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Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

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Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#81

Post by chrisseaton »

ansgri wrote: post #79
chrisseaton wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're paid a significantly large salary then you are 'exempt' overtime and they can ask you to be available at any time. The expectation is that you're being paid as a professional to achieve something, not to clock-in and clock-out. If you want to work hours only with formal overtime you can get a job that's paid less and paid hourly so that you are eligible for overtime, or you can ask for extra compensation an…

But what would they actually do if you’d say that you’ve been on call enough already, not going to continue for a week or two? sure they wouldn’t terminate you, that’d be too expensive for a skilled employee of which there is rumored to be a great shortage. American work culture seems very strange.

> But what would they actually do if you’d say that you’ve been on call enough already, not going to continue for a week or two?

You have a conversation about it, adult to adult. Why’s that so hard to do?

> sure they wouldn’t terminate you, that’d be too expensive for a skilled employee of which there is rumored to be a great shortage

Yes that’s your leverage in a deal.

> American work culture seems very strange.

Individuals being able to work out what balance of work and compensation works for them by talking to their employer is strange?

The question was how is it legal - it’s legal because the government lets highly paid professionals with leverage manage their life themselves.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#82

Post by scarejunba »

jcims wrote: post #80
lowiqengineer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been rejected at Google and Facebook and most of HN doesn't think my total compensation is all that impressive, so, I probably don't have many options to be real with you.

The HN salary dick swinging contest is absurd and not something you should factor into your overall happiness.

Like the $500k engineer has time to tell you how to be happy. Ever since he started making $600k a year, he's been enjoying himself at his $700k/year job. The fact that you're not even making $800k/year like him means you're probably not worth talking to. You'd have to be at least a $900k/year engineer like him to be worthy of time.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#83

Post by DarthGhandi »

hello_moto wrote: post #56
lowiqengineer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been rejected at Google and Facebook and most of HN doesn't think my total compensation is all that impressive, so, I probably don't have many options to be real with you.

Keep hitting leetcode, try again, and pray harder... that's what everybody else is doing. I had a co-op who used to be chill, laid back, and wasn't strong from engineering perspective (a wee bit lack of passion too). All he did was leetcode and he got MSFT -> Google.

> that's what everybody else is doing

Bit scary to know that yet say it. There's many ways to scale the same mountain, perhaps going the packed out tourist route isn't the best for most? Might take a bit longer.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#84

Post by vkou »

ansgri wrote: post #79
chrisseaton wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're paid a significantly large salary then you are 'exempt' overtime and they can ask you to be available at any time. The expectation is that you're being paid as a professional to achieve something, not to clock-in and clock-out. If you want to work hours only with formal overtime you can get a job that's paid less and paid hourly so that you are eligible for overtime, or you can ask for extra compensation an…

But what would they actually do if you’d say that you’ve been on call enough already, not going to continue for a week or two? sure they wouldn’t terminate you, that’d be too expensive for a skilled employee of which there is rumored to be a great shortage. American work culture seems very strange.

It would be expensive to let you go, compared to the costs of fixing it, but if they give in, then everyone else will push back on this, too. Which will be more expensive for them in the long run.

So, the smart thing to do is to make an example out of anyone who pushes back.

Tech workers have no solidarity, so management is very successful at divide and conquer tactics.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#86

Post by hamburglar »

lowiqengineer wrote: post #46
heymijo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my goal is to make ~$250k a year as fast as possible. To do so at my current company would take at least 3 years and 2 promotions Hi, I don't want to dunk on you, but I would truly encourage you to gain some perspective on just how myopic a view this is. (I couldn't reply to your comment below where you said this)

I don't think it's myopic if everyone I follow on twitter and see on instagram is getting Hawaiian offsites and European work trips at Google and Hudson River Trading while I can't even go to Seattle for our internal ML conference because it got filled up too quickly for the last 3 years or whatever. I enjoy what I work on..I just wish I was treated more like all of my friends and former coworkers.

Honestly, interview around with no expectations if you haven't. You may be surprised at what else is going to be offered. I'm not going to tell you it's necessarily 400k or anything, but the variance is quite high if you're willing to relocate to, say, Seattle. An amazon resume is worth a certain amount of money, and there are other companies that will offer you things you enjoy working on too.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#87

Post by jdck1326 »

okr wrote: post #66
jdck1326 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>not a recipe for happiness And certainly not a recipe for morality

Why morally? If you go for the money and you do not steal it, you certainly bring value into the world, that people are willing to pay for. Do not see what is morally wrong about it.

One flaw in your reasoning is that often times people are willing to pay for things which are bad. For example, the Holocaust was bad (a lot of good people died), but people were willing to pay for help in carrying out the Holocaust. Therefore, it doesn't follow from the fact that people are willing to pay for a thing (the Holocaust), that that thing is a morally correct thing to do (the Holocaust was bad). That is to say, just because someone values something (people valued the Holocaust), doesn't mean that it is a moral thing to do (the Holocaust was not a moral thing to do).

To see my point all you need to do is imagine either a bad person or an ignorant person having money. If you think either of those situations is plausible, then you can surely imagine such a person paying for something which has a bad effect on the world. For most ideas of morality, doing things which can reasonably be expected to have bad effects on the world is considered immoral (this is very loosely stated, but hopefully you can see my point).

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#88

Post by lowiqengineer »

hamburglar wrote: post #86
lowiqengineer wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's myopic if everyone I follow on twitter and see on instagram is getting Hawaiian offsites and European work trips at Google and Hudson River Trading while I can't even go to Seattle for our internal ML conference because it got filled up too quickly for the last 3 years or whatever. I enjoy what I work on..I just wish I was treated more like all of my friends and former coworkers.

Honestly, interview around with no expectations if you haven't. You may be surprised at what else is going to be offered. I'm not going to tell you it's necessarily 400k or anything, but the variance is quite high if you're willing to relocate to, say, Seattle. An amazon resume is worth a certain amount of money, and there are other companies that will offer you things you enjoy working on too.

I’ve tried, but haven’t gotten interviews from the companies I’m interested in. I did get a offer from a hedge fund, but it was a severe lowball (50-70% of typical offers) probably due to my interview performance.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#89

Post by hef19898 »

lowiqengineer wrote: post #46
heymijo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my goal is to make ~$250k a year as fast as possible. To do so at my current company would take at least 3 years and 2 promotions Hi, I don't want to dunk on you, but I would truly encourage you to gain some perspective on just how myopic a view this is. (I couldn't reply to your comment below where you said this)

I don't think it's myopic if everyone I follow on twitter and see on instagram is getting Hawaiian offsites and European work trips at Google and Hudson River Trading while I can't even go to Seattle for our internal ML conference because it got filled up too quickly for the last 3 years or whatever. I enjoy what I work on..I just wish I was treated more like all of my friends and former coworkers.

Get off of Instagram, then. Should be healthy in other ways, too. If you're only in it for the perceived status maybe you should to change that.

Re: Who’s in charge at Amazon? Moves on secretive S Team signal giant’s priorities

#90

Post by lordlic »

veeralpatel979 wrote: post #64
sneak wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s also not forget that Amazon are war profiteers: https://aws.amazon.com/government-education/defense/

Another way of looking at it is that they are using their technology to help defend the country where the company was created.

US national defense hasn't really been about, you know, defense in a long time. Politically-motivated proxy wars don't count.
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