9 ms·

I interned at Amazon last year in the Alexa org (non-frontline team in ML). My team was rarely in the office before 10:30 or after 6, even during crunch time (

I interned at Amazon last year in the Alexa org (non-frontline team in ML). My team was rarely in the office before 10:30 or after 6, even during crunch time (we launched our feature during my internship) but i did see code review responses at odd hours sometimes. I enjoyed the project a bunch, and while my coworkers werent the most social bunch they were pretty smart and effective. I did pretty well and exceeded managers expectations for my project to get a return offer. I shopped around a bunch after and interviewed at all the companies I could but got rejected by all of the top ones (FB after phone, Google after onsite, Airbnb and Cruise after coding challenge..) so I ultimately picked the return offer despite getting a 3 other offers in the fintech space because I liked the project and location at Amazon. Does that mean I’m a happy camper? Fuck no. My total comp for the first year is only $145k out of undergrad with a base of $106k. My friends at places like Google, FB and Cruise are making more like $180k-$230k by comparison. Perks are also nonexistent. The worst part, though, is knowing that i have become stuck in a company with a significantly lower hiring bar. Im honestly terrified that the value on the resume will decline over time and i will never be able to get into a more prestigious company. The idea of being relegated to a 2nd or third tier company has been eating at me, and comments on places like CSCQ, Blind and this AskHN nearly drove me to suicide before.

