19 ms·

Why I Turned Down an AWS Job Offer

• shiftoutbox 7y ago
  I hear its a shitty place to work.
• sokoloff 7y ago
  > Note that it’s scoped to Amazon—not just AWS. Well, it’s also scoped to products that the employee worked on or received Confidential Information about. Not just all of Amazon, full stop. IMO, that’s far more reasonable. Work only on AWS and get no Confidential Info about other aspects of Amazon and it’s scoped to just AWS for you.
  • rootusrootus 7y ago
    "or supported", which can be construed very broadly.
• daenz 7y ago
  How does refusing to sign a non-compete clause typically play out? I imagine it goes back and forth, and I'm trying to imagine a tactful way to do it that doesn't burn the relationship.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • toomuchtodo 7y ago
    It depends on the value you can deliver. If you are valuable enough, a negotiation takes place. If you're a cog, the job offer will be rescinded. Never give notice at your current gig until you've seen everything you'll be required to sign at your new gig.
    • bitexploder 7y ago
      I don’t think it burns the bridge. It is acceptable to have a moral and ethical objection to NDAs if you are just a staff IT worker.
      • toomuchtodo 7y ago
        I agree entirely. I have (politely) rejected several AWS recruiter inquiries because of Amazon business practices.
  • formercoder 7y ago
    I've joined a small company who, upon my request, scoped the non-compete very specifically and added a clause stating that work I produce that did not compete belonged to me. I've joined a big company who said "this is the contract, sign it"
  • biggerfisch 7y ago
    Personally, I've had a varied experience here. In one company, I explained my moral objection to this agreements and ended up getting in writing that it would not be enforced from the CEO/Owner of the company. That email and the fact that the scope was fairly tight (as opposed to this article) made me feel comfortable signing it. In a second case, I was actually able to negotiate it away. I ended up not taking that job for other reasons, but before that decision was made, they had retracted the need for it. Anecdotal, but maybe useful.
  • bitexploder 7y ago
    If you are already employed this is a big thing to ask of an existing employee. Easy to say no, just be prepared to get fired. I don’t think there is a lot of nuance: “I don’t feel comfortable signing this agreement.” It unfairly limits your ability to earn a living IMO. Good luck getting in the door of a big company if the NDA is “policy”.
  • xwdv 7y ago
    The good news is you will be free to compete.
  • SkyMarshal 7y ago
    Some non-competes are written in a way where they are effectively asking you not to practice your profession for a year or whatever after leaving the company. You wouldn't ask a lawyer for that, or a doctor, etc., and shouldn't ask an engineer either. Sometimes the company can justify it if they provided something compensatory, like months of company-paid high-value training and skills development that significantly advanced your profession. Especially if the non-compete duration begins after that training ended buy while you still work for the company. Finish your training, stay at that company for the duration of the non-compete, then you're free to leave and work for a competitor if you want. Company gets their money's worth, and you're not stuck with a non-compete that begins the day you leave.
  • Spooky23 7y ago
    Depends. If it's a big company with centralized administration, it's not going to happen. With a smaller company, a less assholey company or a somewhat independent division of a bigger company it's possible.
  • flurdy 7y ago
    I have had a non compete clause suggested by my last few clients. Usually initially 12 months. For the last few the conversations have usually been like this: (client): "Here is our standard contract" (me): "Please remove the 12 months non compete clause" (client): "How about 6 months non compete?" (me): "No" (client): "3 months?" (me): "Fine, where do I sign?" I don't mind 3 months non compete. I can take a longer holiday if I desperately need to go straight back. I never have and 6 months is probably ok as well. It is mostly if I go somewhere else and it for some reasons finished early after a few months, then I am free to go wherever I choose.
  • PeterisP 7y ago
    Well, the linked article claims that they tried to negotiate out of the non-compete and it was absolutely refused, so they didn't work there.
• dvt 7y ago
  I've also turned down countless Amazon interview offers. In fact, I don't get how I'm still on their recruitment lists after asking several times to be removed. Amazon has arguably the worst culture out of any large tech company, and generally treats its workers like dirt. Given all my friends that worked for them, almost all have quit within 5 years. Given their abysmal warehouse management, it's no surprise they have the second highest employee turnover out of all Fortune 500 companies[1]. This scummy way of enforcing a "never enforced" NDA is just Amazon doing Amazon things. I mean, just think about the stress and money that must go into fighting a multi-billion dollar corporation in court. Keep away. [1] https://www.ibtimes.com/amazoncom-has-second-highest-employee-turnover-all-fortune-500-companies-1361257 https://www.ibtimes.com/amazoncom-has-second-highest-employe...
  • ses1984 7y ago
    How many friends do you have who worked for a company more than 5 years? Work for Amazon for 2 years, learn a lot, get paid a lot, move on.
    • philsnow 7y ago
      Except the vast majority of your equity award, which itself makes up the vast majority of your total compensation at Amazon as an engineer, vests in your third and fourth years. Your first and second years you vest 5% and 15% (reportedly).
      • praneshp 7y ago
        Being an intern is a huge bonus here. My wife got a decent equity grant under the terrible 5/15/../.. plan, but also a 20k cash bonus for each of the first two years for being a returning intern. This makes it very attractive to quit after two years, imo
        • rifung 7y ago
          I don't think you need to be a returning intern to get the cash bonus. At least I got one without being an intern
• Naac 7y ago
  Amazon is not the only company to sue over this, Microsoft successfully sued as well[0]. In fact, several large companies have pushed to keep these non-competes in place in Washington State[1]. I don't think it's fair to focus only on Amazon. The reality is that in Washington State, this benefits many large corporations ( while being harmful to employees ) so it is the company's incentive to try and keep the non-compete as broad and ambiguous as possible. [0] https://www.infoworld.com/article/2671108/microsoft-sues-google--former-employee-over-hiring.html https://www.infoworld.com/article/2671108/microsoft-sues-goo... [1] https://www.geekwire.com/2019/tech-leaders-sound-off-washington-states-new-non-compete-restrictions/ https://www.geekwire.com/2019/tech-leaders-sound-off-washing...
