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I think this is getting upvoted because everybody likes to dogpile on Amazon. But nothing this guy says seems to reflect especially poorly on Amazon. If the aut

I think this is getting upvoted because everybody likes to dogpile on Amazon. But nothing this guy says seems to reflect especially poorly on Amazon. If the author is going through another job search now I might recommend taking the piece down; it's not doing you a ton of favors. The summary: guy interviews and accepts an SDE1 role at Amazon, guy resists building alliances with those holding power in the org, guy is surprised that his work is boring and nobody trusts him to make big decisions, guy quits. Reality: No large company is going to let newbie junior hires call the shots. Everything in this piece was completely foreseeable and does not reflect poorly on Amazon. You have to earn trust in any company, especially when hired into a low-level role. I also don't understand why the candidate with 10 years of industry experience decided to move forward with interviewing after being told it was for an SDE1 position. It seems like he missed a big opportunity to realign expectations at that early stage of the interview process.

kev009 8y ago
Most of your points are good but SDE1 may be all the sycophant recruiters would let him in the door at for a variety of reasons that are a dystopian caricature of "values" and misaligned incentives. If his intentions were to quickly try his luck at a tech giant like Amazon, he probably did so the only way possible.
- jurassic 8y ago
  Not sure what you mean by "sycophant recruiters". Most recruiters I've worked with were strongly motivated to bring good people on board at their company. If you are an attractive candidate but you let them know you're only interested in pursuing roles at a certain (non-entry) level, they'll either make adjustments to slot you into interviews for that other higher role or the process doesn't move forward and everyone avoids wasting time. It's really a win-win to be upfront about your leveling expectations early.
  - bradknowles 8y ago
    There are good recruiters, who do tend to act this way. But then there are also bad recruiters, who seem to think that blindly generating as many candidates as possible and throwing against the wall as many resumes as possible, is a good way to do business. I’ve learned enough in this business that I have been able to avoid bad recruiters for a long time, but not everyone has that kind of luxury — or luck. Of course, even if you do get a good recruiter who has contacted you about a position, it’s entirely possible that it might be for a shitty company, or maybe just not a company or position you are well suited to. There’s lots of things that can go wrong in this process.
  - kev009 8y ago
    Because there are developers like him that were beating on the door to get in, the function of recruiters is a joke at widely known companies. The needed function would have been called secretarial work a few decades ago but grifters have flocked into most companies and built empires completely outside the line of business and common sense. He needed to talk to hiring managers and find a good team fit and be placed at a level that reflected his capabilities on that team. Only hiring managers can do that unless recruiters start putting in a decade of building software and managing development teams and somehow intimately know a manager's personality. A hiring manager might occasionally need a search firm to find people outside their own network, but that is a completely different function and the manager should start the interviewing after receiving lightly screened resumes. Bottom line if you want to be a leader you need to step up and do your job, and that means recruiting and building your team.
kerng 8y ago
In a smaller company even a junior person can have impact. It's more of a reflection of being a cog in the wheel of a large "soul less" corporation...
lilyball 8y ago
Someone with 10 years of experience getting offered an SDE1 role is a huge red flag for me and makes me wonder what this person's skill set actually is.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- philliphaydon 8y ago
  I'm willing to bet if I interviewed at Amazon (or Google/MS/FB/Uber) I would probably be put in a similar role, despite having been programming since I was 8 with 14 years of commercial experience. I never went to Uni and have no degree.
  - twblalock 8y ago
    I know engineers in your situation. I've interviewed a few. It is unusual for someone with 10+ years of experience to be considered for an entry-level job, no matter what kind of education they have.
    - ianai 8y ago
      Wouldn’t that be likely for someone with 10 years of experience in a very niche technology - say cobol - but applying for a C/c++ job?
      - twblalock 8y ago
        In my experience years on the job are what determine the level someone gets hired at, not skill in a specific language. Being a senior engineer is not normally about raw coding skill -- it's about knowing how to design a complex system, knowing what can go wrong, being able to collaborate effectively with others, and so on. The specific language used is not normally going to make a big difference in those areas, although candidates who need to pick up a new language are going to take longer to ramp up.
    - philliphaydon 8y ago
hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
I agree that I don't think anything the author has written reflects particularly poorly on Amazon, but did you make it down to the "Summary" at the end of the article? Because the author basically says "Yeah, probably just wasn't a good fit for me." All in all I found it was just the normal level of "big company bullshit" that is in fact a necessity whenever you have very large groups of people trying to work towards a common goal.
skookumchuck 8y ago
In my organization we often have newbies come in and want to re-architect the system from the ground up, then get angry when the leads don't agree.
throwaway648 8y ago
> I also don't understand why the candidate with 10 years of industry experience decided to move forward with interviewing after being told it was for an SDE1 position. | given the fact that I wasn’t too efficient with Java (it was not the primary tool in my past experience) Maybe because his 10 years didn’t give him the relevant knowledge? Also, his attitudes sends a clear ”I’m a junior” message, so SDE1 might have been right call.
- agoldis 8y ago
  < Also, his attitudes sends a clear ”I’m a junior” message, so SDE1 might have been right call. Please explain. I don't mind to be called "junior" or whatever title you stick on me, but what is "junior attitude"?
  - ALittleLight 8y ago
    In my experience junior people need to be told what the problem is and directed what to do. Seniors tend to bring up the problems along with potential options. That's one difference in attitude I can think of.
  - throwaway648 8y ago
    For one, you accepted a junior position. Then you seemed to expect to be treated as a senior. Then you seemed to be surprised by the issues, again showing you lacked the experience of a senior. I feel you got good guidance but it feels it was not well received. The away team experience also felt a bit juniory. Your requests we not priotorized high enough but you didn’t find the tools or means to go around it. Understanding their needs and life in general would be an indication of seniority. Finally, I think it takes at least a year to see how you are able to cope and progress. It takes time and effort to make any changes in a huge corporation. In the end, I think that you would not have enjoyed yourself working in that environment so you made the right call. It takes certain character traits to be able to enjoy navigating and gaming such corporate culture. Source: ex enterpreneur with two decades of experience, atm employed in a >100k employee corporation and loving it.
shortoncash 8y ago
I somewhat agree with this comment, but I don't want him to take his article down. I really hope people out there manage their expectations and come to terms with reality by matching up their experiences with this guy's experiences, followed by reading comments like yours on HN. I hope the net isn't too harsh on this guy for being honest.
- Epskampie 8y ago
  Agreed, I enjoyed reading it because it’s honest and non-dramatic. Seems like the average experience a tech can expect in big corp land.
blub 8y ago
Why is it "completely foreseeable" and normal to you? OP had a work visa for Canada and he and his colleagues were forced to break the terms of the visa and do work in the US. That alone is such a major clusterfuck that it should push everyone away from working at Amazon Canada.
jdboyd 8y ago
> Everything in this piece was completely foreseeable and does not reflect poorly on Amazon. Most of what you say is true, except the part about expecting him to work in Seattle illegally. If true, that reflects terribly on Amazon.

