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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

#661

Post by moneywoes »

cableshaft wrote: post #551
wallscratch wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My biggest gripe is that Leetcode is systematically favoring candidates who have months of free time to […] Wouldn’t this be true of almost any other selective interview process?

Nope. My wife just makes sure she knows where her physical portfolio is (basically just print-outs of old proposals she's worked on), spends a couple hours reading up about the company and maybe rehearsing what answers she might give to some common behavioral questions (the cliche ones, like "What's your biggest weakness" type crap), gets her clothes ready, and makes sure she gets enough sleep. This is the night befo…

What is your wife’s occupation?

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

#662

Post by moneywoes »

majormajor wrote: post #257
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…

I would love to know how long the average FANG dev spent on leetcode practice before their interviews. From my small sample of friends who've done stints there, it's far less than "months". I similarly have had - but declined - an offer from one of them with prep measured in "hours" not "days."

How did you get so good? Would love any tips

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

#663

Post by cableshaft »

moneywoes wrote: post #661
cableshaft wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. My wife just makes sure she knows where her physical portfolio is (basically just print-outs of old proposals she's worked on), spends a couple hours reading up about the company and maybe rehearsing what answers she might give to some common behavioral questions (the cliche ones, like "What's your biggest weakness" type crap), gets her clothes ready, and makes sure she gets enough sleep. This is the night befo…

What is your wife’s occupation?

Proposal/Marketing Manager, but she often does things outside of her official job description as well.

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

#664

Post by decafninja »

georgemcbay wrote: post #299
majormajor wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now imagine if instead of coding exercises we had the interview process from other industries that weighs degree and past experience more heavily in the absence of any other sort of testing. What would it look like to break in then? Completing a BS in your spare time? EDIT: Most ideas I've seen about replacement for live coding - like take home projects or contract-to-hire - are not really any more friendly to people…

The craziest part of tech interviews for me is the way its just accepted that you do it this way regardless of how long someone has been in the industry. If companies were grilling people new to the career trying to figure out if they could FizzBuzz their way out of wet paper bag (I realize some can't) it would be one thing. Without a track record you don't have much to go on, but the fact that you can work in the in…

My experience is that generally you can't bypass leetcode interviews via networking.

At most, you might be allowed to skip the phone screen. Or you might be given slightly more leeway in getting the solution.

There are exceptions of course. One close friend/ex-colleague has an uncanny ability to network himself into a coding job at various NYC hedge funds. These being hedge funds, they all pay at least above average (we're not talking about Citadel or Jane Street here), but the downside is that he has to be very unpicky about what the role exactly entails. So this can lead him to very unsexy jobs like shuffling XML feed files back and forth or doing MS Access/Excel VBA stuff, etc. But he can snap his fingers, make a few phone calls to executives and managers he knows at multiple mid tier hedge funds, and start working in a matter of days.

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

#665

Post by jasonladuke0311 »

celim307 wrote: post #516
jasonladuke0311 wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mike Judge is a genius. He really is. Any one of his properties would prove that by itself. Having such keen insights into disparate facets of humanity tells me that he just gets humans on a level not many other people do. Hopefully that doesn’t sound too flowery and pretentious.

I think he nails satire and weirdness of humans well, similar to apatow, but I think he falls flat on the more emotional or positive aspects of humanity. Not to say he’s not a master of his craft, and king of the hill especially had tender moments, but maybe that’s just not what he’s interested in

> I think he nails satire and weirdness of humans well, similar to apatow, but I think he falls flat on the more emotional or positive aspects of humanity.

That's a fair criticism. Much of his work comes off as deeply cynical.

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

#666

Post by danielmarkbruce »

BoorishBears wrote: post #656
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be assuming bad intent.... It really is helpful, socially, to assume good intent. It avoids unnecessary arguments (/wars). Additionally, if you spend a little time digging in when you have assumed bad intent, you'll almost always find that the person has good intent, there has just been a misunderstanding, or miscommunication, or they face very different incentives or have a different set of underlying as…

Why do you think I said they'd run from you? If I caught a whiff of half what you've said here I'd end the on-site early. My industry is too competitive to put up with this sort of childish antics.

And the gate would be working as intended.

I'm quite certain you have good intent. Maybe you've had truly rude people interview you, they exist. Maybe you have worked with a lot of jerks who were rude. Maybe we just have different definitions of "judge".

The most generous take of my intent is ~ "this person really wants to avoid a dysfunctional work culture".

If you assume good intent, you'll face fewer problems in life. It's one of the few pieces of advice that actually work with few exceptions. If you catch a whiff of something, and it smells like bad intent, maybe forcing yourself to rethink it from another perspective will work.

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

#667

Post by moneywoes »

libria wrote: post #483
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 , then 5% each quarter, i think... It's 5%, 15%, 40%, 40%. In lieu of RSU's in Year 1, you get a big signing bonus. Year 2, not quite as big signing bonus (hence the +10% RSU). Year 3 and 4, nothing but RSU. It adds up to the same amount every year assuming no stock growth. Are you saying you just want double your salary for year 1 and 2 and are planning to quit before year 3 when it d…

Doesn’t the signing bonus get revoked?

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

#668

Post by anonporridge »

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #635
anonporridge wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or to say a different way - don't hate the player, hate the game.

more like you get a system where only sociopaths will remain because everyone else will just get a new job

What do you do when that system successfully creates a $2 trillion empire that seems to only be getting stronger and more established?

The larger meta game of civilization obviously rewards this kind of subsystem, so again...

Don't hate the player (Amazon's toxic corporate culture), hate the game (the civilization that rewards them with dominance).

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

#669

Post by dreamcompiler »

ddingus wrote: post #560
dreamcompiler wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a professional chef but I'm a good cook. I try to bring my own knives when I travel to visit friends just in case someone asks me to cook, because most home kitchens have shit knives that are only good for spreading butter. This is a dicey proposition when flying: Carry-on is not an option so I have to bring my B-grade knives that I won't miss if the airline loses them.

Rando, but question of genuine interest: What keeps you from having a couple sets of A grade knives? Is it cost, or some other thing? I'm asking because I have a few tools I LOVE. One is a set of dial calipers and I've had them since the 80's. I can get new ones, and have, but that tool I know well. My measurements are most repetable with it.

I bought my A-grade knives from a knifesmith in Kyoto. They're expensive and very difficult to replace. Nobody gets to touch those except me.

My B-grade knives are Shuns, which are still much better than 90% of the knives in a typical American kitchen but a bit more tolerant of abuse and available everywhere.

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

#670

Post by ddingus »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #669
ddingus wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rando, but question of genuine interest: What keeps you from having a couple sets of A grade knives? Is it cost, or some other thing? I'm asking because I have a few tools I LOVE. One is a set of dial calipers and I've had them since the 80's. I can get new ones, and have, but that tool I know well. My measurements are most repetable with it.

I bought my A-grade knives from a knifesmith in Kyoto. They're expensive and very difficult to replace. Nobody gets to touch those except me. My B-grade knives are Shuns, which are still much better than 90% of the knives in a typical American kitchen but a bit more tolerant of abuse and available everywhere.

Oh, got it. Very special knives!

Thanks, that makes great sense.

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