  • awinder 7y ago
    Applying a noncompete to sales (as in the parent article) or as jimmy johns has done is pretty beyond the pale. I don’t like noncompetes and think they’re hostile but someone at corporate officer level having it enforced is a different world.
  • seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    Did Microsoft actually win the Kaifu case, the one Steve ballmer famously threw the chair about? They settled, but the terms didn’t appear to be in much of Microsoft’s benefit.
    • joshu 7y ago
      vic gundotra
  • lern_too_spel 7y ago
    It's a wage suppression device. If you live in Washington, you should complain to your state representative.
    • mlguy456 7y ago
      Do you want to talk to your representative or AG in this case? I also have a wild idea: software engineers can actually lobby this change. They form a non profit organization, make contributions (say 10k each) and go talk to the right politics. This what corps do, but thus is what people can do to.
• rectang 7y ago
  > Come on, AWS. Do better than this. The advantages are too significant. If a company of sufficient size isn't doing this, they're doing something else. Statistically, employees cannot win; there may be outliers where an employee prevails, but in the aggregate, the company will win — and that makes these draconian policies worthwhile. Companies enjoy economies of scale when it comes to negotiating employment, because they hire over and over and over again. Meanwhile, individual employee candidates must reinvent the wheel with each negotiation. If you ever end up in court or arbitration, the unfathomable resources that the company can bring to bear means you're not fighting a fair fight. Our court system is by and large for the purchase of victories by those who can afford enough lawyering to exploit every advantage. The only way to fix this is through government statute to change the labor market. The way the market has been constructed, employees will forever be on the losing end.
  • GoodJokes 7y ago
    There is also a thing called unions.
    • cameronbrown 7y ago
      The tech industry has the best horizontal mobility of any other right now. Why do we need the downside of unions when we can just move company and have only the upsides?
      • guitarbill 7y ago
        Because not everybody will be in a position to "just move" for various reasons, and you care about your co-workers? Or you simply have the sense to realise that you may be in an unfavourable position sometime in the future that may not be your fault?
      • frenchyatwork 7y ago
        I've never been a union member, or worked as a white collar worker at a unionized place, but I'm curious what you think the downside of unions are? I'd personally be quite in favor of the transparency that unions bring to things like pay scales and HR processes. Is it just the dues you don't like? Edit: the only story I've heard in tech that involved unions was the strike at the Eugen gaming company, and as far as I can tell, they had pretty good reason to strike.
• SteveNuts 7y ago
  Every time I've talked to AWS Recruiters they've belittled by past experience and just generally made me feel bad about my career. I will never ever work there, no matter how cool their tech stack must be.
  • _q1cj 7y ago
    I can tell you from experience, the internal Amazon stack is not cool or inventive.
    • ryanmarsh 7y ago
      If anything it’s scary. From what I’ve heard software engineering practices at AWS leave much to be desired.
      • algaeontoast 7y ago
        Yep, it's almost as much've a shit-storm as Amazon's internal tools - which are rife with errors and pushed by Amazonians because "open source is shit" (verbatim from a lead engineer).
        • greyskull 7y ago
          That seems a bit inflammatory. Anecdotally most of the people I've interacted with especially like open source. My team is increasing our involvement in the open source projects we use. A lot of the internal tooling is due to legacy and inertia. There's 20+ years of history, and so much has been built and continues to be built that it's enormous investment to steer a different direction. Incremental improvements have higher reward ratio. But people do want better a better development experience, especially w.r.t. idiomatic language tooling. That being said, initiatives are brewing for that "enormous investment".
    • SteveNuts 7y ago
      Certain things must be pretty cool/groundbreaking though. Just watching things like Youtube videos about how VPC works is pretty amazing. I won't let that blind me to the fact that the company seems pretty toxic.
• sergiotapia 7y ago
  Very eye opening, thank you. I had no idea Amazon treated their employees this way. I turned down two amazon interviews because I asked them if they still did the whole whiteboard-leetcode-type interviews, and they did so I passed.
• sgnnseven 7y ago
  Same happened to me. A few years back, I got an offer from Amazon after going through the interview pipeline and the non-compete and outside-of-work IP assignment were the only thing I asked to be changed since they were draconian given Amazon's wide breadth of products. They declined to make the change so I declined to accept their offer. In general, Amazon doesn't make positive impressions on potential employees by saying "work for us and we could easily prevent you from working anywhere else for a year and a half (and please trust us that we won't)".
  • ryandrake 7y ago
    This has been my experience with big tech companies as well. Many are willing to negotiate compensation, a few will negotiate holiday and benefits, but none of them will touch legal agreements like NDAs, copyright assignment and non-competes. And if you try the cute “cross off the terms you don’t like and initial them” trick, you’ll get a stern warning letter from Legal to sign it unmodified or GTFO.
    • blackflame7000 7y ago
      A lot of the hiring people just don't have the authority to contact legal and request a change to an agreement because the implications of that change must be reviewed by expensive lawyers.
• mAEStro-paNDa 7y ago
  So this has mostly to do with a non-complete clause. The author is pretty explicit in their view: > This clause is, to be direct, abusive. As far as I'm aware this is something that has been apparent for quite some time, and isn't limited to just Amazon. I can't personally conceive of why anyone subject to one of these would have any reason to believe that this isn't just another tool that benefits the company alone, and could perhaps even be used against you. A discussion about clauses such as this is well needed in general, not just the tech industry. Honestly, the real story that perhaps has more relevancy to tech is having (as the author correctly recognizes) the kind of privilege to turn down a job with Amazon. I'm no fan of Amazon but that would be something very difficult to turn down.
  • rectang 7y ago
    > A discussion about clauses such as this is well needed in general We can have a discussion, but because money is speech, the voices of individuals will be drowned out by the voices of corporations.