kajecounterhack 8y ago
> The idea of being relegated to a 2nd or third tier company has been eating at me, and comments on places like CSCQ, Blind and this AskHN nearly drove me to suicide before. This isn't a very healthy outlook. By that I mean using prestige and income level as your optimization function isn't a great way to achieve [fulfillment / joy / making life worth living]. I'm not trying to preach a specific optimization function but I hope you'll talk to people you trust to get some objectivity about what is [healthy / unhealthy] for being a fulfilled, long term contributor to society.
- sadamznintern 8y ago
  Im of the opinion thats the only optimization function worth using. I dont know of any others in the state Im in - I just graduated from a mediocre state school and cant pass interview loops, but everyone that has attempted to convince me otherwise hasnt, from what i can tell, experienced my long string of getting barely anything for my 10+ years of dilligence and work. Unlike my friends im not a crypto millionaire, an FB employee, etc.
  - sjg007 8y ago
    Just focus on interview prep. Take 6 months and work on it every day for an hour or two. It's a learnable skill.
  - r3xpi 8y ago
    TL;DR: Do not let optics get you down, focus on enjoying life, and do not stop seeking support until you feel supported. Sometime after the relentlessly stupid decisions of my youth and sometime before coming into tech, I had figured out my entire life. I knew exactly where I would be, when I would get there, and what I would be doing. I was in love with my chosen path through life- I was in disbelief how well each and every piece fell into place. Physics and math were the cornerstones of my life, and I spent a non-trivial amount of time every day in awe at the opportunities that were cropping up for me. Along came one of those infamous "life events," and two months later I was begging for a job at McDonald's. I left that job to shovel horse manure on a ranch, making a staggering $300/week. I left that job for my first gig in programming. When I heard the (low, but on the right scale and extraordinary by my standards) salary that they were offering, I literally felt the tension leave my body. I grew up poor- Naturally, I thought life's biggest challenges revolved around money. That first year, I made more money than I had in my entire life up to that point (late 20s). Over the next few years, my salary quadrupled. Me of 10 years ago would have lauded my problem free life; Me of today realizes money was the proxy for deeper issues. A couple of years after making the jump into tech (about 3 years after leaving research), I was having an extremely hard time connecting my day to day with value. It turns out, this issue had been there all along, hiding neatly being the dollar proxy. My mood, demeanor, and overall outlook on life began to tank. I felt trapped in a good career, with people counting on me. I approached my oldest and most trusted friends (read: from the hood) with my problem. Absolutely no one could understand how I could have any problems- I was successful, had disposable income, my coworkers respected me, and the only "poor" habit that I still had was checking my (obviously not overdrawn) bank account several times a day, and always before making a purchase. This is one side of the optics problem, which could probably be spun as a corollary of Dunning-Kruger: Just because it looks good does not mean it is. Keep in mind that social profiles are curated to present the "best" of a person's life/career, even if that only constitutes .0001% of their life. I allowed my friends' optics problem to convince me that I really was not super bummed, even though I felt that I was, and I stopped pursuing support. I eventually returned to buying support from a dealer after ten years clean. The lesson here? Never let someone else convince you you are okay- If you need support, keep looking until you find it (please!). The other side of the optics problem involves those that are looking back at you. This particular side of the optics is interesting, as it only becomes a problem if opted in to by the user. It does not matter what others, even if they are potentially a future manager, think of Amazon as an employer. This is one place in life you totally get to be selfish, and no one will hold it against you: The only opinion of Amazon as an employer that matters is yours. Not NYT's. Not mine. Not HN's. In my own case, I found reprieve in honestly answering the following question at the end of each day: "Did I provide the best solution to the problem that was presented given the constraints that exist?" It certainly is not a remedy for a toxic work culture, but it may help you identify your own intrinsic value, strengths, and weaknesses. Being armed with self awareness can not only help weather the storm while you find your path through life, but it can be a great confidence booster on the interview circuit: As a hiring manager, I can definitely tell when a candidate believes that they crushed it at their last/current position. If you let them get you down, there is a non zero risk that you will get bitter, then carry that bitterness with you into the interviewing room, which compounds the problem when you start to believe that you are undesirable as a candidate/employee. The absolute worst outcome would be opting out. Please do not do that- there is always a way forward if you have the courage to look. I know our legs may grow weary from the journey to here and now, making the first step of any pivot seem insurmountable. Often, that first step is the only one we have to take by ourselves, though. Do not let them get you down and disregard non-meaningful optics. Start thinking about life goals that you would like to reach, and begin formulating a course of action to get there. Sometimes the first step is asking for help, and that is totally okay, too. Also: Rock Climbing. :) If you need any additional support, please feel free to respond to this comment, and I will get contact info to you. Cheers edit: spelling
montyf 8y ago
Sorry, but is this a serious post? Honest question. > My total comp for the first year is only $145k out of undergrad with a base of $106k. My friends at places like Google, FB and Cruise are making more like $180k-$230k by comparison. Heaven forbid someone is making more money than they know what to do with than you are. > Im honestly terrified that the value on the resume will decline over time and i will never be able to get into a more prestigious company. Is this a real concern? Surely you can be hired on technical merit. Google hires new grads! And people who only worked at "top-tier" companies still have to pass an interview everywhere. > The idea of being relegated to a 2nd or third tier company has been eating at me, and comments on places like CSCQ, Blind and this AskHN nearly drove me to suicide before. That's sick. Not to be insensitive for you, but our priorities in this industry are whack. Surely you can find a meaningful job outside of a megacorp that's bleeding the world dry. Or do you just care about money and status?
- clintonb 8y ago
  > Heaven forbid someone is making more money than they know what to do with than you are. I see what you're saying; however, all things being equal, I would want compensation comparable to my peers if we were doing the same job. Why do the same job at two-thirds pay?
  - montyf 8y ago
