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Working at Amazon

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Re: Working at Amazon

#51

Post by alistairSH »

MisterKent wrote: post #34
xchaotic wrote: post #9

The biggest flaw in working for all those mega corps, is that despite their size, they still haven't fully embraced remote work. Yes there are island, but Amazon are still looking for that "2nd city" to locate in. Some people may dig going to an office, I don't. If you're lucky to be early in a given neighborhood, you can probably retire on renting out your house. If you're late, like applying to Amazon now would be,…

I go into work every day. I wish I could work remotely. But I don't, because I find I hate every time I'm forced to interact with the people who do. Working remotely makes you a pain in the ass to interact with.

Half my team is remote, including my lead test engineer, product owner, and UI developer. My manager works remote 2-3 days per week. None are a pain in the ass to interact with.

Remote work can work, but it takes effort, both on the part of the employees (to be available, have good internet connections, etc) AND the employer (to provide quality tooks to interact with remotes).

Re: Working at Amazon

#52

Post by r00fus »

gr33nman wrote: post #44
MisterKent wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go into work every day. I wish I could work remotely. But I don't, because I find I hate every time I'm forced to interact with the people who do. Working remotely makes you a pain in the ass to interact with.

You may not be working at a place where remote work is part of the culture. When everyone is remote, the tools and processes are built around it and it no longer feels like a “pain in the ass”.

Exactly - in my organization, 9/10 times coworkers from the same floor of the same building join the zoom/webex rather than walk to the meeting room.

In that culture, being home 2 days out of 5 is no problem. Being 100% remote (like some of our folks) seems to work out fine (though I will admit being 100% remote as a manager is not as feasible).

We all wear headsets and despite a somewhat "open" office layout, it manages to work out decently (thru proper usage of mute and pausing screen).

Re: Working at Amazon

#53

Post by alistairSH »

sumitgt wrote: post #15
xchaotic wrote: post #9

The biggest flaw in working for all those mega corps, is that despite their size, they still haven't fully embraced remote work. Yes there are island, but Amazon are still looking for that "2nd city" to locate in. Some people may dig going to an office, I don't. If you're lucky to be early in a given neighborhood, you can probably retire on renting out your house. If you're late, like applying to Amazon now would be,…

> Especially in places like Seattle if I was to relocate with the family, I'd be an indentured servant, with obligations to pay high rent/mortgage, I'd probably have nowhere to change jobs to, if Amazon didn't work out. That's quite the opposite. Wouldn't living in a big city mean more choices? Seattle for instance has high paying job options from Microsoft, Google, FB if you decide to leave Amazon. However, yes havi…

Wouldn't living in a big city mean more choices?

I guess the OP is only willing to work for one of the big-4?

Here in DC, between private sector software (where I work), public sector and defense, and consulting/contracting, there are tons of options all across the spectrum of job roles and salaries. And these are located all around the area, not just in a single part of the metro.

Re: Working at Amazon

#54

Post by wtetzner »

sumitgt wrote: post #12
xchaotic wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean on six pages? ;)

The 20 minute quiet reading in the beginning is kinda different. At the other companies I've worked for, you were expected to come to the meeting having read the docs sent over email.

Yeah, although the 20 minute reading seems better to me. For one thing, it means everyone in the meeting has actually read the docs. But it also means that it's fresh in everyone's mind when the meeting actually starts.

Re: Working at Amazon

#55

Post by nbm »

methodover wrote: post #24
sumitgt wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially in places like Seattle if I was to relocate with the family, I'd be an indentured servant, with obligations to pay high rent/mortgage, I'd probably have nowhere to change jobs to, if Amazon didn't work out. That's quite the opposite. Wouldn't living in a big city mean more choices? Seattle for instance has high paying job options from Microsoft, Google, FB if you decide to leave Amazon. However, yes havi…

Aren't the Google and FB offices in Seattle relatively small, satellite offices?

What size would be "relatively small" in your measurement? They're certainly smaller than their Bay Area headquarters, so "relatively", they're smaller. But for FB, at least, there are many Seattle-primary teams (ie, teams where all or most members are in Seattle), especially in infrastructure and storage.

I've worked over two years in each of the FB Menlo Park and Seattle offices, and since the move to Seattle, I haven't missed anything from the headquarters (especially once the BBQ place opened).

Re: Working at Amazon

#56

Post by nbm »

amznthrow wrote: post #13

Amazon has one thing going for it that I think is a huge deal for a standard BigCo job: if you don't like your initial team, you can switch ANY TIME. And if you're an engineer, you can probably join any team you want. The reason this is such a big deal is that when applying to any company, you'll get placed on a team and it's really hard to get enough information on the culture, mission, management, etc. Once you're…

At FB in engineering, you generally don't get placed on a team, you choose which team you join, only after 6 weeks of "Bootcamp" where you ramp up on the technical and cultural environment. That said, you're right that even with that, people can end up joining teams which are a poor fit, so internal mobility (switching teams) is definitely valuable here too.

Re: Working at Amazon

#57

Post by skookum »

0xbear wrote: post #29

I heard they will actually cut your base pay if stock goes up “too much”. Is this true?

This is not true. However there is a target total compensation range for your [level X review ratings] and if the stock price growth results in your future total compensation projecting above your target compensation range you won't get refresh RSU grants.

Re: Working at Amazon

#58

Post by hsod »

colmmacc wrote: post #35
top256 wrote: post #2

it's interesting how Amazon is now positioning themselves as a tier 1 employer. They used to be a tier2. AFAIK they also have a brutal pager culture where you're awoken in the middle of the night.

Amazon on-call engineer here! I'm on-call for three rotations. Two are "Call leader" rotations where a call leader like me is engaged if there's any kind of large event (e.g. Amazon.com orders aren't working, or an AWS service is having issues). I volunteer for those because it's super rewarding to be able to help materially make a tangible difference now and then, wouldn't trade them away for anything. For those rot…

> The other rotation is for one of my dev-team's software, and I'm hardly ever paged - like once or twice a year max.

I'm in an on-call rotation (not at AMZ) where I hardly ever get paged, and it's cold comfort. I still have to carry my laptop with me everywhere I go, make sure I have access to the Internet, make sure I don't have one too many at the bar on Saturday night, etc.

Re: Working at Amazon

#59

Post by marssaxman »

sumitgt wrote: post #48
methodover wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't the Google and FB offices in Seattle relatively small, satellite offices?

Google Seattle-Kirkland is the third largest Google office. I wouldn't classify it as "satellite".

There is no such thing as "Google Seattle-Kirkland", no matter what the managers and recruiters may tell you. There is "Google Seattle", which is located in the Fremont neighborhood, a small and friendly office which I would definitely classify as a "satellite"; then there is "Google Kirkland", located on the other side of a large lake, over in the direction of Microsoft, which is certainly a big place. Still... Google is all about the mothership. Everything is centered culturally on Mountain View (called "MTV" internally).

Well... that's how it was when I worked there; things could have changed a lot in the last five years, perhaps. It sounds like the new Seattle office they're planning to build will be less of a satellite.

Re: Working at Amazon

#60

Post by 0xbear »

skookum wrote: post #57
0xbear wrote: post #29

I heard they will actually cut your base pay if stock goes up “too much”. Is this true?

This is not true. However there is a target total compensation range for your [level X review ratings] and if the stock price growth results in your future total compensation projecting above your target compensation range you won't get refresh RSU grants.

What’s the justification though?
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