    • cperciva 7y ago
      The world has far more individuals than hundred billion dollar corporations.
      • kevin_b_er 7y ago
        And their ability to voice themselves is related to how much money they have. After all, nearly all forms of mass communication are directly controlled by said corporations.
        • pmiller2 7y ago
          Roughly 5 corporations effectively are nearly all forms of mass communication.
      • zentiggr 7y ago
        The hundred billion dollar companies have the ability to buy the storyline they want portrayed in the media. How many of those individuals can do the same? May as well have no voice unless they collaborate.
• algaeontoast 7y ago
  Working for amazon is like joining a fascist cult - you made the right decision. Source - worked for a startup that was acquired by Amazon. My team was slowly managed out of the company and replaced by teams in Seattle. Most of my team was let go by PIP, essentially claiming we weren't "performing at a high enough standard" since they weren't willing to reprehend my boss for being incompetent. However, I'm proud of the fact that in my exit interview my incompetent boss tried to have me give a "reason for my willful exit" to which I responded "oranges". I mostly did this because there was an Amazon HR person on Chime (internal Amazon Skype) during the meeting recording a transcript of the meeting. So at some point, my boss had to explain to her boss why she fired someone and explain why my reason was "oranges". TLDR: Amazon is cheap, doesn't care about workers and is kind of horrible.
  • mirceal 7y ago
    exit interview advice (applies everywhere): politely decline the exit interview. there is zero upside to doing an exit interview
    • dickeytk 7y ago
      Call me a naïf, but I think exit interviews are a great way to speak candidly to skip-level managers about dissatisfactions you have—with the aim of making the company you’re leaving potentially a bit better for your colleagues. EDIT: I think “feedback” here is somewhat vague. You guys are talking about issues there would be no point in raising. For me this is not systemic issues. I would bring up more minor things, “I think Chris would be better suited to work on XYZ project”, “The company work parties make me a bit uncomfortable with the amount of alcohol.” “I know Jane wants to be a manager but I’m not sure she’d be so great at it.” I think these fall into the realm where I wouldn’t bring it up before the exit interview, but they might provide some benefit that skip levels would be able to provide.
      • munchbunny 7y ago
        I think it's both admirable and naive. My experience with upper management is that it rots from the top, so if you're quitting due to systemic issues or because of your boss, it's very likely due in part to upper management's inability to listen before something blows up. In game theory terms it's pretty much all downside. If you say nothing or if management sends exit interviews straight to the recycle bin, there is zero payoff for you and zero payoff for anyone else. If you say something and management is bad at listening, you burn bridges and nobody else benefits. If you say something and management is good, you get nothing and others after you benefit. More often than not management is bad at listening. In other words, it never improves anything for you and rarely improves anything for others. I used to be a strong believer in giving honest feedback during exit interviews, but I definitely don't anymore. If upper management actually cared, they would have gotten and acted on the same feedback from current employees, before they quit. I no longer believe in offering crappy management the privilege of a "I quit" wake-up call at the risk of my own professional reputation/relationships.
• abj 7y ago
  > We need this to protect our business. > It’s never enforced. If these are true, why would a company with 232.9 billion in revenue be afraid of paying an employee's salary only when the non compete is enforced? If the non compete is almost never enforced this agreement would cost the company under 0.01% of total company wide employee spend. Surely if the knowledge was that important to the business the company would easily make up the "extra" salary paid in revenue. It's strange that a company that large wouldn't agree to pay salary if it's chosing to enforce the non-compete. It seems like the choice is motivated by something else than reason. Tradition? Optimizing locally for cost reduction?
  • spyspy 7y ago
    Man if I could just work there a month and then quit with 18 months of guaranteed paid severance...
    • wmf 7y ago
      Presumably in that case they could avoid paying you by canceling the non-compete. They could decide whether the information you learned during your one month is worth paying you.
    • abj 7y ago
      That does sound nice. Ideally though the company wouldn't chose to enforce the non compete because the new employee hadn't picked up any secrets worth sharing in a month. Actually, this might incentivise a new employee to hunt for secrets so they could quit as soon as possible and enjoy their serverance. That might not be ideal.
      • not2b 7y ago
        Even in the absence of non-compete clauses, you're still obliged to keep your company's trade secrets when you leave, or they can sue you. California companies sue each other all the time over things like this.
  • kevin_b_er 7y ago
• ohaideredevs 7y ago
  The only thing that scares me is the IP factor if I work on stuff after work. From what I am hearing, if I am not in Cali, I am at risk even if I don't use company time/equipment? Amazon pretty much doubles salaries in areas outside of California, so it's extremely appealing money-wise if you stick around for the vest.
  • C1sc0cat 7y ago
    Why its a given for professional tech jobs in the UK.
    • ohaideredevs 7y ago
      That's really depressing. Genuinely. If a candidate made a platform of protecting worker IP (created on their own time), I would vote for that candidate based on that alone.
      • walshemj 7y ago
        You would have to completely rewrite employment law - there are better achievable things to work for (banning abusive non competes, an all non competes for all workers paid under 75% of the median salary) and I say that as an Activist.
  • lawnchair_larry 7y ago
    No, this is a common misconception.
    • ohaideredevs 7y ago
      What specifically?
      • lawnchair_larry 7y ago
        No company is ever entitled to work you do on your own time without using company resources, although it might get messy if said work directly competes with the company.
• keypusher 7y ago
  I don’t see anything in this article about Amazon offering the author a job, so I’m a bit confused by the headline. Were they offered a position at Amazon the same week as this non-compete dispute became public and forgot to mention it?
  • Zimahl 7y ago
    The author was offered a position at an earlier time and refused because of the non-compete. The subsections with the quote titles are excuses given to the author by Amazon when he said he complained about the policy.
• gigatexal 7y ago
  This is the ultimate humble brag. To work at the leading cloud operation would be an honor.
