4 ms·

The nightmare stories are often from years ago or non devs. There are some pretty awful oncalls though. I'm on a team I like, work with people I get along with

by mter 10y ago

The nightmare stories are often from years ago or non devs. There are some pretty awful oncalls though. I'm on a team I like, work with people I get along with and have hours that are good (<=40) except around launches. 2 years after college, I make enough (~160k total comp, a bit over 100k salary) for money to not really be a motivating factor. When I first got to amazon, I fully expected to jump ship within 6 months and move somewhere else. I stayed because I liked the people and the work was fine. If my team culture changes and I don't like it, I'll look external and internal then leave.

lamontcg 10y ago
I'd be interested to know what you think after 5 years there and a few more reorgs. You may find that you got extremely lucky in where you first landed.
- offbyone 10y ago
  Well, I'm >5 years, two orgs, one of which re-shuffled a few times while I was there, trying to find the right fit between software engineering and domain expertise. I've never personally seen any of the horrorshow stuff I hear about Amazon. I've worked with people who have, and mostly they just moved to other parts of the company. It's a big place. I stay because I like it. I've turned down offers for more money in order to remain, because my job is satisfying, challenging, and balanced with my non-work life. I go home at 5 PM every day, get paged only occasionally, have a mandate to automate and stabilize my services that is at LEAST as high-priority as features or launches. In short, the opposite of some of these complaints. It's almost like there's nuance to be found here!
- mter 10y ago
  I've been reorged quite a few times. More than most people who have spent 5 years here. > You may find that you got extremely lucky in where you first landed. I have 3 other teams with previous coworkers who are currently having good experiences that I can go to if this one goes south. Yes there are a lot of teams that burn people out. I'm not blind. But there are also a number of us that have resisted the amazon way and try to actually be human.
  - turar 10y ago
    > But there are also a number of us that have resisted the amazon way and try to actually be human. This last sentence was such a stark contrast with the rest of your comments above, that it almost feels like a slip or a that meme with a guy blinking an S-O-S signal with his eyes.
    - mter 10y ago
      The amazon way is not always friendly to normal humans. That's just the truth of it. My team has taken pains to not be that way. The company is trying to change the culture and frankly, have done some mind blowing things. No one would have ever though paternity leave would be a thing 5 years ago. Or that part time work would ever be discussed. But there is a long, long way to go and a lot of senior peoples attitudes need to be changed before I'd call the culture here awesome.
      - turar 10y ago
        > My team has taken pains to not be that way. But that's the thing though. Your team is not being discussed, but the entire company is. And if it feels to you that it's your team that's swimming against the current, then maybe there's a lot of truth to the general perception of the whole company.
      - amzn-336495 10y ago
        > No one would have ever though paternity leave would be a thing 5 years ago. That's sad that people work there. How many billions does Jeff have again? Oh yeah, $61.7 billion dollars.
lawless123 10y ago
Maybe some are biased here but i think non-devs are humans too.
- mter 10y ago
  I have no insight into their world so I cannot speak in any way to the truth of their working conditions. I only know that for most of the devs, it is fine. It's not perfect, I'm not even sure I'd tell people that it's great. But for people that have a good team? It's fine and the quality of people makes up for it. If I didn't like my team I would have left a long time ago.

by mter 10y ago

lamontcg 10y ago

I'd be interested to know what you think after 5 years there and a few more reorgs. You may find that you got extremely lucky in where you first landed.

offbyone 10y ago
Well, I'm >5 years, two orgs, one of which re-shuffled a few times while I was there, trying to find the right fit between software engineering and domain expertise. I've never personally seen any of the horrorshow stuff I hear about Amazon. I've worked with people who have, and mostly they just moved to other parts of the company. It's a big place. I stay because I like it. I've turned down offers for more money in order to remain, because my job is satisfying, challenging, and balanced with my non-work life. I go home at 5 PM every day, get paged only occasionally, have a mandate to automate and stabilize my services that is at LEAST as high-priority as features or launches. In short, the opposite of some of these complaints. It's almost like there's nuance to be found here!
mter 10y ago
I've been reorged quite a few times. More than most people who have spent 5 years here. > You may find that you got extremely lucky in where you first landed. I have 3 other teams with previous coworkers who are currently having good experiences that I can go to if this one goes south. Yes there are a lot of teams that burn people out. I'm not blind. But there are also a number of us that have resisted the amazon way and try to actually be human.
- turar 10y ago
  > But there are also a number of us that have resisted the amazon way and try to actually be human. This last sentence was such a stark contrast with the rest of your comments above, that it almost feels like a slip or a that meme with a guy blinking an S-O-S signal with his eyes.
  - mter 10y ago
    The amazon way is not always friendly to normal humans. That's just the truth of it. My team has taken pains to not be that way. The company is trying to change the culture and frankly, have done some mind blowing things. No one would have ever though paternity leave would be a thing 5 years ago. Or that part time work would ever be discussed. But there is a long, long way to go and a lot of senior peoples attitudes need to be changed before I'd call the culture here awesome.
    - turar 10y ago
      > My team has taken pains to not be that way. But that's the thing though. Your team is not being discussed, but the entire company is. And if it feels to you that it's your team that's swimming against the current, then maybe there's a lot of truth to the general perception of the whole company.
    - amzn-336495 10y ago
      > No one would have ever though paternity leave would be a thing 5 years ago. That's sad that people work there. How many billions does Jeff have again? Oh yeah, $61.7 billion dollars.

lawless123 10y ago

Maybe some are biased here but i think non-devs are humans too.

mter 10y ago
I have no insight into their world so I cannot speak in any way to the truth of their working conditions. I only know that for most of the devs, it is fine. It's not perfect, I'm not even sure I'd tell people that it's great. But for people that have a good team? It's fine and the quality of people makes up for it. If I didn't like my team I would have left a long time ago.