I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months • Hacker News Board

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

#381

Post by baremetal » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 10:49 PM UTC

Elof wrote: post #271

endymi0n wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

As someone who has worked in professional kitchens, I can say that any professional chef that isn't comfortable sharpening their own knives isn't there because they love cooking. All of the ones I know take great pride in their knives.

Im not a professional cook, but i do cook most all my meals.

I make my own knives.

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

#382

Post by tech_tuna » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 10:49 PM UTC

CottonMcKnight wrote: post #77

I wouldn't wish the byzantine nightmare that is Cognito on my worst enemy.

Cognito is one of the worst. Try the CloudHSM sometime if you're not feeling suicidal.

The whole Amplify/AppSync stack is another massive tire fire.

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

#383

Post by clpm4j » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 10:49 PM UTC

I've had this realization at every company I've worked for, big or small. Not sure why I'm still surprised by it:

"The most surprising thing I encountered when joining was how manual the vast majority of processes are. It blew my mind how many business critical processes were managed with excel spreadsheets being shared via email chains. It is incredible how flexible and effective Excel is for such a wide variety of use-cases."

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

#384

Post by Schiendelman » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 10:49 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #353

pyrale wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine getting fired because your manager is on a leave and their manager sees you as free real estate.

Tells a lot about company politics. Often times I'm left wondering how come capitalism still survives. Actually, writing this down made me think that big companies (like the FAANG mostly are) are quite anti-capitalistic. I'm not sure how to call them, because sure as hell they're not socialist or anything of the sorts, but it's reasonably clear that many of the theoretical capitalistic principles that many of us know…

Oligarchic. (Internal) Leaders who run successful businesses call the shots for everyone.

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

#385

Post by Schiendelman » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 10:50 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #187

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…

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.

It’s wild. I did more than 4 years across three teams, left, boomeranged, and quit after three months.

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

#386

Post by asiachick » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 10:50 PM UTC

cjsplat wrote: post #344

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never used Leetcode, but it keeps coming up here. I've been interviewer a lot lately and I keep trying to find ways to filter out the candidates that care more about interview prep than solving real problems. Is this a nonstandard perspective?

The stuff tested by a coding interview won't get to staff level or beyond. Cross functional understanding, product or technology insights, strategic thinking, etc. are necessary. Lots of people who come up through the ranks only know how to do coding interviews - coding is what they do in their job, it was the interview they passed and it is what they know in depth. These are also the people confused about why their…

> I never used coding for interviews at Google

Can you explain? AFAIK Google has a set criteria for engineering interviews. 2-3 coding, 1 design, 1 something else. AFAIK if you get asked to do a coding interview you have to ask coding questions. The people who review your interview would not find it acceptable to not do it.

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

#387

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 10:52 PM UTC

throwawayboise wrote: post #214

robby_w_g wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> The interviewer laughed at my code, and then after going through the logic said "Wow I can't believe this actually works." OK, not professional, and fair grounds for deciding you don't want to work there (interviews are as much for you to evaluate the employer as they are for the employer to evaluate you) but.... have a bit of a thicker skin. Carrying something like that for 15 years instead of immediately dismissi…

[deleted]

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

#388

Post by dfadsadsf » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 10:55 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #274

jonny_eh wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sure. Just like I trust race car drivers to drive even though they don't know how to fix the car. As long as they understand the basics of how the car parts interact, they'll be just fine driving it.

Good race car drivers actually know how car works and I bet can fix many things. Race car drivers take the car to the limit and understanding how car works is competitive advantage - they can help mechanics tune the car, can diagnose problems that show up only at high speed, understand pro/cons of different suspesions and how they work, etc.

On the other hand typical Uber driver does not need to know anything about the car other than what pedals are for and you turn the wheel to steer. If he tries to take the car to the limit, he probably gets 1 star rating from scared passenger. No need to know how car works.

You decide whether Google engineers are more like race car drivers or Uber drivers.

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

#389

Post by rjzzleep » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 10:55 PM UTC

autokad wrote: post #278

robby_w_g wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. It makes me sad for the less privileged candidates who might be working a job while also trying to break into the IT field." I told google that this style of interviewing is discriminatory, especially towards people with families, or other commitments. Never got another call for…

When Amazon reached out to me I told them happy to talk to them, but I don't do coding tests. No response since then. I think it was a friends recommendation though, so in hindsight, maybe I should have at least listened.

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

#390

Post by asiachick » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 10:55 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #284

majormajor wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now imagine if instead of coding exercises we had the interview process from other industries that weighs degree and past experience more heavily in the absence of any other sort of testing. What would it look like to break in then? Completing a BS in your spare time? EDIT: Most ideas I've seen about replacement for live coding - like take home projects or contract-to-hire - are not really any more friendly to people…

Or how impressive their GitHub is. Or another mostly (rightfully so IMO) choice you see here. Set a low bar to hiring but have a probationary period after which you fire a notable percentage.

You still have to decide who gets the probationary period and who doesn't. To figure that out you still have to do interviews and filter. Probationary periods don't solve anything except it makes it easier to fire people before the end is over.