    I see what you mean as well. But, I don't think this kind of thing should impact your well being. The guy said in other posts that he can't get into those better companies and is considering suicide. It sounds so odd to me that I don't know if he's serious.
    - et-al 8y ago
      It also stinks of tech entitlement / myopia. I have friends in SF/Oakland who make less than six-figures getting by, working longer hours without perks, and none of them are contemplating suicide.
  - kajecounterhack 8y ago
jurassic 8y ago
I wouldn’t worry about being “stuck”. I would focus on the quality and interestingness of work you get in your current role. People who think they are stuck should consider other factors like how they present themselves in interviews. Careers are long and if top companies only hired from other top companies they would soon run out of candidates. I know several people who’ve been hired into these top comp companies from humble backgrounds.
burfog 8y ago
You forgot cost of living. Converting your numbers from Seattle to San Francisco: $203,000 with a base of $148,400. I don't know what the extra $55,000 is. An expected bonus? Some rough guess regarding future value of stock options? Retirement fund matching? You didn't make the distinction for your friends. Where I am, your standard of living can be had for $90,160 with a base of $65,910. The needed pay drops by about 38%, yet the likely salary drops by only 17%, meaning you'd be better off. It's like my dollars are almost 50% better than your dollars. That is typical. Pay is generally higher in costly places, but it usually falls far short of the change in living costs.
- humanrebar 8y ago
  > It's like my dollars are almost 50% better than your dollars. Only if you're living paycheck to paycheck. It doesn't make sense to adjust your savings rate (or loan repayment rate) by cost of living. To illustrate, assuming you're living off of your base (a single 20-something can probably do better though), you're comparing saving a $39k bonus or a $24k bonus. That's over a 50% difference in savings rate. That's not to say you should take the higher paying job. There are other considerations besides money, obviously.
  - burfog 8y ago
    Remember that the needed salary and the typical salary don't change at the same rate. Going from his place to mine, that equalizes things for roughly a 20% savings rate. Somebody earning $200,000 in San Francisco who moved to Seattle would gain an extra $33,558 in disposable income, despite income dropping to $142,858. This is because costs drop to $176,414. To equalize the savings in dollars, the rate would need to be 59%. Is that person in San Francisco going to save 59% of their income? If not, they'd be better off in Seattle. Of course, Seattle itself is not cheap, and you can do much better. And yes, there are other considerations, like being able to afford 3500-square-foot house on 5 acres of land and still get to work in under 20 minutes. The cost of living has, baked into it, a sort of normal-for-the-area lifestyle. It is simply expected that less-urban people will have larger houses on larger lots.
leohutson 8y ago
No hiring manager looking at resumes is going to put any stock into whether it says Google, Amazon or FB, or what school you went to. They will care what you worked on. If you bring with you this completely unjustified view that your coworkers are worse, it will show, no one will want to work with you, and you aren't going to get to work on anything interesting. Your attitude is extremely concerning, you have a lot to be proud of career wise already, and you seem unable completely unaware of that. You have a solid base to build on and you could end up anywhere in a few years. Amazon didn't hire you because they have a lower bar than anywhere else, they hired you because someone was impressed by you and wants to give you a shot. Extend them the same courtesy at least. I think you need to seek psychological counselling ASAP, but until then stay away from Reddit, HN etc, as far as I can see your perspective is completely warped by the dishonest way that people present their own professional image, usually because of their own insecurity. Consider why people come to HN to brag -- it's likely because they aren't getting praise anywhere else.
- sokoloff 8y ago
  > No hiring manager looking at resumes is going to put any stock into whether it says Google, Amazon or FB, or what school you went to. Even if the hiring manager won't, it's a fairly safe bet that the filtering stages prior to it landing on a manager's desk will be looking at those things. Have you never been approached by a recruiter talking to you about how excited they are about "the Netflix guy" or the "Stanford woman"? At the lower information density stages in the hiring pipeline, broad generalizations are still important.
  - leohutson 8y ago
    The recruiter is not usually empowered to filter a qualified candidate because they "only" worked at Amazon though, especially not if they made a good impression at Amazon and come with a referral. I don't think anyone with a final say cares what the recruiter says beyond here's a list of CVs, they usually aren't qualified to go much deeper, but if they are, they aren't ranking companies based on what juniors on programming forums think are trendy.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
cylinder 8y ago
This guy is obviously some sort of satirical troll. Stop feeding it.
- leohutson 8y ago
  How are you so certain?
- not_real_acct 8y ago
  I'm thinking the same thing. I've never met a 25yo who complains about making $145K a year.
  - sadamznintern 8y ago
    I’m 22. It’s less about the money and more about the fact that it’s lower tier.
- dang 8y ago
  That word 'obviously' is dangerous here. People vastly overinterpret online comments, especially when it comes to who's trolling (or astroturfing or shilling, etc.) They routinely accuse others of this when it turns out not to be the case. From a careful reading of their comments I don't think that user is trolling at all, but rather is telling the truth (and such data as we can find in the logs confirms it). Now consider the downside if you're wrong. Isn't it obvious that posting like this is a terrible idea? People with suicidal feelings often say things that don't make sense to others. That's a consequence of their being—for whatever reason—in an extreme situation. The particular detail they're expressing the most pain about can seem absurd, if you don't know what else it connects to. But if you were to find out what it connects to, you'd no longer find it absurd, nor would you feel annoyed or dismissive, and you'd surely feel bad about hurting someone in that position.
tormeh 8y ago
>The idea of being relegated to a 2nd or third tier company has been eating at me Relax. Life is only a contest if you think it is. And it's a contest where you're almost certainly going to get below 3rd place. While progress and peak performance is good, satisfaction with what you have is also valuable, probably better, actually.
sjg007 8y ago
It's not a big deal, certainly not worth suicide. You might try to reframe your thinking: Amazon is not 2nd tier. In standalone voice assistants they are basically number 1 at this point. So you have a great opportunity here. Google is playing catch up and Apple has lost its momentum. That being said, if you want to work at Google or FB, identify what you need to improve on and then do it. Interviews are two way streets, it can be as much about them than it is about you. Also the money will come. Focus on learning, networking and doing good work. The money will come eventually.

