6 ms·

David Streitfeld has written a number of strident, highly-critical articles on Amazon. What he's writing here doesn't reflect my experience as an SDE in a coupl

David Streitfeld has written a number of strident, highly-critical articles on Amazon. What he's writing here doesn't reflect my experience as an SDE in a couple of different divisions in the company. I can't speak to what people in marketing or vendor management experience. Take the first paragraph for instance: > They are told to forget the “poor habits” they learned at previous jobs I don't recall anyone telling me this > When they “hit the wall” from the unrelenting pace, there is only one solution: “Climb the wall,” others reported I don't recall hearing either of these phrases used. > To be the best Amazonians they can be, they should be guided by the leadership principles, 14 rules inscribed on handy laminated cards. When quizzed days later, those with perfect scores earn a virtual award proclaiming, “I’m Peculiar” — the company’s proud phrase for overturning workplace conventions. The leadership principles are repeated pretty frequently, although I think most people take them with a grain of salt. The quiz is called 100% Peculiar, not "I'm Peculiar". I don't recall it being about leadership principles at all. I recall it being about things like how Amazon doesn't delete negative customer reviews because the company sees it as being in its long-term interest for reviews to be trustworthy. The other thing on the quiz I remember is that Amazon likes to use informal language with customers, like "Where's my stuff". [Edit: I should also point out that it's not a mandatory thing and nobody cares if you don't do it or don't do well enough on it to get the little badge on your page in the company directory.]

