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You know, it baffles me that Amazon is the only tech giant[1] that consistently sounds absolutely terrible to work at. (In my experience - YMMV) How do they ke

You know, it baffles me that Amazon is the only tech giant[1] that consistently sounds absolutely terrible to work at. (In my experience - YMMV) How do they keep finding engineers? [1] Well, except Intel. You don't hear about them much online, but around here the local office (not sure about others) bait-and-switches employee openings for contractor openings. They don't even pay that well, and no extra compensation either.

mattnewton 7y ago
I'm sure a lot of people think the team they are joining will be different, and some of them must be right.
vkou 7y ago
People join, build up their resume over two years, and then quit to work somewhere better.
godot 7y ago
Intel may not pay like the FAANGs but I don't think they're terrible to work at like you said. My first job out of college (15 years ago) was at Intel (Folsom) and it was actually relatively peaceful and nice. I left after 2 years because I wanted to chase the silicon valley startup dreams at the time (which was a right move for me at the time I think, and looking at the outcome/my past 13 years, I'd say it was a good decision), but I also could've stayed -- some of my coworkers from back then are currently still at Intel and happy. Maybe your local office has specific issues?
- nostrademons 7y ago
  I had a few Google coworkers that were Intel alums. It's not that they're a bad place to work - I heard that working conditions were fairly good actually, in terms of pay, work/life balance, management, etc. But they could be a stifling place to work. Intel is effectively a monopoly, with a clear development roadmap and a clear Process-Architecture-Optimization model with deliverables every 12-18 months. Pretty much everything about the company is setup to prevent anyone from rocking the boat. So their software activities are all about making sure the Intel architecture stays on top, their hardware activities are all about making sure that a new architecture comes out every 4 years and the die shrink happens on schedule, and they're basically averse to anything that might add variability or risk into their market position. Certain people do really well in that environment, but for a lot of folks in software (itself a creative profession), that kind of work environment is basically hell.
  - cameldrv 7y ago
    Intel is (recently) no longer effectively a monopoly, and Intel and the industry is in huge turmoil between process issues, neural accelerator chips, ARM, and AMD. Intel just hired Jim Keller, and we will see what happens to them, but it's bound to be interesting.

mattnewton 7y ago

I'm sure a lot of people think the team they are joining will be different, and some of them must be right.

vkou 7y ago

People join, build up their resume over two years, and then quit to work somewhere better.

godot 7y ago

Intel may not pay like the FAANGs but I don't think they're terrible to work at like you said. My first job out of college (15 years ago) was at Intel (Folsom) and it was actually relatively peaceful and nice. I left after 2 years because I wanted to chase the silicon valley startup dreams at the time (which was a right move for me at the time I think, and looking at the outcome/my past 13 years, I'd say it was a good decision), but I also could've stayed -- some of my coworkers from back then are currently still at Intel and happy. Maybe your local office has specific issues?

nostrademons 7y ago
I had a few Google coworkers that were Intel alums. It's not that they're a bad place to work - I heard that working conditions were fairly good actually, in terms of pay, work/life balance, management, etc. But they could be a stifling place to work. Intel is effectively a monopoly, with a clear development roadmap and a clear Process-Architecture-Optimization model with deliverables every 12-18 months. Pretty much everything about the company is setup to prevent anyone from rocking the boat. So their software activities are all about making sure the Intel architecture stays on top, their hardware activities are all about making sure that a new architecture comes out every 4 years and the die shrink happens on schedule, and they're basically averse to anything that might add variability or risk into their market position. Certain people do really well in that environment, but for a lot of folks in software (itself a creative profession), that kind of work environment is basically hell.
- cameldrv 7y ago
  Intel is (recently) no longer effectively a monopoly, and Intel and the industry is in huge turmoil between process issues, neural accelerator chips, ARM, and AMD. Intel just hired Jim Keller, and we will see what happens to them, but it's bound to be interesting.