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Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

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Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#291

Post by jimmydddd »

biztos wrote: post #238
spangry wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very on point about the AMA functioning as a union. I'm not a software developer (and don't even live in the US) so apologies if this question is ridiculous: could software developers form a union, er I mean the 'American Software Developers Association'? There are strong network effects in many digital markets. In these cases, given enough time, it leads to a monopolist employer in that market. Even in cases where t…

The tricky part would be having some kind of license without which it would be illegal to perform certain engineering tasks.

There is. It's called the PE (Professional Engineer) license. Today, however, it mostly only applies to civil engineers. Back in the day, if someone wanted a bridge or building (especially for the government) designed, you had to be a PE to get the job. It required a certain amount of hours of work after college and an exam. Doesn't really apply to software though.

--When I got my first job as a software engineer, my dad, who's a civil engineer PE said, "I thought you were going to be an engineer, but it sounds like you're just a computer programmer." :-)

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#292

Post by Buge »

theDoug wrote: post #86
Buge wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of those are not about programmers, they are about the employees physically moving products around in warehouses.

That's not better, it's just a different class of employee.

Then let's talk about the factory workers that manufacture Apple devices. Let's talk about the employees scanning books for Google http://www.e-flux.com/journal/the-artist-leaving-the-googlep... .

I don't think it's very relevant to what this thread was about, programmer working conditions.

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#293

Post by radafor »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #19

So while this is really good for people that have dependents at home, or other consistently demanding activities. I would not enjoy such an arrangement. The arrangement I'd be most excited by is a team with forced three month sabbaticals yearly (or honestly even 6 month sabbaticals). Of-course with the normal amount of vacation time added as well. The way it would work is: Say a team is supposed to have 8 people. Hir…

This is one of my most preferred potential arrangements...but I think the problem is that it actually benefits the worker more than the company - why hire the extra two when you can leave them unemployed and hang the threat of unemployment over your eight?

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#294

Post by radafor »

peatmoss wrote: post #241

The 75% pay / 100% benefits thing is likely the factor that prevents many companies from doing this. This is part of the reason I love the idea of a single-payer health system. If companies were no longer on the hook for the most expensive benefit, then more flexible wrking arrangements with concordance between work and pay would be possible.

Agreed. I don't think healthcare should be tied to work.

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#296

Post by abbasaamer »

BookingPotions wrote: post #139
abbasaamer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Amazon is a sweatshop" I wouldn't agree with this broad generalization. I work in Alexa and the work environment on my team is pretty awesome. Lots of freedom to try new things, good work life balance, and generally a high level of respect for engineers. I turned down Google to come here and I have no regrets (though not to imply that Google isn't equally awesome).

I'd have to disagree. I've been at Amazon for 2 years, and while it's not a sweatshop, it's definitly a challenging environment where I know of no one who works an exact 40h week at all times. There's zero buffer to slack off, a less productive day is followed by a longer one. I like working at Amazon. I like the challenge, the projects, the people I work with are fun and smart, but it is not a place where you can ea…

Hi there! Sorry I didn't get a chance to reply to this earlier.

So my basic response to that is "it depends". I have previously been in a different team at Amazon and that team definitely had much less room for slack. If you didn't push yourself hard, you probably couldn't get promoted there. But then again, they also had issues with attrition.

The culture in teams can vary quite a bit at Amazon. I think it mostly comes down to the leadership. More than any other "big company" I've seen, Amazon emphasizes ownership. As a VP (and even as a manager, though to a much lesser extent), you get nearly full freedom to define your team's culture and set the direction of your product. So yeah, I don't think every team has a great culture within Amazon; a lot of it depends on the culture defined by your leadership team.

In regards to your last point: > "I'd be curious to know though, and be honest, you've really ever only worked 40h weeks? You havnt logged in on a weekend or an evening, stayed longer on an Thursday, checked your mails when off work? Not ever? Ignoring on call time offcourse."

Most weeks I probably put in a bit more than 40 hours. Maybe closer to 45 or 50 hours. That's the average. Have I put in more occasionally? Of course. Do I sometimes check emails on a weekends or evenings? Yep, of course. But there have also been times when I've come to work at noon or left by 2pm if I needed to do something else. And, 90% of the time, I don't respond to emails outside of work hours. That doesn't feel very much like a "sweatshop" to me.

I've worked at other companies besides Amazon and I have plenty of friends who work at Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple. My friends at Microsoft will often put in 50 to 60 hours during a live site outage or near a product release. I have friends at Google who check their email on evenings and weekends. One of my best friends is at Facebook and does the same. I know less about Apple, but I've heard their culture is pretty intense. So, in that sense, I don't feel my team's work culture is any worse.

Overall, I like my team and I think that credit goes upwards through my management chain. Good managers make a huge difference. Perhaps Amazon needs to do a better job in ensuring teams are more consistent in creating a good culture across the company.

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#297

Post by nexxer »

crazy2be wrote: post #146
Dwolb wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does everyone talk like the leverage of the business is the leverage of the developer when discussing compensation? That's not how it works. Compensation is set by the market: what is the next person who can do this same job willing to be paid? If we go out into the market to find all the people that can decrease page loading time by 50% and have them bid against each other, we will probably end up paying the low…

Well, you are both right. Compensation is set by the market, but the ceiling for compensation to perform a task is (roughly) the amount of value that a employee can generate, in a rational market. Of course, our market is far from rational, etc, etc. FWIW, I don't think that software developers are overpaid, at all. It's a difficult career, requiring years of intense study to do well. Sure, maybe not as much as Docto…

What I usually reach when thinking along similar paths, using me (programmer) vs my doctor friends, is the failure scenario:

If I introduce a bug it will hurt revenue in some way, possibly affecting the company's operations. If most doctors mishandle a patient it could have significant, immediate effect on that person's life.

I deal with the responsibility weighing on me, but they've had to get used to dealing with a much heavier responsibility.

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#298

Post by angmarsbane »

gfody wrote: post #37

Something about this bothers me. Time-keeping is already not straightforward for an engineer. Because the work is done in our heads and doesn't necessarily stop just because the workday is over. You don't have to be sitting at a keyboard for your head to be grinding on a problem. More often some problem takes hold of you, occupying some mental bandwidth even while you're away, at home trying to enjoy time with your f…

I don't believe this applies to just engineers alone. I suspect teachers, marketers, almost every other, if not every other job has problems that require a mental effort in off-work hours in order to solve.

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#299

Post by therealdrag0 »

BookingPotions wrote: post #126

As an amazon SDE myself, one who doesn't think working at Amazon is that bad, but do admit that it is challenging, and often do work much longer then 40h a week, I would need to have a guarantee that my pay cut comes with a no more then 30h a week clause. I'd like to see proper hour counting, like a check in and check out. Where any hour above 30h comes at an extra cost to Amazon, like double pay. So that they would…

On the other hand, if you get paid 'for' 40, but work 50, and someone else gets paid for 30, but works 35, is that a problem?
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