gary__ 11y ago
Did you see people crying while in work?
- amazonthrowaway 11y ago
  No
- newobj 11y ago
  i did.
- throwaway76554 11y ago
  Never.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- zippergz 11y ago
  I worked there for many years and never saw anyone cry.
- enraged_camel 11y ago
  I don't work at Amazon, but I have a friend who is on the vendor management side and whenever she talks about how stressful her job is and how terribly they treat people (not just their employees but also their vendors), she's on the verge of tears. I'm not exaggerating.
- eclipxe 11y ago
  Never
- throwaway654123 11y ago
  Yep, I work there and I absolutely have seen coworkers upset and crying.
- anawsthrowaway 11y ago
  Not over anything work related.
- seansmccullough 11y ago
  Never.
- senderista 11y ago
  I didn't, but a coworker did when I wasn't in the office. Someone had just come out of a 1:1 with her manager and was sobbing at her desk, and no one was paying her any attention (this was an open plan office).
falcolas 11y ago
It's worth remembering that Amazon was very choosey in who was able to contribute to this narrative, so you need to take that into account as well.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
OJFord 11y ago
The more I read, the more I get the feeling that Amazon has a divide between technical (dev) roles, in which is it's largely similar to any other large somewhat "hip" company, and non-tech roles, in which it sounds like something of a sweatshop. I'm not surprised to see you disagree with the commentary on the "leadership principles" -- they (at com/principles) seem to me almost totally generic.
- potatolicious 11y ago
  I'm a former Amazonian - things are definitely worse for non-tech roles, but I wouldn't say that on the dev side things are "similar to any other large somewhat hip company". To put in context - Amazon's typical engineering tenure (when I was there) was 18 months - that's engineering roles only. I've worked many jobs since and by a wide margin Amazon still has the highest engineering churn rate I've ever seen. My personal take on this article is that it seems a bit exaggerated based on my experiences at the company, but otherwise largely accurate. I haven't seen anyone cry, but definitely a lot of shellshocked people wallowing at their desks after being openly reamed out by managers in front of their peers. The general culture is extremely dog eat dog, and in my 2 years there I saw a whole lot of behavior lacking in basic human decency/empathy, justified under the notion that "we're doing hard work with hard technology and have high standards and if you can't keep up you can wash out". In all my jobs since Amazon I have never once encountered the level of hostility routinely and openly displayed between manager/subordinate and between peers that I saw there. I didn't think much of it at the time - that whole type of behavior was normalized - but it's only once I got out and worked at much friendlier, more collaborative places that I realized how insane and aberrant it is. There's also sometimes this curious notion that this sort of culture is a requirement for doing meaningful things, and that ditching Amazon for a place with less toxic workplace culture necessarily means you won't be able to achieve great things. This is laughably false of course, and makes me wonder if the people perpetuating it have seen what other companies are doing.
  - OJFord 11y ago
    Oh okay, well scratch that then, that's interesting. Yes I'm all for being "pushed to limits", but I don't think making employees feel like shit is the right way to do that. I can't find it now, but what struck me most in the article was a quote about being pushed and pushed, finally achieving something great, but then it being nothing - like the best performance you can hope for is "acceptable". Over-working for a crazy deadline is I think motivating, and an enjoyable sense of achievement for people that are in a position to do it (without dependents, etc.) - but that achievement at the end of the sprinted-marathon needs to be celebrated, and there needs to be a break before another. Otherwise it does just sound like a sweatshop.
east2west 11y ago
I have heard repeatedly that potential workers are asked behavioral questions during their interviews about the leadership principles. I wouldn't call that "taken with a grain of salt." Anecdotally their turnover rate is high and a larger proportion of tech workers have to be on call than other large tech companies-- this could be due to the nature of tech, clouds and probably the largest web portable on earth. Different divisions are going to be different, and the article focuses on more extreme cases, true, but Amazon is a "tough" place to work, no question about that, at least compared to Google or Netflix. If Amazon is not a nice place to work, honest people writing good journalistic reporting on it are going to write negative stories, no way around that. As negative stories, this particular article isn't bad. At least it puts a leadership-principle spin on it.
- amazonthrowaway 11y ago
  Yes, it's true that as part of the interview process they ask behavioral questions to try to use the leadership principles to evaluate a candidate. An example might be, "can you tell me about a time when you had to build something but you had very vague requirements". So I think the leadership principles are taken seriously, but I don't think they're treated as gospel. Bezos usually says something in the all-hands meeting like "these are our leadership principles unless you know better ones". People usually roll their eyes at the "frugality" leadership principle - the term "frupid" is used pretty frequently. The high on-call load is a pretty frequently complaint. I haven't worked at Google or Netflix, so I don't really have a basis for comparison. In general, I think Amazon is a pretty demanding environment, but I think if the environment was as Streitfeld describes it, I wouldn't do well. I don't think I have that great a work ethic and I don't think I handle stress or workplace conflict particularly well, yet I've managed to be successful at Amazon.
  - srean 11y ago
    > but I don't think they are treated as gospel Sorry, untrue. Literally several examples of offers turned down because of this even when apart from this 'raise the bar' person everyone were strongly in favor of hiring. This happens all the time and employed engineers are none to happy about this. BTW from the number of your posts here, would that be an unofficial job requirement ?
hyperbovine 11y ago
I guess it comes down to your personal anecdotes versus those of "more than 100 current and former Amazonians — members of the leadership team, human resources executives, marketers, retail specialists and engineers who worked on projects from the Kindle to grocery delivery to the recent mobile phone launch". Strictly on the weight of the evidence... (Not that everything NYT prints is true, but your can be certain that a front-page story trashing one of the most successful companies and founders in history has been vetted and fact-checked to a fair degree.)
- throwaway76554 11y ago
  I've had the same experience as the commenter your replying to did, as has most everyone on my team. I work at AWS, though, and no one from web services seems to have been interviewed for this article.
  - rdtsc 11y ago
    I interviewed with AWS and had a terrible experience. See my other top level reply.
    - eclipxe 11y ago
      Sounds like you just had one bad interview experience. Sorry - it happens!
      - rdtsc 11y ago
        Could be. I just shared my experience, hopefully it is interesting to someone. It was at least to 10 people who upvoted it so far. I understand Amazon is a huge company and others' experiences might vary.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
cscurmudgeon 11y ago
> > They are told to forget the “poor habits” they learned at previous jobs I don't recall anyone telling me this Maybe one of those poor habits is remembering information like this and you got so good at it that you forgot this :)
noahm 11y ago
Agreed, I noticed all those things as well. The article seemed to invent a lot of the new hire orientation stuff. Either that or it's changed quite a bit since I went through it a few years ago, which is certainly possible. And the "100% peculiar" thing really is just a game. It's a toy to add a little icon to your internal profile, and literally doesn't mean a thing. Other such awards are for things like having participated in broomball in 2002 or something silly like that.
amzn_thrwy_158 11y ago
The author clearly had this format in his mind: illustrate Amazon's cruel environment by cleverly tagging each anecdote with a couple of leadership principles. I'm a deeply frustrated engineer at Amazon on the verge of quitting, but even I like and respect the leadership principles. To me, they mostly represent what's good about Amazon. What's bad about Amazon is better illustrated by the experiences shared in this thread than by the article.