  • QuinnyPig 7y ago
    Author here. Like any job, it's an exchange of value on both sides for mutual benefit. I'm incredibly privileged in that I could afford to turn down the offer; not everyone has that privilege. I strongly suspect that if I were willing to sign the clause I'd be welcomed aboard--but that's not really viable for me anymore. In many ways (such as writing this post!) I'm a garbage employee; I'm just glad I recognized it in time.
  • saagarjha 7y ago
    > To work at the leading cloud operation would be an honor. Not if they treat you like garbage.
  • bartread 7y ago
    > This is the ultimate humble brag. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But the point still stands: that non-compete is draconian. Whilst I highly doubt Amazon would be interested in me, I would not be interested in working for them or any other company that could potentially bar me from making a living for any significant period of time after leaving. At the most basic level I need to pay my mortgage and household bills, I need to buy groceries, I need to fuel and service my car; maybe I've got a family I need to provide for. And what's the point of saving from a great salary if you need to spend 18 months burning through those savings after you leave the job? And in what world are most employers going to be willing to wait 18 months to take you on? Seldom enforced is not the same as never enforced. Humblebrag or not, it sounds like a smart decision to me.
  • pnw_hazor 7y ago
    Working at orgs like Amazon, FB, or Google, show poor character and/or low self-esteem.
    • gigatexal 7y ago
• C1sc0cat 7y ago
  OP Seems to be confusing trade secrets and noncompete
  • QuinnyPig 7y ago
    Author here. To be clear, the stated reasons Amazon gave for enforcing the non-compete in their filed lawsuit are already covered under trade secret protections. I'm not the one who's conflating the two. :-)
    • C1sc0cat 7y ago
      Ah I see sounds like they where grasping at straws or relaying on compliant judges. I know on case in the UK where a company (imarsat) tried this American style shit at tribunal - didn't go well.
• _bxg1 7y ago
  Even their warehouse workers sign abusive noncompetes. (Edit: they apparently stopped the practice for hourly workers once it hit the headlines https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-removes-non-compete-clause-for-hourly-workers-2015-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-removes-non-compete-c...) Don't work for Amazon. Don't give them money if you can help it.
• patientplatypus 7y ago
  AMZN even recruits evilly. I once got an email from them that was an email blast to 100s of people. "Congratulations <RECIPIENT>! You have qualified to go to <INSERT CITY FAR AWAR> for a recruiting mixer where you may then apply for a chance to then be interviewed." I want to work for a company where people care about me, at least enough to email me in person and treat me like a human being. I think people think that working for a powerful evil company is fine because at least they are powerful. As if, if you go in with your eyes open and try and get as much money as fast as possible and get out you'll manage to leave emotionally and spiritually unscathed. Who wants to deal with that though? Life is too short to have to live in a kind of horror show.
  • Zimahl 7y ago
    I interviewed with them twice (shame on me after the first debacle). The first time I interviewed with a DB team - my entire resume up until that point was heavy UI development. The problem is I didn't know what team it was with to begin with, I would've declined since it really didn't cover my skills nor interest. The second time was with a search team, and by then I was more into middle-tier development. Interview went well I thought, no red flags. They asked me to do a coding assignment, I said ok. Here's where things go to shit. The interviewer told me he'd send me his email so I could send him the code. I did the assignment but never heard from him about where to send it. Contacted the recruiter, they said to send it to them and they'd forward it on. I got the hint, the interviewer literally did it to waste my time. What an ass. Anyways, I learned my lesson. First, fuck Amazon, their recruiting emails go straight to the trash. Second, no coding assignments ever. I'll do stuff on site if you want but I've never gotten a good result out of coding assignments, and now I'm too experienced to see anything that would be appropriate.
• oarabbus_ 7y ago
  I interviewed with AWS for an analyst/business intelligence engineer role. When asked to write a query to get the total GDP by month per country, I wrote a query along the lines of: select date_trunc('month',datecolumn) as month, country, sum(GDP) over (partition by date_trunc('month', datecolumn), country) FROM the_table order by 1 The interviewer asked me if I was missing something. I said no. "Don't you need an additional clause if you're doing a sum?" "No," I responded, "in AWS Redshift (and postgres and mysql 8.0+ and...) if you do a Sum Window Function a group by is not necessary" The interviewer made a noise and demeanor changed as if I knew not what I was talking about. While I can't be 100% sure, I'm almost positive I was failed for "missing" the group by. I went home later that day and wrote exactly the same query, which ran successfully. The AWS BI Intelligence Engineering manager didn't even know how to use a sum window function. I was a bit frustrated at being failed because the interviewer didn't know of a (well-known, well-used) feature, but perhaps I dodged a bullet.
  • burtonator 7y ago
    These things can always be childish when working with a bad interviewer. I once had an engineer keep interrupting me while I was explaining how sockets work because I wasn't covering small minutia details. Interviewing is an insane process. This is why building networks is more valuable so you're basically being interviewed by people you've already worked with.
    • hinkley 7y ago
      I get too distracted wondering if these people are always like this or just in interviews. The silver lining is that I don't get jobs where the interviewers make me uncomfortable, so I don't have to deal with them more than once.
    • bsg75 7y ago
      > I once had an engineer keep interrupting me while I was explaining how sockets work because I wasn't covering small minutia details. I'm going to be in trouble when it comes time to interview again someday. I am not nearly as accepting of muscle flexing (anti-social behavior) as I was 10 years ago.
• burtonator 7y ago
  Wait. Amazon's anti-union rhetoric said they want rapid innovation and want to focus on customers! Are you to tell me that Amazon 'associates' might actually benefit from unionizing?
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• sylens 7y ago
  This is a good post about something that doesn't get talked about a lot. NDAs and confidentiality agreements should be able to cover the concerns of loss of intellectual property.
• manishsharan 7y ago
  This is worrying on so many levels. How is a person supposed to provide for their family if a non-compete clause prevens them from taking another job that can match the salary ? Doesnt the employer enforcing non compete have to provide a portion of the salary if the former employee has to work for a reduced salary in different industry? Also -- shouldn't the suing company have to show what secret sauce the former employee could be taking with them ? And if that secret sauce is that valuable, shouldn't the former employer get a patent on that sauce instead of suing employees.
