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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

#261

Post by rhizome »

ss108 wrote: post #248
that_guy_iain wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 spe…

> For me, the main reason I don't want to work for FAANG is they have a reputation for long hours I thought working at Google or Facebook was supposed to be a pretty chill "rest and vest" situation, esp at the former (?)

My understanding (at least where Google is concerned) is that it's a jungle situation and there's a lot of team-hopping and connection-making until you find a place to land for awhile. That may be where R&V comes into the picture, maybe some people are able to negotiate a less stressful First Act, and possibly most likely, maybe my understanding is out of date.

Remember, with the kinds of education people have at these companies coupled with the amounts of money they are receiving, "the bullied become the bullies" is a serious occupational hazard.

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

#262

Post by draw_down »

tucaz wrote: post #183
strgcmc wrote: post #116

I see a lot of these comments have taken to a kind of Amazon-bashing and venting their own experiences, where the author actually... didn't? I thought the author was incredibly fair/objective, and at least the way I read it, it wasn't so much that he had such a miserable experience or could only stomach 10 months of pain/abuse (in fact if you actually read to the end, he praises his manager, his teammates, etc.), and…

People on this forum are usually too good to find problems within. With folks here, usually the other party is always at fault.

No post body was provided.

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

#263

Post by _moof »

ballenf wrote: post #192
_moof wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've put people on PIPs. I genuinely wanted them to do better. They did. Like you said, they are a tool for laser-focusing attention on specific, well-defined issues. There is no actual ass-covering need to put someone on a PIP. If a company in the U.S. wants to fire you, they generally don't need a reason. Individual company cultures will, of course, vary. There are a lot of shitty managers out there.

> If a company in the U.S. wants to fire you, they generally don't need a reason. That's only true if they can prove the reason isn't one of several prohibited reasons (racism, sexism, ageism, etc.). And how do you do that? Have a PIP system in place in which the acceptable reason is documented in detail and all employees are treated consistently. That's why PIPs are effectively termination at many companies. Even if…

> That's only true if they can prove the reason isn't one of several prohibited reasons (racism, sexism, ageism, etc.).

They don't need to prove anything. In employment discrimination cases the burden of proof is on the plaintiff.

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

#264

Post by jonny_eh »

endymi0n wrote: post #245
Salgat wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wish companies that didn't have the applicant pool of a FAANG company understood this. Leetcode for your average dev company is a great way to lose a massive portion of the qualified talent pool. I can guarantee almost every SaaS developer never touches dynamic programming beyond simple memoization, yet its tested so much. You might as well test a French Cuisine Chef on how well his Chinese cooking is.

> You might as well test a French Cuisine Chef on how well his Chinese cooking is. A way more apt comparison would be evaluating him on his knive sharpening skills.

And if they couldn't sharpen a knife? Would you still trust them to cook a 5 course dinner?

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

#265

Post by RandallBrown »

throwawayboise wrote: post #246

"Everything is Urgent (but takes forever)" Sounds like my first job out of college (it was early 1990s, big consulting shop). There was a ton of pressure to arrive early, stay late, 55-60 hour weeks were normal, continually document progress on your tasks, but the project overall was well behind schedule and what had been completed didn't really work. We got paid straight overtime after 40 hours, and I didn't have mu…

I worked on a big team at Microsoft about 8 years ago. The overall project was behind so they started buying us dinner every night until we could stay late and get back on schedule. The sub team that I worked on wasn't behind at all so I just went home like normal every day.

After a few days of this my manager pulled me aside saying that some of the higher ups had noticed I wasn't staying late with the rest of the team. Of course I wasn't. I didn't have any work to do. I started showing up to the team dinners, but it seems the damage was done. My next review went poorly and I immediately started looking for a new job because I didn't want to deal with that bullshit anymore.

Coincidentally, I believe that was the last review Microsoft did with their infamous stack ranking so maybe the next one would have gone better.

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

#266

Post by mywittyname »

aidenn0 wrote: post #196
prirun wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why people keep saying this. Every state except Montana in the US is "at will": the employer can fire you at any time with no reason. I suppose you could try to prove discrimination because of age or something else, but just like you can walk out and never come back, the employer can ask you to leave and you're done. Companies have no liability if you are fired other than a discrimination lawsuit.…

Legal departments are often fairly conservative. Do you know for a fact that the person you are firing is not a member of a protected class? If they are then they can potentially convince a judge that "fired with no reason" could be code for "fired for being the member of a protected class," at least to the degree that the trial cannot be dismissed. Once you have reached that point, it's almost moot whether or not th…

Also, it's a check against management.

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

#267

Post by rurp »

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 suspect white collar employees are a lot more likely to sue an employer in general, and PIPs are pretty common across white collar industries. Filing a lawsuit is a lot easier for people who have money in the bank, a flexible schedule, familiarity with the law, and personal connections to lawyers; all attributes that correlate with white collar professionals.

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

#268

Post by georgemcbay »

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…

> I've come to think that the Leetcode interview style has morphed from a "let's see how you handle problems at scale" test into an ego-driven hazing ritual.

I'm 48 and I've been a software developer a long time. The technical interview at many companies has been an ego-driven hazing ritual my entire career, well before Leetcode even existed.

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

#269

Post by Ostrogodsky »

tucaz wrote: post #183
strgcmc wrote: post #116

I see a lot of these comments have taken to a kind of Amazon-bashing and venting their own experiences, where the author actually... didn't? I thought the author was incredibly fair/objective, and at least the way I read it, it wasn't so much that he had such a miserable experience or could only stomach 10 months of pain/abuse (in fact if you actually read to the end, he praises his manager, his teammates, etc.), and…

People on this forum are usually too good to find problems within. With folks here, usually the other party is always at fault.

The irony-meter just exploded

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

#270

Post by xtracto »

_moof wrote: post #148
dudus wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respect your view and while that may be true on a lot of cases that's not what the company represents a pip to be. A PIP is a situation where you are told you are not performing at the desired level and needs to improve. In a respectable company being on a pip can be good for you. In my personal case I was not performing well due to personal issues. Getting on a pip saved my job. It gave me the resources and attent…

I've put people on PIPs. I genuinely wanted them to do better. They did. Like you said, they are a tool for laser-focusing attention on specific, well-defined issues. There is no actual ass-covering need to put someone on a PIP. If a company in the U.S. wants to fire you, they generally don't need a reason. Individual company cultures will, of course, vary. There are a lot of shitty managers out there.

Right, that has also been my experience (granted, in another country where a company can fire you with no reason if they pay you 3 months severance).

For me as a manager, the PIP allowed me to set up an environment where the developer would be able to perform their job in isolation with specific, measurable and concrete tasks that do not depend on any third party.

I've successfully applied this for some devs that were doing really bad for more than 6 months, and it allowed me to find that the person was in the middle of a lot of shit. Once the developer was isolated and given specific tasks, they showed why we have hired them in the first place.

I also have let go a developer for whom the performance plan was more on the people skills side: This person was just not a team player, and was dragging the team along with him. A PIP allowed us to show him exactly why he ended up not being a match for the company.

And then there was another one who was just lazy... didn't do stuff, and after the 2nd month of the PIP he acknowledged that he was just being lazy, and waited for the PIP time to expire so that we fired him (with 3 months severance).

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