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Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

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Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#51

Post by throwaway648 »

jurassic wrote: post #4

I think this is getting upvoted because everybody likes to dogpile on Amazon. But nothing this guy says seems to reflect especially poorly on Amazon. If the author is going through another job search now I might recommend taking the piece down; it's not doing you a ton of favors. The summary: guy interviews and accepts an SDE1 role at Amazon, guy resists building alliances with those holding power in the org, guy is…

> I also don't understand why the candidate with 10 years of industry experience decided to move forward with interviewing after being told it was for an SDE1 position.

| given the fact that I wasn’t too efficient with Java (it was not the primary tool in my past experience)

Maybe because his 10 years didn’t give him the relevant knowledge? Also, his attitudes sends a clear ”I’m a junior” message, so SDE1 might have been right call.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#52

Post by NAHWheatCracker »

kilroy123 wrote: post #46
NAHWheatCracker wrote: post #17

This was the least convincing blog post on this sort of topic that I've read. I didn't see anything that actually painted Amazon in a very bad light. I think anyone should expect bureaucracy to be a major problem at a large company. Complaining about promotions seems a bit unfair since he was only there for 5 months. Moreover, I saw quite a few senior engineers and discovered that I do not want to be alike… This is o…

Wow your comment really made me think. I too have been in the industry for over a decade. Thinking back, I can not think of a single manager or lead that I wanted to be like, as well. In fact, because of my last horrible manager, the worst I've ever had, I want to exit the industry all together. I just want to go my own way and have my own small business.

  In fact, because of my last horrible manager, the worst I've ever had, I want to exit the industry all together.
I consider myself lucky to never had a truly horrible manager.

  I just want to go my own way and have my own small business.
If only it were so easy.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#53

Post by agoldis »

ageitgey wrote: post #48
agoldis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for pointing that out! I was frustrated by the expectation to focus on documenting to get a promotion. I don't think it is a good practice and was surprised to see that: > focusing on that process (promotion) is not a distraction from doing your job: it is doing your job! Seems like you understanding of "doing job" is different. To make it clear - I used to be promoted by helping a business grow - complete act…

> I was frustrated by the expectation to focus on documenting to get a promotion. I don't think it is a good practice and was surprised to see that focusing on that process (promotion) is not a distraction from doing your job: it is doing your job! Amazon is a giant machine with hundreds of thousands of employees. How many SDE 1s do they hire Evey year globally? Hundreds? More? How do you possibly treat them all fair…

I think we are on the same page, and I understand the reasons for having this process... and I don't like it. I am not convincing you to reconsider promotion process, neither propose a good solution. You can say that I was stupid by expecting something else, and you'd be right :)

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#54

Post by philliphaydon »

twblalock wrote: post #39
philliphaydon wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm willing to bet if I interviewed at Amazon (or Google/MS/FB/Uber) I would probably be put in a similar role, despite having been programming since I was 8 with 14 years of commercial experience. I never went to Uni and have no degree.

I know engineers in your situation. I've interviewed a few. It is unusual for someone with 10+ years of experience to be considered for an entry-level job, no matter what kind of education they have.

With the type of interview and questions at those places I would probably fail. I’ve read stuff on algorithms but I’ve never been in a job needing to use this stuff so if you asked me anything about them I wouldn’t have a clue. Yet it seems this sort of thing is a key requirement for interview process at these big companies.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#55

Post by solatic »

NAHWheatCracker wrote: post #17

This was the least convincing blog post on this sort of topic that I've read. I didn't see anything that actually painted Amazon in a very bad light. I think anyone should expect bureaucracy to be a major problem at a large company. Complaining about promotions seems a bit unfair since he was only there for 5 months. Moreover, I saw quite a few senior engineers and discovered that I do not want to be alike… This is o…

> Complaining about promotions seems a bit unfair since he was only there for 5 months

He has a decade of industry experience, took a new-grad level because he figured he needed to get his foot in the door, and discovered that the promotions process doesn't take his prior experience into account; he might as well not have worked anywhere else at all.

The real issue he has with Amazon isn't that it's bureaucratic - that there's a form to fill out for promotion, or that a variety of senior people he needs approval from seem to be fuckwits. His issue is that he wasn't treated as a person. Meetings weren't about getting the benefit of his knowledge and experience, they were about getting people to figure out how to parrot the figures produced by internal monitoring and circumstances in ways which best fit the Amazon Leadership Principles. That ultimately makes people feel like robots, like cogs in the machine. It's deeply alienating and unsatisfying - nobody really wants to work in an environment like that.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#56

Post by agoldis »

throwawayamzn98 wrote: post #47
agoldis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for pointing that out! I was frustrated by the expectation to focus on documenting to get a promotion. I don't think it is a good practice and was surprised to see that: > focusing on that process (promotion) is not a distraction from doing your job: it is doing your job! Seems like you understanding of "doing job" is different. To make it clear - I used to be promoted by helping a business grow - complete act…

>Seems like you understanding of "doing job" is different. To make it clear - I used to be promoted by helping a business grow - complete activities on time on an excellent manner, optimize, reduce costs, propose new features / work on POC. >Not by writing self-promotional documents. >> Exceeding expectations for your current position is how you get promoted. >Unfortunately, it is not by "exceeding", but documenting…

Thanks for your comment! And disclaimer. Probably that's the best process that the company at such scale could adopt, but please let me dislike it.