• whycombagator 7y ago
  IIRC salaried workers at Amazon get 10 PTO days. This stops me from even applying. I wouldn't ever again consider less than 20, and really need a minumum of 25.
  • jorblumesea 7y ago
    Nah Amazon has 15 and 20 at 7 years, which is pretty common in the US at least.
    • mirceal 7y ago
      IIRC it’s 10 days for the first year and after that what you describe
      • jorblumesea 7y ago
        Nah I know many people that work for Amazon and at least for devs/engineer it's 15 days min.
      • jorblumesea 7y ago
        https://www.amazon.jobs/en/landing_pages/pto-overview-us https://www.amazon.jobs/en/landing_pages/pto-overview-us 10 days of pto + 6 days of personal time
        • mirceal 7y ago
          yes but no. this was about pto. personal time accumulates in a funny manner and it’s use it or lose it.
  • rovolo 7y ago
    By PTO are you deliberately narrowing to vacation? Full time workers also get 6 days/year Personal Time. The current US vacation schedule also changes over time, from worse than 10 days to 15 days. 1st year: 5 days, 2nd: 10 days, 3rd: 11 days, 4th: 12 days, 5th: 13 days, 6th: 14 days, 7th+: 15 days. Thus, the time-off goes from 11 days to 21 days per year.
• gtsteve 7y ago
  I once met a guy who was a programmer for a hedge fund. The strategies and knowledge he had would be very useful to competitors. They didn't have a non-compete agreement in the contract, as this is almost never enforceable here, instead he agreed to a six month notice period - after working two months' notice they then paid four months' salary for him to take a holiday while his knowledge became less and less useful to a competitor. I guess the strategies these guys use only have a limited shelf life but I don't really know much about this sort of work. Perhaps that sounds like overkill but it feels a bit more reasonable and more fair to the employee - if you want someone to agree to a non-compete then you should agree to pay them for their time where they can't work.
  • OJFord 7y ago
    It's quite common in senior posts or industries/domains with that sort of 'in-head' knowledge build-up https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_leave https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_leave
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • mountainofdeath 7y ago
    Can confirm that this is generally how critical financial positions work. They do have a no-compete but the expectation is that the no-compete is paid for at the previous wage. It's quite common to get a 6 month severance during the cooldown period.
    • walshemj 7y ago
      Without payment non competes are flat out unenforceable in some legal systems.
  • soVeryTired 7y ago
    I got a couple of months' gardening leave (as it's known in the industry). The most senior guys would typically get six months off work: three paid, three unpaid. It's just an industry-standard way of doing things. I didn't leave for a competitor but still got a paid vacation (though in principle I was "on call" while I was on the books). To be honest, it sort of felt like a courtesy they extended rather than a means of protecting their IP. There's already a huge amount of lateral hiring in asset management, so everyone already kinda-sorta knows what everyone else is doing.
• radicalbyte 7y ago
  I've been approached a few times by Amazon recruiters, I reply back with my salary and profit share demands and that usually shuts them up. I guess that they must have some luck picking up junior developers from Europe, or maybe people who like the idea of living in the US or Canada for a few years so are willing to take the cut.
  • kiliantics 7y ago
    I've heard many stories of people taking Amazon jobs till their H1B application goes through and then jumping ship. Amazon seems to be well aware of this trend, however, and they make sure to squeeze a lot of work out of these people, holding the sponsorship over their heads.
    • hinkley 7y ago
      And I've heard from amazon employees that the options vesting period is weighted toward your second and third year, and few people get enough options to keep their income up (or at least going up) after that. So a lot of people tough out their third year and then walk away from the rest. There's only so much cumulative bullshit people are willing to take and if your income/bullshit ratio is going down, you won't last long.
  • bitcoinmoney 7y ago
    If you don’t mind what do you do that deserves a profit share from the company?
  • segmondy 7y ago
    Amazon pays very well actually, so I'm not so sure. What amount were you asking?
    • radicalbyte 7y ago
      I'm sure they do pay well, it's just that they seem to assume that ever random person in Europe would be jumping to work for them. I'd have to be around the $150k in a city where large (180-200m2 inside on 600-800m2 land, with a double garage) high quality house would cost $2000 a month in mortgage payments. That's basically where I stand now. I have no idea what houses cost in the places they were talking about (Toronto and somewhere in the US iirc). That's to be even just for me and that's just to say even. Which is of course not even slightly interesting if you're talking about emigrating. For my wife you're talking between 4-6x that amount (which is where the profit sharing comes in). From the emails I've exchanged with recruiters it was basically a no-go. I don't know what they could actually offer but the recruiters have all stopped replying after I mention that :-)
• blairanderson 7y ago
  I would bet money that Amazon has an internal LLC/P&L for this type of non-competes and litigation. I can see it now: _We implemented automatic non-compete lawsuits and income and increased 3x/month-over-month._
  • imhoguy 7y ago
    Non-compete as a Service! Wait for the AWS product code name and API soon /s
    • mi100hael 7y ago
      AWS RageMaker
• ausjke 7y ago
  I know about 10 colleagues that are working at Amazon right now. Yes nobody was excited about what they're doing, but I rarely heard about others who are truly exciting on daily jobs, so nothing unusual. They all seem a little more busy indeed, but their salary plus bonus is at least 2x comparing to previous job so I think they're fine with a little added workload. Money talks for many, it is just yet another high-tech big company, and it paid really well comparing to other mid-small-companies especially, that's enough for most people, what else are you asking for then? If I can get hired with double salary and a little more work, I will lower my sensitivity to the soft-skills and culture bullshit and just go to work and get paid, then I enjoy my life elsewhere.