gary__ 11y ago

Did you see people crying while in work?

amazonthrowaway 11y ago
No
newobj 11y ago
i did.
throwaway76554 11y ago
Never.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
zippergz 11y ago
I worked there for many years and never saw anyone cry.
enraged_camel 11y ago
I don't work at Amazon, but I have a friend who is on the vendor management side and whenever she talks about how stressful her job is and how terribly they treat people (not just their employees but also their vendors), she's on the verge of tears. I'm not exaggerating.
eclipxe 11y ago
Never
throwaway654123 11y ago
Yep, I work there and I absolutely have seen coworkers upset and crying.
anawsthrowaway 11y ago
Not over anything work related.
seansmccullough 11y ago
Never.
senderista 11y ago
I didn't, but a coworker did when I wasn't in the office. Someone had just come out of a 1:1 with her manager and was sobbing at her desk, and no one was paying her any attention (this was an open plan office).

falcolas 11y ago

It's worth remembering that Amazon was very choosey in who was able to contribute to this narrative, so you need to take that into account as well.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

OJFord 11y ago

The more I read, the more I get the feeling that Amazon has a divide between technical (dev) roles, in which is it's largely similar to any other large somewhat "hip" company, and non-tech roles, in which it sounds like something of a sweatshop. I'm not surprised to see you disagree with the commentary on the "leadership principles" -- they (at com/principles) seem to me almost totally generic.

potatolicious 11y ago
I'm a former Amazonian - things are definitely worse for non-tech roles, but I wouldn't say that on the dev side things are "similar to any other large somewhat hip company". To put in context - Amazon's typical engineering tenure (when I was there) was 18 months - that's engineering roles only. I've worked many jobs since and by a wide margin Amazon still has the highest engineering churn rate I've ever seen. My personal take on this article is that it seems a bit exaggerated based on my experiences at the company, but otherwise largely accurate. I haven't seen anyone cry, but definitely a lot of shellshocked people wallowing at their desks after being openly reamed out by managers in front of their peers. The general culture is extremely dog eat dog, and in my 2 years there I saw a whole lot of behavior lacking in basic human decency/empathy, justified under the notion that "we're doing hard work with hard technology and have high standards and if you can't keep up you can wash out". In all my jobs since Amazon I have never once encountered the level of hostility routinely and openly displayed between manager/subordinate and between peers that I saw there. I didn't think much of it at the time - that whole type of behavior was normalized - but it's only once I got out and worked at much friendlier, more collaborative places that I realized how insane and aberrant it is. There's also sometimes this curious notion that this sort of culture is a requirement for doing meaningful things, and that ditching Amazon for a place with less toxic workplace culture necessarily means you won't be able to achieve great things. This is laughably false of course, and makes me wonder if the people perpetuating it have seen what other companies are doing.
- OJFord 11y ago
  Oh okay, well scratch that then, that's interesting. Yes I'm all for being "pushed to limits", but I don't think making employees feel like shit is the right way to do that. I can't find it now, but what struck me most in the article was a quote about being pushed and pushed, finally achieving something great, but then it being nothing - like the best performance you can hope for is "acceptable". Over-working for a crazy deadline is I think motivating, and an enjoyable sense of achievement for people that are in a position to do it (without dependents, etc.) - but that achievement at the end of the sprinted-marathon needs to be celebrated, and there needs to be a break before another. Otherwise it does just sound like a sweatshop.