kajecounterhack 8y ago

> The idea of being relegated to a 2nd or third tier company has been eating at me, and comments on places like CSCQ, Blind and this AskHN nearly drove me to suicide before. This isn't a very healthy outlook. By that I mean using prestige and income level as your optimization function isn't a great way to achieve [fulfillment / joy / making life worth living]. I'm not trying to preach a specific optimization function but I hope you'll talk to people you trust to get some objectivity about what is [healthy / unhealthy] for being a fulfilled, long term contributor to society.

sadamznintern 8y ago
Im of the opinion thats the only optimization function worth using. I dont know of any others in the state Im in - I just graduated from a mediocre state school and cant pass interview loops, but everyone that has attempted to convince me otherwise hasnt, from what i can tell, experienced my long string of getting barely anything for my 10+ years of dilligence and work. Unlike my friends im not a crypto millionaire, an FB employee, etc.
- sjg007 8y ago
  Just focus on interview prep. Take 6 months and work on it every day for an hour or two. It's a learnable skill.
- r3xpi 8y ago
  TL;DR: Do not let optics get you down, focus on enjoying life, and do not stop seeking support until you feel supported. Sometime after the relentlessly stupid decisions of my youth and sometime before coming into tech, I had figured out my entire life. I knew exactly where I would be, when I would get there, and what I would be doing. I was in love with my chosen path through life- I was in disbelief how well each and every piece fell into place. Physics and math were the cornerstones of my life, and I spent a non-trivial amount of time every day in awe at the opportunities that were cropping up for me. Along came one of those infamous "life events," and two months later I was begging for a job at McDonald's. I left that job to shovel horse manure on a ranch, making a staggering $300/week. I left that job for my first gig in programming. When I heard the (low, but on the right scale and extraordinary by my standards) salary that they were offering, I literally felt the tension leave my body. I grew up poor- Naturally, I thought life's biggest challenges revolved around money. That first year, I made more money than I had in my entire life up to that point (late 20s). Over the next few years, my salary quadrupled. Me of 10 years ago would have lauded my problem free life; Me of today realizes money was the proxy for deeper issues. A couple of years after making the jump into tech (about 3 years after leaving research), I was having an extremely hard time connecting my day to day with value. It turns out, this issue had been there all along, hiding neatly being the dollar proxy. My mood, demeanor, and overall outlook on life began to tank. I felt trapped in a good career, with people counting on me. I approached my oldest and most trusted friends (read: from the hood) with my problem. Absolutely no one could understand how I could have any problems- I was successful, had disposable income, my coworkers respected me, and the only "poor" habit that I still had was checking my (obviously not overdrawn) bank account several times a day, and always before making a purchase. This is one side of the optics problem, which could probably be spun as a corollary of Dunning-Kruger: Just because it looks good does not mean it is. Keep in mind that social profiles are curated to present the "best" of a person's life/career, even if that only constitutes .0001% of their life. I allowed my friends' optics problem to convince me that I really was not super bummed, even though I felt that I was, and I stopped pursuing support. I eventually returned to buying support from a dealer after ten years clean. The lesson here? Never let someone else convince you you are okay- If you need support, keep looking until you find it (please!). The other side of the optics problem involves those that are looking back at you. This particular side of the optics is interesting, as it only becomes a problem if opted in to by the user. It does not matter what others, even if they are potentially a future manager, think of Amazon as an employer. This is one place in life you totally get to be selfish, and no one will hold it against you: The only opinion of Amazon as an employer that matters is yours. Not NYT's. Not mine. Not HN's. In my own case, I found reprieve in honestly answering the following question at the end of each day: "Did I provide the best solution to the problem that was presented given the constraints that exist?" It certainly is not a remedy for a toxic work culture, but it may help you identify your own intrinsic value, strengths, and weaknesses. Being armed with self awareness can not only help weather the storm while you find your path through life, but it can be a great confidence booster on the interview circuit: As a hiring manager, I can definitely tell when a candidate believes that they crushed it at their last/current position. If you let them get you down, there is a non zero risk that you will get bitter, then carry that bitterness with you into the interviewing room, which compounds the problem when you start to believe that you are undesirable as a candidate/employee. The absolute worst outcome would be opting out. Please do not do that- there is always a way forward if you have the courage to look. I know our legs may grow weary from the journey to here and now, making the first step of any pivot seem insurmountable. Often, that first step is the only one we have to take by ourselves, though. Do not let them get you down and disregard non-meaningful optics. Start thinking about life goals that you would like to reach, and begin formulating a course of action to get there. Sometimes the first step is asking for help, and that is totally okay, too. Also: Rock Climbing. :) If you need any additional support, please feel free to respond to this comment, and I will get contact info to you. Cheers edit: spelling