Probably it's better than other processes, but still, it has few problems, and I tried to point them out: 1. It doesn't solve "nepotism" problem - especially at the higher levels 2. It puts employee's focus on promotion and the document, but not the actual job

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#57

Post by kev009 »

jurassic wrote: post #21
kev009 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of your points are good but SDE1 may be all the sycophant recruiters would let him in the door at for a variety of reasons that are a dystopian caricature of "values" and misaligned incentives. If his intentions were to quickly try his luck at a tech giant like Amazon, he probably did so the only way possible.

Not sure what you mean by "sycophant recruiters". Most recruiters I've worked with were strongly motivated to bring good people on board at their company. If you are an attractive candidate but you let them know you're only interested in pursuing roles at a certain (non-entry) level, they'll either make adjustments to slot you into interviews for that other higher role or the process doesn't move forward and everyone…

Because there are developers like him that were beating on the door to get in, the function of recruiters is a joke at widely known companies. The needed function would have been called secretarial work a few decades ago but grifters have flocked into most companies and built empires completely outside the line of business and common sense. He needed to talk to hiring managers and find a good team fit and be placed at a level that reflected his capabilities on that team. Only hiring managers can do that unless recruiters start putting in a decade of building software and managing development teams and somehow intimately know a manager's personality. A hiring manager might occasionally need a search firm to find people outside their own network, but that is a completely different function and the manager should start the interviewing after receiving lightly screened resumes. Bottom line if you want to be a leader you need to step up and do your job, and that means recruiting and building your team.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#58

Post by agoldis »

throwaway648 wrote: post #51
jurassic wrote: post #4

I think this is getting upvoted because everybody likes to dogpile on Amazon. But nothing this guy says seems to reflect especially poorly on Amazon. If the author is going through another job search now I might recommend taking the piece down; it's not doing you a ton of favors. The summary: guy interviews and accepts an SDE1 role at Amazon, guy resists building alliances with those holding power in the org, guy is…

> I also don't understand why the candidate with 10 years of industry experience decided to move forward with interviewing after being told it was for an SDE1 position. | given the fact that I wasn’t too efficient with Java (it was not the primary tool in my past experience) Maybe because his 10 years didn’t give him the relevant knowledge? Also, his attitudes sends a clear ”I’m a junior” message, so SDE1 might have…

Please explain. I don't mind to be called "junior" or whatever title you stick on me, but what is "junior attitude"?

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#59

Post by austincheney »

kilroy123 wrote: post #46
NAHWheatCracker wrote: post #17

This was the least convincing blog post on this sort of topic that I've read. I didn't see anything that actually painted Amazon in a very bad light. I think anyone should expect bureaucracy to be a major problem at a large company. Complaining about promotions seems a bit unfair since he was only there for 5 months. Moreover, I saw quite a few senior engineers and discovered that I do not want to be alike… This is o…

Wow your comment really made me think. I too have been in the industry for over a decade. Thinking back, I can not think of a single manager or lead that I wanted to be like, as well. In fact, because of my last horrible manager, the worst I've ever had, I want to exit the industry all together. I just want to go my own way and have my own small business.

All the people that I wanted to be like, growing up as a developer, were people who seemed more focused on their programming hobby than their programming job. Here is the take away that I noticed about those people and have attempted to apply to myself:

    * Extremely focused on product quality and defensive code
    * Maintenance focused more than feature focused
    * Excellent with documentation
    * Indirectly focused on self-promotion by writing good books or producing beneficial tools
    * Never directly focused on self-promotion
It is so easy to get bogged down with bloated, dependency heavy, framework bullshit at work that product quality is distantly lost. When writing important software as a hobby you don't have to conform to a lowest common denominator for acceptance by new hires.

Re: Quitting Amazon 5 months after I started

#60

Post by jelling »

lilyball wrote: post #19
jurassic wrote: post #4

I think this is getting upvoted because everybody likes to dogpile on Amazon. But nothing this guy says seems to reflect especially poorly on Amazon. If the author is going through another job search now I might recommend taking the piece down; it's not doing you a ton of favors. The summary: guy interviews and accepts an SDE1 role at Amazon, guy resists building alliances with those holding power in the org, guy is…

Someone with 10 years of experience getting offered an SDE1 role is a huge red flag for me and makes me wonder what this person's skill set actually is.

Amazon busts everyone down at least one or two pegs in title. A friend with extensive agency experience joined their creative team and when I saw his title I was shocked but he explained that's what they do everyone. He say this leads to people frequently introducing themselves to others by saying "I used to be title X at company Y".

SE1 is ridiculous for someone with 10 years experience as either they deserve a much better title or they didn't learn enough in the last 10 years and you shouldn't hire them at all.

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