• neilv 7y ago
  I was leaning strongly towards AWS, after talking with people. I find the business model very appealing, and it sounded like I'd probably be valued well there. Then I did a little due-diligence searching of news articles and such that I vaguely recalled, about both the blue collar and white collar cultures, and was very disappointed. The various stories about non-developer treatment seemed much closer to home and real, when I imagined working there, and feeling I probably wouldn't be able to do anything to help them, and might be afraid to even try, unlike at some places. I also didn't like the idea of (reportedly) being stack-ranked, and having everyone's metrics thrown up in a meeting, for a bunch of managers who excel in Amazon's metrics-driven corporate culture to debate amongst themselves. It sounded rougher than many other places. Also, the noncompete. It wasn't in itself a showstopper for me, but it seemed to send a message of what the overall tone would be. I'm not doing myself any favors by saying this, but I was actually disappointed, and maybe our industry will improve if we speak candidly about some corporate cultural things and values.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • toss1 7y ago
    Excellent choice. To extend on a related topic, I've made it a general principle for me to read a counterparty's contract(s) as a work product and evaluation of how they do business. If the terms are balanced rights & responsibilities on both sides (e.g., 'both parties will treat x as y, and in no case with lesser care than their own x') that is one indicator (hopefully among many) that they try to do business fairly. In contrast, if the clauses appear to be written to all take maximum advantage to their side, and minimize any rights I/we have, then I treat that as a huge red flag to not work/do business with them. If they are very amenable to balancing edits, I may relent, but it it's just those terms or hit the road, I'm gone....
  • bogomipz 7y ago
    >"I also didn't like the idea of (reportedly) being stack-ranked, and having everyone's metrics thrown up in a meeting, for a bunch of managers who excel in Amazon's metrics-driven corporate culture to debate amongst themselves." I've heard on numerous occasions that the culture at Amazon is toxic but I'm surprised to hear that they used "stacked ranking" to evaluate employees. Isn't this kind of a ancient dinosaur corporate idea from GE? I thought this had fallen out of favor. Can anyone verify?
• kiliantics 7y ago
  There are many reasons to reject Amazon and other companies and prefer to use your labour towards more ethical efforts. The DSA tech action working group and the Tech Workers Coalition are compiling "rejection letter" templates for companies that have committed particularly egregious misdeeds here: https://github.com/nycdsa/tech-rejection-letters https://github.com/nycdsa/tech-rejection-letters
• bob1029 7y ago
  At what point does an organization get to be so large such that it is guaranteed to become a menace to society and individual human dignity? I cannot come up with any publicly-held multi-billion dollar technology company today that isn't seemingly run by psychopaths. Is there some new SEC regulation regarding corporate leadership I am unaware of? Is it an audit item that requires HR to fuck over all their employees with as much legal nonsense as possible? I seriously don't understand why there can't be at least one 100bn+ tech company that treats its employees like humans. I will probably end up working in smaller shops and startups for the rest of my career judging by the way these megacorps have been conducting themselves. I used to dream of going to work on the bleeding edge with huge tech companies like Google and Amazon. Now, I treat their recruitment emails like any other spam items. I gladly accept my relatively paltry salary knowing that I can walk away and do whatever I want at any point in time without fear of legal or financial repercussions.
  • jammygit 7y ago
    How do you find the best high paying jobs at smaller shops? Where do you look to find out about those companies?
    • blackflame7000 7y ago
      Government contracting work can pay decently as long as you don't get stuck being a sub-subcontractor where everyone has taken their cut before giving you the task to complete.
    • bob1029 7y ago
      That is the difficult part. You probably won't find the high paying jobs up front. What I had to do was take a modest salary up front and then revolutionize the business from within before I saw any major payout. This is how I prefer to do things though. If you are looking for good pay but don't necessarily want to bust your ass for unknown payout, you are honestly better off looking at some mega corps and getting what you want up front. The equation seems to be: Megacorp: - Large up-front salary and benefits package. - More bullshit process just to get an interview and a job. - Non-existent-to-modest growth path. - Work just enough to get by or as hard as you can stand to, won't matter. - Contributions can feel meaningless due to all of the layers of people and process involved. - Stable work environment, you feel like your job will always be there. Mom & Pop shop: - Regrettable up-front salary and marginal benefits. - Can be hired on the spot, will likely interview with the owners of the business on first or 2nd round. - Can work your way onto the board and can have major pull on decisions. Sometimes, you will even become the executive decision maker for an entire project due to the team scale. - Must work your ass off on an almost daily basis because you have a small or no team. Conversely, this also means your successes are directly visible to the business owners, as you don't have to fight through middle management, HR and other team members to get to your kudos (money/position). - Contributions can feel incredible if you are on a successful project, or at least moving it in that direction. - Potentially more unstable work environment. Smaller businesses are much more likely to fail, so this can add to your stress levels significantly. Especially, if your project is the only thing keeping the lights on. I found my current role on a StackOverflow careers posting. Nothing special at first glance, but I've really enjoyed the experience thus far. It really is what you make of it when you take up a position at a smaller business. I will never have this amount of impact at a place like Google/Amazon/Facebook/Microsoft.
• ghobs91 7y ago
  Based on what I'm seeing in this comment section, I'll be doing as much of my online shopping with Costco as possible. They have just as much, if not more of an emphasis on customer service, and they actually treat their employees very well.
• jjtheblunt 7y ago
  I interviewed for a software role in Amazon Business, had spent several years with a quite high engineering rank in Apple, and was warned by the hiring manager that the roles to be filled considered the people as, and i quote, "fungible" assets. Pretty much the most damning confession the hiring committee could have admitted to, and I imagined a good-hearted warning. I semi balked at that, and feedback from the recruiter was that I'd been brilliant, but might not like the culture. The recruiter sounded truly annoyed. I found that experience "interesting".