montyf 8y ago

Sorry, but is this a serious post? Honest question. > My total comp for the first year is only $145k out of undergrad with a base of $106k. My friends at places like Google, FB and Cruise are making more like $180k-$230k by comparison. Heaven forbid someone is making more money than they know what to do with than you are. > Im honestly terrified that the value on the resume will decline over time and i will never be able to get into a more prestigious company. Is this a real concern? Surely you can be hired on technical merit. Google hires new grads! And people who only worked at "top-tier" companies still have to pass an interview everywhere. > The idea of being relegated to a 2nd or third tier company has been eating at me, and comments on places like CSCQ, Blind and this AskHN nearly drove me to suicide before. That's sick. Not to be insensitive for you, but our priorities in this industry are whack. Surely you can find a meaningful job outside of a megacorp that's bleeding the world dry. Or do you just care about money and status?

clintonb 8y ago
> Heaven forbid someone is making more money than they know what to do with than you are. I see what you're saying; however, all things being equal, I would want compensation comparable to my peers if we were doing the same job. Why do the same job at two-thirds pay?
- montyf 8y ago
  I see what you mean as well. But, I don't think this kind of thing should impact your well being. The guy said in other posts that he can't get into those better companies and is considering suicide. It sounds so odd to me that I don't know if he's serious.
  - et-al 8y ago
    It also stinks of tech entitlement / myopia. I have friends in SF/Oakland who make less than six-figures getting by, working longer hours without perks, and none of them are contemplating suicide.
- kajecounterhack 8y ago

jurassic 8y ago

I wouldn’t worry about being “stuck”. I would focus on the quality and interestingness of work you get in your current role. People who think they are stuck should consider other factors like how they present themselves in interviews. Careers are long and if top companies only hired from other top companies they would soon run out of candidates. I know several people who’ve been hired into these top comp companies from humble backgrounds.

burfog 8y ago

You forgot cost of living. Converting your numbers from Seattle to San Francisco: $203,000 with a base of $148,400. I don't know what the extra $55,000 is. An expected bonus? Some rough guess regarding future value of stock options? Retirement fund matching? You didn't make the distinction for your friends. Where I am, your standard of living can be had for $90,160 with a base of $65,910. The needed pay drops by about 38%, yet the likely salary drops by only 17%, meaning you'd be better off. It's like my dollars are almost 50% better than your dollars. That is typical. Pay is generally higher in costly places, but it usually falls far short of the change in living costs.

