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

#391

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

tech_tuna wrote: post #371

pjbeam wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10 months in the pit is no joke. I'm on 13 and often wonder how I made it this far.

I have a friend who lasted more than 2 years which amazed me but then his compensation _went_down_ because of Amazon's crazy comp structure works. I have another friend who was offered a job there and turned them down, then the hiring manager fired back with "Oh c'mon, you just have to last a year here and then you can put Amazon on your resume" which is hilarious and totally fucked up. "We aren't going to pretend th…

There's a built in assumption of stock growth in the grant they give you, and after year 2 the bonus dries up so it's your base of 160 + whatever the equity is. Year 2 -> 3 comp drop is not uncommon.

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

#392

Post by subsaharancoder » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 10:57 PM UTC

netizen-936824 wrote: post #82

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…

What does PIP stand for? I haven't run into that acronym before

Worked at a FAANG in one team for 3.5 years (got promoted and had good reviews), transferred to a new team and got PIP'd by new manager and eventually fired within a year of transferring. One of my workmates clearly told me that my chances of getting out of the PIP were next to zero but by then it was too late.

Best advice I can give someone who gets on a PIP is don't wait or work the process, just make an exit plan and act on it (interview quickly) and own your destiny. Also if you've been a stellar performer and you move to a team where things aren't working out within the first 3 months, transfer quickly (go to HR and claim mental and emotional wellbeing) before your performance reviews get trashed and then it's impossible to transfer.

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

#393

Post by MattGaiser » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 10:59 PM UTC

seebs wrote: post #375

colinmhayes wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article is about warehouse workers, not developers.

It may be, but you may rest assured that when a recruiter asks me whether I'd like to work for Amazon, how they treat warehouse employees is going to be a factor in my answer. I've never been confident of the viability of "it's fine, they only hate other people" as a social strategy.

Not like Amazon exactly has a good reputation for treating tech workers well either.

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

#394

Post by mgkimsal » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 11:00 PM UTC

6DM wrote: post #216

coldpie wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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reader mode often gets past many 'subscribe to continue reading' overlays.

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

#395

Post by nameoda » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 11:00 PM UTC

technothrasher wrote: post #225

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…

Interestingly, my partner just went through the interview process at both Amazon and Google. The Amazon process was horrendous, with an insulting “good cop/bad cop” series of interviews. It was a relief when they decided not to move forward as the process was enough to know they’d be horrible to work for. The Google process was great, productive, and generated excitement about working for them. In the end they offere…

My personal experience was almost the exact opposite (granted, this was in 2020, and things might have changed since then). Both companies asked leetcode-style questions and behavioral questions.

The Amazon interviewers were engaged, excited when talking about their work, and seemed like they were rooting for me to succeed.

Google interviewers were condescending and looked like they were unhappy to be part of the interview process and were just going through the motions because they were forced to. I had a lot of self-doubt after being treated like crap by the Google interview and decided to never do that to myself again.

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

#396

Post by igorstellar » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 11:03 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #350

autokad wrote: post #278

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. 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…

I told one that I am a human being, not a circus animal here to do tricks, and if they want me to do live coding, they'd have to pay me for my time. Same result as you: The recruiters stopped bothering me.

Actually, that's not a half bad idea. If phone interview is passed, on-site time should be paid since the market is too hot. I wasted about 5 hours with Google (I did get an offer after the interview) but it was horrible experience (2019). Maybe if I was paid for that time I could at least justify this incredible time-waste. For example, companies do pay for people to fly-in for onsite interviews, so they do have budget for that.

UPD: I have provided negative feedback to my recruiter and they still reaching out to me. Really doubt companies ever act on any of candidate feedbacks since candidates are not employee (I know my previous company didn't, asking for feedback was just a "wanna look good in your eyes" question).

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

#397

Post by amackera » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 11:03 PM UTC

vishnugupta wrote: post #108

masterof0 wrote: post #17

Ex-Amazonian here, I agree with almost everything OP say. I have a few things to add in case HR is reading this: - RSUs vesting schedule sucks, fix it.(5% - first year, 15% - second , then 5% each quarter, i think...) - Internal tooling is pretty bad (frameworks, pipelines, ....) and the documentation is non-existent, and when it exists , is not very helpful. - Amazon has the least amount of holidays of all FAANG, wh…

> (5% - first year, 15% - second This is done on purpose because a vast majority of employees leave Amazon within 18 months or so. And those who can withstand that environment for 24 months and beyond develop thick enough skin and make enough internal connections to survive till 5+ years. (bit of a tangent) > in case HR is reading this HR's primary (perhaps only) job is to protect the upper management (execs and abov…

HR's job is to protect the company from the employees (that includes execs).

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

#398

Post by anonporridge » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 11:04 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #68

klodolph wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do consider retention, make no mistake.

I’m sure they do. They just also don’t care until it becomes a critical issue. I am contacted by an Amazon recruiter at least once a week. I’m sure every engineer I know is. I wonder how much of their money they blow on recruiting and how much engineering time is spent in interviews replacing all the burned out engineers. Plus all the talent that won’t even entertain a job at Amazon.

Not caring until something becomes a critical issue is very deeply ingrained in Amazon's culture.

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

#399

Post by iends » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 11:04 PM UTC

pjbeam wrote: post #391

tech_tuna wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who lasted more than 2 years which amazed me but then his compensation _went_down_ because of Amazon's crazy comp structure works. I have another friend who was offered a job there and turned them down, then the hiring manager fired back with "Oh c'mon, you just have to last a year here and then you can put Amazon on your resume" which is hilarious and totally fucked up. "We aren't going to pretend th…

There's a built in assumption of stock growth in the grant they give you, and after year 2 the bonus dries up so it's your base of 160 + whatever the equity is. Year 2 -> 3 comp drop is not uncommon.

Amazon also has this weird 5%, 15%, 40% & 40% vesting schedule. This tells me most people are not making it past 2 years.

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

#400

Post by anonporridge » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 11:07 PM UTC

tech_tuna wrote: post #377

franczesko wrote: post #146

Ex-Amazon. Lasted 2 years. I'll just repeat the comment I posted the other day: There are only two instances when you're happy at Amazon - when you start and when you quit. Doing the latter was the best decision I made, perhaps, in my entire career. I can honestly tell that those RSUs and bonuses weren't worth it. Avoid at all costs. You've been warned.

What's interesting to me is that a few of the people I know how were AWS "long haulers" are massive assholes. It's almost like the kind of person who makes it there is not the kind of person I want as a colleague.

We call them 'Amholes'.