• timtaco 7y ago
  I've turned down 2 different amazon offers, in both cases they lowballed and then dragged negotiations trying to get what they wanted. I thought they acted in bad faith and thought it wouldn't be a good fit, later confirmed by many many friends who work there
• AaronFriel 7y ago
  > Non-Competition. During employment and for 18 months after the Separation Date, Employee will not, directly or indirectly, whether on Employee’s own behalf or on behalf of any other entity (for example, as an employee, agent, partner, or consultant), engage in or support the development, manufacture, marketing, or sale of any product or service that competes or is intended to compete with any product or service sold, offered, or otherwise provided by Amazon (or intended to be sold, offered, or otherwise provided by Amazon in the future) that Employee worked on or supported, or about which Employee obtained or received Confidential Information. Parse that clause: if a product is sold on Amazon.com and they've obtained Confidential Information (read: read a slide deck, attended a meeting, received emails with fine print at the bottom), they can't work for the company that sells that product or its competitors. Which is, well, I struggle to imagine what that leaves out. I couldn't work for AWS, quit my career as a software engineer, and become a librarian without being hit by this clause.
  • Jldevictoria 7y ago
    Do these hold up under Washington state law? I know most states do not support non-competes when it comes to lawsuits, it wouldn't surprise me if Washington is one of them.
    • mjevans 7y ago
      Do you really want to find out if this is true through the courts in person? Particularly when you might also not currently have any source of income?
    • kelnos 7y ago
      My understanding is that most states do support non-competes. California is one of the few (only?) states where non-competes are specifically legally unenforceable.
  • dehrmann 7y ago
    One reason I won't be moving to Seattle. I worked for AWS in the Bay Area, and while I didn't go to a competitor, I didn't have that in my contract, either.
• mruts 7y ago
  Amazon pay is shit. I was laughed out of the room for asking for a salary that some analysts make in finance. People get paid so much more in finance than any other industry that I wonder why tech people aren’t more interested in those jobs. Also the work is more exciting and challenging. And it’s better for the world, though I suspect I’ll get a lot of downvotes for that one.
  • ssully 7y ago
    Can you elaborate on why you think it's better for the world? I ask from a position of honest ignorance.
    • mruts 7y ago
      Finance, fundamentally, is about managing risk and allocating money from the people who have it to the people that don't. Without finance and without banks, almost nothing we have today would even exist. There are people with ideas, and there are people with money. Without finance, neither would be able to meet. But when money and ideas meet, something magical and great happens: innovation and progress.
  • jedberg 7y ago
    I once got offered a job in finance that was double my Netflix salary. I didn't take it because: 1) I'd have to live in NYC 2) I'd have to use their super locked down Windows machine. 3) I would only be allowed to talk to people in my department, and would never even be allowed to associate with the people making the trading algorithms, even though the job was to build them an infrastructure for back-testing their algorithms. 4) Their company had the opposite of transparency -- everything was so locked down it would be nearly impossible to be successful at the job, which was by it's nature very cross-sectional. At some point the money just doesn't matter that much anymore. Once you have enough to cover all your needs and few wants a year, more money has a quickly diminishing return. Other than the vast amounts of money, I didn't see anything interesting about working finance.
    • twic 7y ago
• stcredzero 7y ago
  some random sales schmoo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmoo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmoo
• farah7 7y ago
  This is one of the benefits of not having a linkedin profile. Recruiters/former managers cannot see where you're heading next. Obviously this is different for high profile execs but my gut feeling is that most individual recruiters could be shielded from non compete enforcement if they don't publicize their employment on the internet.
• musicale 7y ago
  I'm wary of Amazon since they have a terrible reputation for tech work in addition to warehouse and delivery work. People who I've talked to who work there have not entirely refuted this for me. Non-compete agreements are garbage and are unfortunately very common - I wouldn't be surprised to find them at Google, Apple, etc.. Employment contracts are usually "take it or leave it" in that regard, though personally I try to cross out everything I disagree with before signing one. I'm surprised it's even legal to require employees to sign an agreement preventing them from quitting to work for a competitor. It seems like just the sort of violation of freedom to work, and a harmful restriction of the labor market, that should be illegal under labor law. Like all employment agreements, it's also absurdly asymmetrical. Imagine this "if the company ends your employment for any reason, company agrees not to compete with you or your next employer in any way - including but not limited to products, services, and labor - for a period of 18 months subsequent to the end of your employment." No sane company would agree to this, since they would effectively have to shut down for 18 months (and lose 18 months of income.) But they are perfectly OK enforcing such an agreement on their employees.
  • cleandreams 7y ago
    They are illegal in California. I have heard it said that has been a pro-competitive influence for companies here which is one reason for the dynamism of the tech sector.
    • pmiller2 7y ago
      Unenforceable, not illegal. There’s a big difference.
