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

benadam.me

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

#501

Post by bogomipz »

subsaharancoder wrote: post #392
netizen-936824 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wow, so it's basically like you are a new hire when you transfer? Do you mind saying which FAANG or is the experience you had simply norm at all of them?

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

#502

Post by [deleted] »

ignoramous wrote: post #486
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…

> ...an ego-driven hazing ritual. Google India (c. late 2000s / early 2010s) used to be notorious for this, so much so that Googlers I knew would rather have their referrals give interviews at Google HQ (MTV), instead (not that it was any better, but rather it wasn't as worse). One piece of advice I received early on was, interviews aren't meant to be a pissing contest but often are. As an interviewee, accept that an…

[deleted]

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

#503

Post by crmrc114 »

Matthias247 wrote: post #15
teg4n_ wrote: post #8

The idea of leaving before the year mark at a company that does signing bonuses stresses me the fuck out. Don't you have to pay back the bonus? When I got an Amazon offer that was the case

At Amazon sign on bonuses are paid over the first 24month, so there is no need to pay back anything.

Depends on your agreement. Mine was a lump sum up front for the first year and a retention bonus plus stocks for year two. With strictly rsus for the last two years.

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

#504

Post by lazyant »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #55

> (It is incredible how flexible and effective Excel is for such a wide variety of use-cases) I worked for a Japanese company, and they used Excel for everything . GANTT Charts were done in Excel (not Project), documentation was written in Excel (not Word), etc. They had these monster 3,000-row excel punchlists for QC. If even one test failed, the whole shooting match was scrapped.

I had server shell output from one of the "Big 4" consulting companies being sent as a screenshot of the terminal embedded as a pic in an Excel spreadsheet.

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

#505

Post by free652 »

jrockway wrote: post #473
mikesabbagh wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why do you want to work for Amazon and Google when there are so many great companies that would appreciate you every day (and pay you more)

Who is paying more than Amazon and Google right now? Investment banks, maybe?

Quants: Citadel and Jane Street.

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

#506

Post by imron »

asiachick wrote: post #386
cjsplat wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Can you explain? AFAIK Google has a set criteria for engineering interviews. 2-3 coding, 1 design, 1 something else.

From the parent comment I guess they were the ones doing the design or ‘something else’ interview, with the coding interview or two being covered by someone else.

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

#507

Post by mcguire »

tdeck wrote: post #414
ubermonkey wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quota of people who needed to be on PIPs? That's insane.

Just a few months ago it came to light that managers at Amazon hire new people they're planning to fire shortly after, so they don't have to fire people they're attached to in order to meet such a quota. https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-tracks-unregretted-at...

Just a few months ago? Wasn't that the case several years ago, or was than MS or one of the other FAANGs?

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

#509

Post by ozzythecat »

masterof0 wrote: post #369
TideAd wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you still have to go through a full interview loop?

You do, and if for any reason the next manager doesn't want you or change his/her/x mind, you are in a really awkward situation with your team.

This is not true, not in AWS nor in CDO.

The hiring manager might connect you with an engineer on their team to see if you’re a fit, but it’s not an actual interview loop. You’re certainly not coding.

Source: Been at Amazon for a many, many years across retail and AWS teams. This was never true, and if you saw this really happen, it’s a 1% minority.

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

#510

Post by doseofreality »

ajkjk wrote: post #90

> I can’t think of a single internal tool at Amazon that is better than a commercial counterpart. I haven't worked at Amazon in 6 years, but when I was last there, these tools were leaps-and-bounds above publicly-available equivalents: * Pipelines (CI/CD tool. Still better than all alternatives IMO, including the AWS offering for some reason) * Igraph (Amazingly good, wipes the floor with Grafana which I have used si…

Jira is bad, but SIM is horrendous. SIM makes Jira look good.
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