humanrebar 8y ago
> It's like my dollars are almost 50% better than your dollars. Only if you're living paycheck to paycheck. It doesn't make sense to adjust your savings rate (or loan repayment rate) by cost of living. To illustrate, assuming you're living off of your base (a single 20-something can probably do better though), you're comparing saving a $39k bonus or a $24k bonus. That's over a 50% difference in savings rate. That's not to say you should take the higher paying job. There are other considerations besides money, obviously.
- burfog 8y ago
  Remember that the needed salary and the typical salary don't change at the same rate. Going from his place to mine, that equalizes things for roughly a 20% savings rate. Somebody earning $200,000 in San Francisco who moved to Seattle would gain an extra $33,558 in disposable income, despite income dropping to $142,858. This is because costs drop to $176,414. To equalize the savings in dollars, the rate would need to be 59%. Is that person in San Francisco going to save 59% of their income? If not, they'd be better off in Seattle. Of course, Seattle itself is not cheap, and you can do much better. And yes, there are other considerations, like being able to afford 3500-square-foot house on 5 acres of land and still get to work in under 20 minutes. The cost of living has, baked into it, a sort of normal-for-the-area lifestyle. It is simply expected that less-urban people will have larger houses on larger lots.

leohutson 8y ago

No hiring manager looking at resumes is going to put any stock into whether it says Google, Amazon or FB, or what school you went to. They will care what you worked on. If you bring with you this completely unjustified view that your coworkers are worse, it will show, no one will want to work with you, and you aren't going to get to work on anything interesting. Your attitude is extremely concerning, you have a lot to be proud of career wise already, and you seem unable completely unaware of that. You have a solid base to build on and you could end up anywhere in a few years. Amazon didn't hire you because they have a lower bar than anywhere else, they hired you because someone was impressed by you and wants to give you a shot. Extend them the same courtesy at least. I think you need to seek psychological counselling ASAP, but until then stay away from Reddit, HN etc, as far as I can see your perspective is completely warped by the dishonest way that people present their own professional image, usually because of their own insecurity. Consider why people come to HN to brag -- it's likely because they aren't getting praise anywhere else.

sokoloff 8y ago
> No hiring manager looking at resumes is going to put any stock into whether it says Google, Amazon or FB, or what school you went to. Even if the hiring manager won't, it's a fairly safe bet that the filtering stages prior to it landing on a manager's desk will be looking at those things. Have you never been approached by a recruiter talking to you about how excited they are about "the Netflix guy" or the "Stanford woman"? At the lower information density stages in the hiring pipeline, broad generalizations are still important.
- leohutson 8y ago
  The recruiter is not usually empowered to filter a qualified candidate because they "only" worked at Amazon though, especially not if they made a good impression at Amazon and come with a referral. I don't think anyone with a final say cares what the recruiter says beyond here's a list of CVs, they usually aren't qualified to go much deeper, but if they are, they aren't ranking companies based on what juniors on programming forums think are trendy.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

cylinder 8y ago

This guy is obviously some sort of satirical troll. Stop feeding it.

leohutson 8y ago
How are you so certain?
not_real_acct 8y ago
I'm thinking the same thing. I've never met a 25yo who complains about making $145K a year.
- sadamznintern 8y ago
  I’m 22. It’s less about the money and more about the fact that it’s lower tier.
dang 8y ago
That word 'obviously' is dangerous here. People vastly overinterpret online comments, especially when it comes to who's trolling (or astroturfing or shilling, etc.) They routinely accuse others of this when it turns out not to be the case. From a careful reading of their comments I don't think that user is trolling at all, but rather is telling the truth (and such data as we can find in the logs confirms it). Now consider the downside if you're wrong. Isn't it obvious that posting like this is a terrible idea? People with suicidal feelings often say things that don't make sense to others. That's a consequence of their being—for whatever reason—in an extreme situation. The particular detail they're expressing the most pain about can seem absurd, if you don't know what else it connects to. But if you were to find out what it connects to, you'd no longer find it absurd, nor would you feel annoyed or dismissive, and you'd surely feel bad about hurting someone in that position.

tormeh 8y ago

>The idea of being relegated to a 2nd or third tier company has been eating at me Relax. Life is only a contest if you think it is. And it's a contest where you're almost certainly going to get below 3rd place. While progress and peak performance is good, satisfaction with what you have is also valuable, probably better, actually.

sjg007 8y ago

It's not a big deal, certainly not worth suicide. You might try to reframe your thinking: Amazon is not 2nd tier. In standalone voice assistants they are basically number 1 at this point. So you have a great opportunity here. Google is playing catch up and Apple has lost its momentum. That being said, if you want to work at Google or FB, identify what you need to improve on and then do it. Interviews are two way streets, it can be as much about them than it is about you. Also the money will come. Focus on learning, networking and doing good work. The money will come eventually.