kev009 8y ago

Most of your points are good but SDE1 may be all the sycophant recruiters would let him in the door at for a variety of reasons that are a dystopian caricature of "values" and misaligned incentives. If his intentions were to quickly try his luck at a tech giant like Amazon, he probably did so the only way possible.

jurassic 8y ago
Not sure what you mean by "sycophant recruiters". Most recruiters I've worked with were strongly motivated to bring good people on board at their company. If you are an attractive candidate but you let them know you're only interested in pursuing roles at a certain (non-entry) level, they'll either make adjustments to slot you into interviews for that other higher role or the process doesn't move forward and everyone avoids wasting time. It's really a win-win to be upfront about your leveling expectations early.
- bradknowles 8y ago
  There are good recruiters, who do tend to act this way. But then there are also bad recruiters, who seem to think that blindly generating as many candidates as possible and throwing against the wall as many resumes as possible, is a good way to do business. I’ve learned enough in this business that I have been able to avoid bad recruiters for a long time, but not everyone has that kind of luxury — or luck. Of course, even if you do get a good recruiter who has contacted you about a position, it’s entirely possible that it might be for a shitty company, or maybe just not a company or position you are well suited to. There’s lots of things that can go wrong in this process.
- kev009 8y ago
  Because there are developers like him that were beating on the door to get in, the function of recruiters is a joke at widely known companies. The needed function would have been called secretarial work a few decades ago but grifters have flocked into most companies and built empires completely outside the line of business and common sense. He needed to talk to hiring managers and find a good team fit and be placed at a level that reflected his capabilities on that team. Only hiring managers can do that unless recruiters start putting in a decade of building software and managing development teams and somehow intimately know a manager's personality. A hiring manager might occasionally need a search firm to find people outside their own network, but that is a completely different function and the manager should start the interviewing after receiving lightly screened resumes. Bottom line if you want to be a leader you need to step up and do your job, and that means recruiting and building your team.