    • blaser-waffle 7y ago
      I've heard it's the top reason besides the mild weather. No non-competes mean that companies have to pay you to keep you, otherwise you walk across the street. This creates the high-pay-for-tech thing that we've seen for the last few decades. Well paid tech types can afford to take time off and create startups and pinch talent in lieu of equity
  • mountainofdeath 7y ago
• beeschlenker 7y ago
  Having trouble getting traction. Getting censored. Billion in bribes paid to Trump, Pelosi, Schumer, Harris to enable a Soros funded child raping ring to operate in the USA. Please listen to the links below. Turn up the volume and put headphones on. You will hear these people, and many other high profile people, incriminate themselves in unbelievable fashion. Full 71 page document filled with red handed evidence like this at the bottom. Go to pages 20-23 of this document and you will hear Dorsey and Thiel raping children. You will hear their screams. They both rape and kill three. Copy and paste this post and repost it. I keep getting censored by these people. Peter Thiel and Jack Dorsey raping and killing three boys each. Turn the volume all the way up and put head phones on. https://s3.wasabisys.com/conv1/Overnight_14-17Jan/15JanCh3_100-200.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mzZrjobxhNIEf38M3xk-IeA5SeF4aUtB/view?usp=sharing Obama admits to raping and killing boys he{re, with commentary from Peter Thiel, George Soros, Matt Porter: https://s3.wasabisys.com/out2/Out2/15JanCh3_0545.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LCDoc1kT7cfSeKQ1vniP_sx32_bRsHau/view?usp=sharing Trump demands $4 billion to "take a blind eye" at 1015+ (link missing from report, unsure how). Here's pieces of dialogue: 1015 The President requests four billion and henry Porter agrees to it. Some dialogue below. 1017 Donald Trump: Why don't you think about it. 1017 Henry Porter: I don't need to think about it. I'm ready for you to find out what we're really about. 1017 Gigi Hadid: I don't think it's a good idea Henry. 1017 Henry Porter: ...no shit. Jelena just stop talking about it. 1018 Gigi Hadid: About what? 1018 Henry Porter: The child raping. 1018 Donald Trump: What the fuck are you talking about? 1018 Gigi Hadid: Mr. President we are child rapists. 1018 Donald Trump: You cannot be serious. 1018 Donald Trump: You're gonna need $4 billion for me to take a blind eye. 1019 ?: People are laughing because they think four billion is too much. I think it's not a problem when you have $35 billion. 1022 Donald Trump: You better have that $4 billion or you can kiss this shit goodbye. https://s3.wasabisys.com/conv2/3Jan/3JanCh3_900-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77YG0Vr/view?usp=sharing Trump wants $138 million to ensure smooth outcome for false judgment for a court case: https://s3.wasabisys.com/conv1/10JanCh3/10JanCh3_951-1033.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iSeGHDToFRoRdIht50Wii0i30mlw9INp/view?usp=sharing Obama explains the Illuminati with Jack Dorsey: https://s3.wasabisys.com/conv1/Overnight_14-17Jan/15JanCh3_200-347.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ok1-9IvANULzKBOwADFgaiYCFi6yszfj/view?usp=sharing At 230 a conversation is occurring on the embedded Porter camera system with Jack Dorsey, Peter Thiel, Barack Obama, Bill M^urray, and the Porter's. Jack Dorsey provides a statement defining who their group is: "The Illum%inati is an underground organization of child rapists and homosexuals." Matthew Porter: "We have to thin the herd, so Barack is going to explain a few things." At 232 Barack Obama says the following: "You people have to realize we are child rapi'sts. The Illuminati are child rapists. As soon as you figure that out, you can decide what to do. Everybody is freaking out about what just happened [child raping event still going on]. This is who ^we are." Full 71 page document: https://s3.wasabisys.com/aviewmefirst/FBI_FinalDraft_26Jul2019_BSchlenker.pdf https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dXNjPQdQ8c-hFFLt9LT0GiSY5Vud0TzL/view?usp=sharing Please post this anywhere you can!
• coding123 7y ago
  They are going after an executive for non-compete. They'll lose the case because they probably didn't go after hundreds of other employees that went into competing roles. A selective lawsuit like that will definitely fail - it will look vindictive.
• augustarian 7y ago
  AWS is really not the same as Amazon Retail. The culture, leadership and practices are really really different!
  • tedivm 7y ago
    If anything that makes it worse.
• Fission 7y ago
  If someone signs an agreement to this effect, what possible job could they take after leaving Amazon that wouldn’t potentially run afoul of this clause? I’d have said “writing a newsletter making fun of AWS,” but—lo and behold—they’re already in the business of making fun of themselves by launching services with names like Systems Manager Session Manager. I wouldn't be surprised if they've automated out an RNN system to generate names
• arenaninja 7y ago
  I should like to turn down an offer from AWS but first they'll need to extend one. But I agree that Amazon's recruiting is hot garbage, they even spam your inbox with surveys requesting feedback while they already ghosted you in the interview process because they have decided to not continue!
• m0zg 7y ago
  Could someone from AMZN confirm that 18 months is the common duration of their non-compete? This is upping the ante considerably even compared to the already abusive terms by Google/FB/MSFT in WA (1 year, never seen it enforced). Unless offered truly staggering compensation, I wouldn't even consider a job which upon termination requires me to not work anywhere for a year and a half.
  • DVassallo 7y ago
    I posted my full Amazon contract in this thread, with highlights on the key parts. I was an SDE-3 (Level 6), hired in Dublin, and then moved to Seattle after 2 years: https://twitter.com/dvassallo/status/1157698145632976896 https://twitter.com/dvassallo/status/1157698145632976896 AFAIK, software engineers don't get the 18-month non-compete clause that triggered the cited lawsuit. There's a less harsh clause of 18-months that prohibits working with Amazon customers and vendors. And, there's also a 12-month period where you can't work with any ex-employee who worked at Amazon in the past 12 years. More details in the thread.
    • m0zg 7y ago
      So basically anyone who moved from AMZN to GOOG, MSFT or FB or another large Seattle employer is breaking that last clause and can be sued by AMZN? That's nuts. Those companies have quite a number of ex-AMZN people.
• JSavageReal 7y ago
  Blows my mind that non-compete clauses in these trivial instances are legal and actually enforced. Let's not forget that humans created these laws, and humans can change them.
• Seb-C 7y ago
  Last year I was contacted on Linkedin by a headhunter at AWS for an opportunity in Ireland as a senior lead dev. At this time I was working hard toward a different destination, so it didn't exactly match my plans, but the "wow" effect of an opportunity in Amazon made me accept to "have a chat" with him, because I thought it was worth seeing if on the long term they could help me to reach my destination. After I accepted, the recruiter asked me a CV. I gave it to him even thought my LinkedIn profile is far more detailed and qualitative than any CV. Then I received an email for a technical automated test, which was ridiculously easy. Two weeks later, when I received an automatic email saying that I reached the first "candidate interview" step, I politely declined and explained why. Copy/pasting my CV in a standard recruitment process and being handled like I had applied for the job by myself is not my definition of "having a chat" not of headhunting... I already wasted the 4 first years of my career in a political and corporate "big company", thank you very much. I thought the ones like AWS may be different, but in the end it is seems to be the same corporate bullshit than in any big-sized company. I feel better working in human and really innovative startups with real entrepreneurs.