east2west 11y ago

I have heard repeatedly that potential workers are asked behavioral questions during their interviews about the leadership principles. I wouldn't call that "taken with a grain of salt." Anecdotally their turnover rate is high and a larger proportion of tech workers have to be on call than other large tech companies-- this could be due to the nature of tech, clouds and probably the largest web portable on earth. Different divisions are going to be different, and the article focuses on more extreme cases, true, but Amazon is a "tough" place to work, no question about that, at least compared to Google or Netflix. If Amazon is not a nice place to work, honest people writing good journalistic reporting on it are going to write negative stories, no way around that. As negative stories, this particular article isn't bad. At least it puts a leadership-principle spin on it.

amazonthrowaway 11y ago
Yes, it's true that as part of the interview process they ask behavioral questions to try to use the leadership principles to evaluate a candidate. An example might be, "can you tell me about a time when you had to build something but you had very vague requirements". So I think the leadership principles are taken seriously, but I don't think they're treated as gospel. Bezos usually says something in the all-hands meeting like "these are our leadership principles unless you know better ones". People usually roll their eyes at the "frugality" leadership principle - the term "frupid" is used pretty frequently. The high on-call load is a pretty frequently complaint. I haven't worked at Google or Netflix, so I don't really have a basis for comparison. In general, I think Amazon is a pretty demanding environment, but I think if the environment was as Streitfeld describes it, I wouldn't do well. I don't think I have that great a work ethic and I don't think I handle stress or workplace conflict particularly well, yet I've managed to be successful at Amazon.
- srean 11y ago
  > but I don't think they are treated as gospel Sorry, untrue. Literally several examples of offers turned down because of this even when apart from this 'raise the bar' person everyone were strongly in favor of hiring. This happens all the time and employed engineers are none to happy about this. BTW from the number of your posts here, would that be an unofficial job requirement ?

hyperbovine 11y ago

I guess it comes down to your personal anecdotes versus those of "more than 100 current and former Amazonians — members of the leadership team, human resources executives, marketers, retail specialists and engineers who worked on projects from the Kindle to grocery delivery to the recent mobile phone launch". Strictly on the weight of the evidence... (Not that everything NYT prints is true, but your can be certain that a front-page story trashing one of the most successful companies and founders in history has been vetted and fact-checked to a fair degree.)

throwaway76554 11y ago
I've had the same experience as the commenter your replying to did, as has most everyone on my team. I work at AWS, though, and no one from web services seems to have been interviewed for this article.
- rdtsc 11y ago
  I interviewed with AWS and had a terrible experience. See my other top level reply.
  - eclipxe 11y ago
    Sounds like you just had one bad interview experience. Sorry - it happens!
    - rdtsc 11y ago
      Could be. I just shared my experience, hopefully it is interesting to someone. It was at least to 10 people who upvoted it so far. I understand Amazon is a huge company and others' experiences might vary.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

cscurmudgeon 11y ago

> > They are told to forget the “poor habits” they learned at previous jobs I don't recall anyone telling me this Maybe one of those poor habits is remembering information like this and you got so good at it that you forgot this :)

noahm 11y ago

Agreed, I noticed all those things as well. The article seemed to invent a lot of the new hire orientation stuff. Either that or it's changed quite a bit since I went through it a few years ago, which is certainly possible. And the "100% peculiar" thing really is just a game. It's a toy to add a little icon to your internal profile, and literally doesn't mean a thing. Other such awards are for things like having participated in broomball in 2002 or something silly like that.

amzn_thrwy_158 11y ago

The author clearly had this format in his mind: illustrate Amazon's cruel environment by cleverly tagging each anecdote with a couple of leadership principles. I'm a deeply frustrated engineer at Amazon on the verge of quitting, but even I like and respect the leadership principles. To me, they mostly represent what's good about Amazon. What's bad about Amazon is better illustrated by the experiences shared in this thread than by the article.