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I work at Amazon, getting paid just shy of $200k/year. My team spends like 80% of the time doing whatever we think will make the product better. The rest is dev

I work at Amazon, getting paid just shy of $200k/year. My team spends like 80% of the time doing whatever we think will make the product better. The rest is devoted to operations and handling requests. I don't take my laptop home when I'm not on-call, which isn't that awful. If witnessed half as much fuckery as I see espoused on this site or in the NYT article, I'd finally respond to the google recruiters that hit my inbox weekly. Or idk, maybe start a company, or retire early. I actually enjoy Amazon though. It's an elegant organization that can create product that speaks to the customer, then iterate it to maturity. I imagine in the process of getting where we are today some highly distressed pockets developed and asinine managers got promoted to incompetence, but I haven't witnessed it yet. Also probably helps that a ton of tech companies have popped up offices in Seattle and the demand for engineers is staggering.

1024core 10y ago
Nice try, Jeff Bezos!
cm3 10y ago
We don't seem to know what teams the negative reports are from, so may I ask what your division or team is, given your positive experience?
- falseecho 10y ago
  Supposedly it varies heavily from organization to organization. I work with people from multiple orgs. All of them seem pretty happy. Also, this is probably a violation of some policy which would be a tragic uncuffing of my badass golden handcuffs. Kind of sad that people probably get paid to monitor social media for company image. Probably a good start-up idea there if you squint hard enough and are willing to tolerate a large sales staff with long engagements and a lumpy revenue stream.
  - shostack 10y ago
    Any insight into why specific teams/managers aren't being anonymously named and shamed at this point if it is that bad? Seems almost inevitable at this point.
    - falseecho 10y ago
      I can't imagine being wronged hard enough to do something like that. Then again, this twilight amazon I keep reading about on the internet might be bad enough.
Grishnakh 10y ago
So how do all these Amazon engineers stand living and working there in Seattle when there's no high-speed internet access anyway (according to what I've read online)?
- goldenkey 10y ago
  I have gigabit, condointernet. Not sure where you heard that rumor. I made 200k year and took the abuse as long as I could. I made it about a year before I voluntarily quit. Now Im unemployed burning savings and still after months, still not ready to work again due to the absolutely heinous ptsd-style shit I had to go through. Maybe when this summer is up I'll find a new gig. Amazon is shit, good people get abused and ridiculed for making good money. Its the exact opposite of what should happen when you are a skilled and well meaning communicative dev. Im pretty sure the less you make the better you will get treated there, because the entire company is about "customers" and even extracting value from employees. Every employee has a target on their back.
  - Grishnakh 10y ago
    I'm sorry you had a lousy time at Amazon, but that's not really what I was talking about, I was talking about the state of Seattle internet access. I read it all the time on the internet, in various message forums. From what I've read, in many places in Seattle (the city, not surrounding municipalities), there simply is no high-speed internet because Comcast doesn't feel like building it, and the city council doesn't feel like doing anything to force them to. It's basically a big joke and a huge irony because Seattle is a tech hub with Amazon and Microsoft there as well as a bunch of other tech companies. As for your situation, I'd encourage you to get out there and look for a new job ASAP. I've had a bunch of different jobs in my career and for me it was actually pretty refreshing starting a new job somewhere. Of course, after a while the grim reality would set in about how this place wasn't that great (usually it was something in the job that changed, such as new management), but for a while they'd usually be pretty fun since their expectations of a new-hire are pretty low, and some jobs actually were pretty good all around. Don't just sit around and stew about your last job; get out there and get a new one and you'll forget about that last horrible one before long. Also, the longer you stay unemployed the harder it'll be to get a new gig, so don't wait.

1024core 10y ago

Nice try, Jeff Bezos!

cm3 10y ago

We don't seem to know what teams the negative reports are from, so may I ask what your division or team is, given your positive experience?

falseecho 10y ago
Supposedly it varies heavily from organization to organization. I work with people from multiple orgs. All of them seem pretty happy. Also, this is probably a violation of some policy which would be a tragic uncuffing of my badass golden handcuffs. Kind of sad that people probably get paid to monitor social media for company image. Probably a good start-up idea there if you squint hard enough and are willing to tolerate a large sales staff with long engagements and a lumpy revenue stream.
- shostack 10y ago
  Any insight into why specific teams/managers aren't being anonymously named and shamed at this point if it is that bad? Seems almost inevitable at this point.
  - falseecho 10y ago
    I can't imagine being wronged hard enough to do something like that. Then again, this twilight amazon I keep reading about on the internet might be bad enough.

Grishnakh 10y ago

So how do all these Amazon engineers stand living and working there in Seattle when there's no high-speed internet access anyway (according to what I've read online)?

goldenkey 10y ago
I have gigabit, condointernet. Not sure where you heard that rumor. I made 200k year and took the abuse as long as I could. I made it about a year before I voluntarily quit. Now Im unemployed burning savings and still after months, still not ready to work again due to the absolutely heinous ptsd-style shit I had to go through. Maybe when this summer is up I'll find a new gig. Amazon is shit, good people get abused and ridiculed for making good money. Its the exact opposite of what should happen when you are a skilled and well meaning communicative dev. Im pretty sure the less you make the better you will get treated there, because the entire company is about "customers" and even extracting value from employees. Every employee has a target on their back.
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  I'm sorry you had a lousy time at Amazon, but that's not really what I was talking about, I was talking about the state of Seattle internet access. I read it all the time on the internet, in various message forums. From what I've read, in many places in Seattle (the city, not surrounding municipalities), there simply is no high-speed internet because Comcast doesn't feel like building it, and the city council doesn't feel like doing anything to force them to. It's basically a big joke and a huge irony because Seattle is a tech hub with Amazon and Microsoft there as well as a bunch of other tech companies. As for your situation, I'd encourage you to get out there and look for a new job ASAP. I've had a bunch of different jobs in my career and for me it was actually pretty refreshing starting a new job somewhere. Of course, after a while the grim reality would set in about how this place wasn't that great (usually it was something in the job that changed, such as new management), but for a while they'd usually be pretty fun since their expectations of a new-hire are pretty low, and some jobs actually were pretty good all around. Don't just sit around and stew about your last job; get out there and get a new one and you'll forget about that last horrible one before long. Also, the longer you stay unemployed the harder it'll be to get a new gig, so don't wait.