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Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer

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Re: Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer

#41

Post by mirceal »

algaeontoast wrote: post #31

Working for amazon is like joining a fascist cult - you made the right decision. Source - worked for a startup that was acquired by Amazon. My team was slowly managed out of the company and replaced by teams in Seattle. Most of my team was let go by PIP, essentially claiming we weren't "performing at a high enough standard" since they weren't willing to reprehend my boss for being incompetent. However, I'm proud of t…

exit interview advice (applies everywhere): politely decline the exit interview. there is zero upside to doing an exit interview

Re: Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer

#42

Post by technofiend »

SteveNuts wrote: post #16

Every time I've talked to AWS Recruiters they've belittled by past experience and just generally made me feel bad about my career. I will never ever work there, no matter how cool their tech stack must be.

When talking to someone at Amazon he remarked "You guys on wall street take a year to do what we do in a quarter." Five years ago that was a fair indictment, based on my current deadlines I'm not sure it's true any more. :-) P.S. I'm not complaining or humblebragging. I just enjoy the hell out of what I do and I've seen first hand a lot of institutional barriers fall over the last few years.

Re: Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer

#43

Post by spyspy »

abj wrote: post #39

> We need this to protect our business. > It’s never enforced. If these are true, why would a company with 232.9 billion in revenue be afraid of paying an employee's salary only when the non compete is enforced? If the non compete is almost never enforced this agreement would cost the company under 0.01% of total company wide employee spend. Surely if the knowledge was that important to the business the company would…

Man if I could just work there a month and then quit with 18 months of guaranteed paid severance...

Re: Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer

#44

Post by ohaideredevs »

The only thing that scares me is the IP factor if I work on stuff after work.

From what I am hearing, if I am not in Cali, I am at risk even if I don't use company time/equipment?

Amazon pretty much doubles salaries in areas outside of California, so it's extremely appealing money-wise if you stick around for the vest.

Re: Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer

#45

Post by keypusher »

I don’t see anything in this article about Amazon offering the author a job, so I’m a bit confused by the headline. Were they offered a position at Amazon the same week as this non-compete dispute became public and forgot to mention it?

Re: Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer

#46

Post by wmf »

spyspy wrote: post #43
abj wrote: post #39

> We need this to protect our business. > It’s never enforced. If these are true, why would a company with 232.9 billion in revenue be afraid of paying an employee's salary only when the non compete is enforced? If the non compete is almost never enforced this agreement would cost the company under 0.01% of total company wide employee spend. Surely if the knowledge was that important to the business the company would…

Man if I could just work there a month and then quit with 18 months of guaranteed paid severance...

Presumably in that case they could avoid paying you by canceling the non-compete. They could decide whether the information you learned during your one month is worth paying you.

Re: Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer

#47

Post by rectang »

sokoloff wrote: post #40
rectang wrote: post #14

> Come on, AWS. Do better than this. The advantages are too significant. If a company of sufficient size isn't doing this, they're doing something else. Statistically, employees cannot win; there may be outliers where an employee prevails, but in the aggregate, the company will win — and that makes these draconian policies worthwhile. Companies enjoy economies of scale when it comes to negotiating employment, because…

A sane company will only employ workers to the extent it’s advantageous for them. For that reason, I think it’s wise to go cautiously when making it less advantageous for companies to hire. Much of that ends up being taken out of labor rather than companies.

Ultimately, there is a balance to be struck. Labor and Capital need each other even though they have competing interests.

But the proliferation of absurdly exploitative non-compete clauses illustrates just how far we are from that balance.

Re: Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer

#48

Post by cperciva »

rectang wrote: post #28
mAEStro-paNDa wrote: post #23

So this has mostly to do with a non-complete clause. The author is pretty explicit in their view: > This clause is, to be direct, abusive. As far as I'm aware this is something that has been apparent for quite some time, and isn't limited to just Amazon. I can't personally conceive of why anyone subject to one of these would have any reason to believe that this isn't just another tool that benefits the company alone,…

> A discussion about clauses such as this is well needed in general We can have a discussion, but because money is speech, the voices of individuals will be drowned out by the voices of corporations.

The world has far more individuals than hundred billion dollar corporations.

Re: Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer

#49

Post by dickeytk »

mirceal wrote: post #41
algaeontoast wrote: post #31

Working for amazon is like joining a fascist cult - you made the right decision. Source - worked for a startup that was acquired by Amazon. My team was slowly managed out of the company and replaced by teams in Seattle. Most of my team was let go by PIP, essentially claiming we weren't "performing at a high enough standard" since they weren't willing to reprehend my boss for being incompetent. However, I'm proud of t…

exit interview advice (applies everywhere): politely decline the exit interview. there is zero upside to doing an exit interview

Call me a naïf, but I think exit interviews are a great way to speak candidly to skip-level managers about dissatisfactions you have—with the aim of making the company you’re leaving potentially a bit better for your colleagues.

EDIT: I think “feedback” here is somewhat vague. You guys are talking about issues there would be no point in raising. For me this is not systemic issues.

I would bring up more minor things, “I think Chris would be better suited to work on XYZ project”, “The company work parties make me a bit uncomfortable with the amount of alcohol.” “I know Jane wants to be a manager but I’m not sure she’d be so great at it.”

I think these fall into the realm where I wouldn’t bring it up before the exit interview, but they might provide some benefit that skip levels would be able to provide.

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