concept of getting a college degree isn't much different - its not about what you learn in the classes, it j…

"the whole concept of getting a college degree isn't much different - its not about what you learn in the classes, it just shows that you have the capacity to go through an arbitrary social experience, follow a bunch of rules, learn some stuff, and stick with it for a few years - pretty similar to a job"

It makes me sad when I hear people say things like this. A college education has the potential to be so much more than this.

I took a poetry class, despite not being particularly interested in or appreciative of poetry and it opened my eyes and made me a life-long lover of poetry ever since. Philosophy courses taught me how to think more rigorously and question things many other people take for granted.

There were many other courses which weren't required for my degree that I sampled and wound up loving and learning to appreciate things I never would have otherwise been exposed to... even changing my major because of some of them.

I didn't even have any truly amazing teachers either, so I can only imagine how much better is the college experience of those who do. Having great classmates who inspire and motivate you can be fantastic too... not to mention the potential to make connections and broaden your horizons in all sorts of academic and non-academic ways.

College can change your life, change the way you think, open your mind and open your eyes, and so much more.

Re: Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

#237

Post by pmoriarty »

throckmortra wrote: post #134
bgro wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you help explain why the general consensus seems to consider Amazon as a just given backup and easy interview path (but the hard part is the actual job crunch apparently)? They still do leetcode screening don’t they? IMO they’ve been harder than the others because the process is so automated that you either pass or fail on the code test. There’s no tech interviewer to give you a hint unless they changed that re…

They clearly layout their interview process and even have a video series on YouTube explaining how to pass it. It is not difficult but time-consuming to learn their interview "language" Leetcode screens are a matter of grinding for a couple of weeks Source: received an offer from them in March

"Leetcode screens are a matter of grinding for a couple of weeks"

Did you have formal compsci training before you started studying for leetcode? Did you study algorithms before that?

Just wondering how hard it would be for someone who never got a compsci degree and knows nothing about algorithms.

Re: Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

#238

Post by raydev »

morelisp wrote: post #235
senderista wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have literally seen interviewees expected to come up with Floyd’s linked-list cycle-finding algorithm independently (or rather, pretend they did).

Chapter 2 (iirc, or at least an early one) of a well-known textbook also expects you to do this. It is non-obvious, but so are a lot of real problems. I agree it’s probably mostly memorized as an answer today, but I don’t think it’s fundamentally a bad question.

Did this book ask you to time yourself and solve it within 20 minutes?

Re: Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

#239

Post by throckmortra »

pmoriarty wrote: post #237
throckmortra wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They clearly layout their interview process and even have a video series on YouTube explaining how to pass it. It is not difficult but time-consuming to learn their interview "language" Leetcode screens are a matter of grinding for a couple of weeks Source: received an offer from them in March

"Leetcode screens are a matter of grinding for a couple of weeks" Did you have formal compsci training before you started studying for leetcode? Did you study algorithms before that? Just wondering how hard it would be for someone who never got a compsci degree and knows nothing about algorithms.

Yes but it doesn't matter, it's a skill you gain and lose with repetition. I have seen many people without formal compsci training pick it up quickly
Post reply on HN