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Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

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Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#261

Post by throw8881 »

VRay wrote: post #259
throw8881 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I feel like most of these stories are just coming out recently, in the last year or so. Maybe things hit a tipping point during the pandemic? Current Amazon engineer here. People have been complaining working at Amazon for a long while. At least in my organization, leadership pays close attention to whether folks are happy or unhappy in their roles. I posted this earlier, but we have a massive workforce of engineers…

I got a glowing performance review at Amazon one year, and then with the exact same job/productivity level/attitude I got a bad review the year after. I did some digging, and it turned out that from the VP level down everyone in the org got a big "F U" from management as part of an effort to reduce the size of the org. I was wondering why all my teammates with more experience were jumping ship before that, and I lear…

From your other post that I read here:

>I just waited until my next stock vesting, then took a severance package and left that rancid shithole. We were working on some retarded dead-end boondoggle of a device, and I'm sure everyone in the org got a frowny face on their report card when it was eventually canceled.

I've never met anyone who was happy with their previous employer after getting let go. I don't know the specifics of your situation, but I'm entitled to my perspective. Your personal attacks towards me are just that – personal attacks.

I hope you found an employer where you're happier. :)

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#262

Post by dhbanes »

okaram wrote: post #247
EarlKing wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When the stock goes from 200 to 3500 in 10 years, and consistently goes up and to the right, you won’t find too many of the workers complaining no matter how bad the job conditions are. Tell that to the guys in logistics who don't get any options and bear the brunt of Amazon's bad management.

Up until a couple of years ago, they did get stock (Amazon doesn't give you options, but stock grants). Not sure if that ended when they made the salary $15. If by 'logistics' you mean the people who pack/ship etc, warehouse work sucks, but Amazon has better salary and conditions than most others (pee bottle jokes aside). If you mean the warehouse supervisors, analysts, etc, they get paid fairly well.

Why, exactly, is the pee bottle situation a "joke"?

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#263

Post by hintymad »

RandallBrown wrote: post #219
hintymad wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks a problem peculiar to Seattle as there are not many choices of hyper-growth companies. I can't imagine the same dilemma in the bay area, where one can switch from one promising company to another every week from weeks.

Just curious, what hyper growth companies (with public stock) exist in the Bay Area that don't also have offices in Seattle?

Roblox? I'm not sure if it's still in the class of hyper-growth companies, though. That said, what I had in mind were more of those pre-IPO companies. Some companies do set up office in Seattle, but not all. Plus, Seattle teams often had to struggle to get impactful projects given most of the executives and teams are in the Bay Area.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#264

Post by darksaints »

plank_time wrote: post #55

When the stock goes from 200 to 3500 in 10 years, and consistently goes up and to the right, you won’t find too many of the workers complaining no matter how bad the job conditions are. I have a friend up in Seattle who is suffering, to the point of being hospitalized for mental health issues, but refuses to leave. So HR and leadership believe that their system “works” but it’s really that their employees are willing…

You're right that those engineers would jump ship: their primary reason to stay (pay) evaporates into thin air. But more importantly, if Amazon wants to keep them, they have to do one of two things: issue more stock, or compensate with better cash salaries.

Both of those solutions further impact the stock price. Paying more cash reduces free cash flow...the main determinant of Amazon's obscenely high P/E ratios. Issuing more stock dilutes ownership. Both solutions will push downward on stock price.

And of course, if the stock price drops, that completes the feedback loop...pushing more engineers out, with even more costly retention measures.

Amazon has successfully grown in mind boggling ways, and they might continue growing for the foreseeable future. But the way they have structured incentives, it seems to me that if Amazon has a negative shock to the stock price, it could quickly death spiral into a threat to the whole company, with a simple feedback loop that causes all of their engineering talent to jump ship.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#265

Post by dhbanes »

VRay wrote: post #240
kapp_in_life wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>retarded dead-end boondoggle of a device It was the amazon dash button wasn't it.

haha, this was at Microsoft, and the dash button was a glowing success compared to the project I'm talking about I'd better not dump any more details though, since it's technically still under NDA.. What I'd really like would be a good set of questions to ask as the job interviewee to help me filter out bad teams/orgs. I guess the ability to do that could be considered part of the skillset of a good VP of engineering…

was it a talking staple?

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#266

Post by Lammy »

plank_time wrote: post #55

When the stock goes from 200 to 3500 in 10 years, and consistently goes up and to the right, you won’t find too many of the workers complaining no matter how bad the job conditions are. I have a friend up in Seattle who is suffering, to the point of being hospitalized for mental health issues, but refuses to leave. So HR and leadership believe that their system “works” but it’s really that their employees are willing…

> because their best employees are staying but it’s really just the stock price

What is the point of hiring the "best" employees except as an optimization of the stock price?

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#267

Post by darkwizard42 »

dhbanes wrote: post #262
okaram wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up until a couple of years ago, they did get stock (Amazon doesn't give you options, but stock grants). Not sure if that ended when they made the salary $15. If by 'logistics' you mean the people who pack/ship etc, warehouse work sucks, but Amazon has better salary and conditions than most others (pee bottle jokes aside). If you mean the warehouse supervisors, analysts, etc, they get paid fairly well.

Why, exactly, is the pee bottle situation a "joke"?

Parent comment is referring to any crude joke or non-inspired replies regarding the peeing in bottles situation (which isn’t isolated to Amazon alone)

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#268

Post by DesiLurker »

rejectedandsad wrote: post #181
fred_is_fred wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you backload RSUs this process saves you a ton of money actually.

Not really because they pay the same amount in cash in the first two years. They’re just backloading any potential upside.

thats not guaranteed for every new hire, its upto you to negotiate that upfront.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#269

Post by xnyan »

okaram wrote: post #247
EarlKing wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When the stock goes from 200 to 3500 in 10 years, and consistently goes up and to the right, you won’t find too many of the workers complaining no matter how bad the job conditions are. Tell that to the guys in logistics who don't get any options and bear the brunt of Amazon's bad management.

Up until a couple of years ago, they did get stock (Amazon doesn't give you options, but stock grants). Not sure if that ended when they made the salary $15. If by 'logistics' you mean the people who pack/ship etc, warehouse work sucks, but Amazon has better salary and conditions than most others (pee bottle jokes aside). If you mean the warehouse supervisors, analysts, etc, they get paid fairly well.

The injury rate of Amazon's warehouse employees is the highest in the industry[0]. Annual turnover is almost double that of the retail and logistics industries [1]. On top of that, as you note, the work sucks. I would call those conditions bad, and the turnover suggests that the pay is not sufficient to retain employees.

[0] www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/01/amazon-osha-injury-rate/

[1] https://www.adpri.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/19220244/Th...

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#270

Post by throwaway645743 »

ferdowsi wrote: post #130
lakevieew wrote: post #111

I had joined Amazon as my first job out of school. I was super excited and would not mind working the long hours as the project was interesting. I enjoyed working with my team and manager. Just near the end of the year, my manager quit. The new manager ran my performance review and assessed that my performance didn’t meet expectations. I was not put on PIP. Instead, there would be a development plan that I had to com…

I still can't believe that Amazon measures performance by "numbers of commits" and "SLOC". Pure insanity.

I have given this feedback for a person at Google who made fewer than five commits in a year, each with just a handful of lines. The lines were good, so it wasn't about the quality of the work.
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