kerng 8y ago

In a smaller company even a junior person can have impact. It's more of a reflection of being a cog in the wheel of a large "soul less" corporation...

lilyball 8y ago

Someone with 10 years of experience getting offered an SDE1 role is a huge red flag for me and makes me wonder what this person's skill set actually is.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
philliphaydon 8y ago
I'm willing to bet if I interviewed at Amazon (or Google/MS/FB/Uber) I would probably be put in a similar role, despite having been programming since I was 8 with 14 years of commercial experience. I never went to Uni and have no degree.
- twblalock 8y ago
  I know engineers in your situation. I've interviewed a few. It is unusual for someone with 10+ years of experience to be considered for an entry-level job, no matter what kind of education they have.
  - ianai 8y ago
    Wouldn’t that be likely for someone with 10 years of experience in a very niche technology - say cobol - but applying for a C/c++ job?
    - twblalock 8y ago
      In my experience years on the job are what determine the level someone gets hired at, not skill in a specific language. Being a senior engineer is not normally about raw coding skill -- it's about knowing how to design a complex system, knowing what can go wrong, being able to collaborate effectively with others, and so on. The specific language used is not normally going to make a big difference in those areas, although candidates who need to pick up a new language are going to take longer to ramp up.
  - philliphaydon 8y ago

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago

I agree that I don't think anything the author has written reflects particularly poorly on Amazon, but did you make it down to the "Summary" at the end of the article? Because the author basically says "Yeah, probably just wasn't a good fit for me." All in all I found it was just the normal level of "big company bullshit" that is in fact a necessity whenever you have very large groups of people trying to work towards a common goal.

skookumchuck 8y ago

In my organization we often have newbies come in and want to re-architect the system from the ground up, then get angry when the leads don't agree.

throwaway648 8y ago

> I also don't understand why the candidate with 10 years of industry experience decided to move forward with interviewing after being told it was for an SDE1 position. | given the fact that I wasn’t too efficient with Java (it was not the primary tool in my past experience) Maybe because his 10 years didn’t give him the relevant knowledge? Also, his attitudes sends a clear ”I’m a junior” message, so SDE1 might have been right call.

agoldis 8y ago
< Also, his attitudes sends a clear ”I’m a junior” message, so SDE1 might have been right call. Please explain. I don't mind to be called "junior" or whatever title you stick on me, but what is "junior attitude"?
- ALittleLight 8y ago
  In my experience junior people need to be told what the problem is and directed what to do. Seniors tend to bring up the problems along with potential options. That's one difference in attitude I can think of.
- throwaway648 8y ago
  For one, you accepted a junior position. Then you seemed to expect to be treated as a senior. Then you seemed to be surprised by the issues, again showing you lacked the experience of a senior. I feel you got good guidance but it feels it was not well received. The away team experience also felt a bit juniory. Your requests we not priotorized high enough but you didn’t find the tools or means to go around it. Understanding their needs and life in general would be an indication of seniority. Finally, I think it takes at least a year to see how you are able to cope and progress. It takes time and effort to make any changes in a huge corporation. In the end, I think that you would not have enjoyed yourself working in that environment so you made the right call. It takes certain character traits to be able to enjoy navigating and gaming such corporate culture. Source: ex enterpreneur with two decades of experience, atm employed in a >100k employee corporation and loving it.

shortoncash 8y ago

I somewhat agree with this comment, but I don't want him to take his article down. I really hope people out there manage their expectations and come to terms with reality by matching up their experiences with this guy's experiences, followed by reading comments like yours on HN. I hope the net isn't too harsh on this guy for being honest.

Epskampie 8y ago
Agreed, I enjoyed reading it because it’s honest and non-dramatic. Seems like the average experience a tech can expect in big corp land.

blub 8y ago

Why is it "completely foreseeable" and normal to you? OP had a work visa for Canada and he and his colleagues were forced to break the terms of the visa and do work in the US. That alone is such a major clusterfuck that it should push everyone away from working at Amazon Canada.

jdboyd 8y ago

> Everything in this piece was completely foreseeable and does not reflect poorly on Amazon. Most of what you say is true, except the part about expecting him to work in Seattle illegally. If true, that reflects terribly on Amazon.