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Free CS Courses – Amazon Future Engineer

131 points by wallflower 7y ago

JeremyBanks 7y ago
An Amazon recruiter recently reached out to me, and I asked what they were doing to support their warehouse and retail staff during their crisis, before we continued. He did not have an acceptable answer, so I declined to proceed with an interview. I suggest y'all do the same. This super-wealthy company is failing to provide for its less-fortunate employees, so we more-fortunate potential employees have to create an incentive for them to do so.
- dangwu 7y ago
  I'm sorry, but that's really embarrassing on your behalf. This is a lowly tech recruiter that has absolutely nothing to do with the warehouse and retail staff, and you're asking them questions that are suited for Amazon executives. Do you ask McDonald's cashiers what they're doing about humane slaughter and plant-based alternatives before buying a McFlurry?
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    How else would like expect potential candidate feedback to make it to execs if not by way of their front line recruiters? If candidate feedback isn't making it's way to execs, that's a serious problem in Amazon's hiring processes. If you're expecting less dialog between candidate and recruiter, just pipe LeetCode participants right into an automated onboarding process, no recruiter required. This would be a very Amazon thing to do!
  - rootlocus 7y ago
    Amazon executives will eventually get the message if enough people follow through.
  - karatestomp 7y ago
    They should be able to answer reasonable questions about how the company operates, surely? That one doesn't seem out of line, under the circumstances.
    - yftsui 7y ago
      Corporations doesn't allow you to comment on those by yourself publicly, unless a given statement is already given to them. The recruiter is doing the right thing protecting his/her own job.
      - karatestomp 7y ago
        They... can't tell you about how the company treats employees? How are you supposed to figure out whether it's worth interviewing?
        kenjackson 7y ago
        A recruiter supporting one group probably won’t know a whole lot about other groups. I’m sure they can recite how all customers are supposed to be treated from the employee handbook, but I think you’re looking for something juicer.
  - pmiller2 7y ago
    You don’t think a recruiter should have an answer to a question a lot of people are asking about the company these days? I would 100% expect something from an in house recruiter, or one of the better third party recruiters.
    - kenjackson 7y ago
      So you’re testing the recruiter? The recruiter would have an answer probably no more insightful than the NYTimes. Do you ask Google recruiters about their ethics and AI? Or Apple recruiters about factories in China? Or Tesla recruiters the long term impacts of batteries on the environment? In theory all potentially fair game, but a better question might be “I’m interested in this. Can you set up a call with someone who could address my questions on it.” And once the recruiter gave an answer are you then done and ready to talk about the role? This seems like a setup more than a sincere question.
      - pmiller2 7y ago
        It's not testing the recruiter. It's trying to get information about how the company works. That's exactly the sort of question I'd expect a recruiter to be able to answer, at some level. I would gladly accept "I don't have a really good answer for you, but I can set you up to talk to someone who does." If they don't have an answer better than the NYT, and they're willing to do that, I'd be satisfied with the recruiter on that point. As far as being ready to talk about the role, asking these questions is talking about the role, so I don't understand what you're getting at here.
        dangwu 7y ago
        The thing is, they don't have any information that you don't have access to, and they're not going to be able to set you up with anybody who does (e.g. a director, VP, or CEO). Any information they do have is already publicly available. The company has 800K+ employees and any non-executive emails leak as soon as they're sent, if not simply made public immediately. Essentially, you're testing their ability to regurgitate corporate policies, which is completely pointless.
  - choward 7y ago
    Recruiters are trying to convince you to work for the company therefore they should know a lot about the company since they need to be able to sell it to you. When you go to McDonanld's to buy some food you have already been convinced to go there through some other means. The cashier only needs to know how to take your order. There's no selling that needs to be done besides maybe asking you if you want to supersize it. And calling someone's comment embarrassing is embarrassing. See, I just did it and now I'm embarrassed.
    - nkozyra 7y ago
      > should know a lot about the company OK, that's fair. But every aspect of the company or the part of the company they want you to work for? This is the introduction phase. After this you talk to someone who can get you more information and more information.
      - ntsplnkv2 7y ago
        Recruiters expect applicants to know about their company even if it's unrelated to the job, why should the reverse not be true, ESPECIALLY if it's topical, which the response to COVID is.
        nkozyra 7y ago
        If that were true, most recruiter emails wouldn't start with "hi, I'm [name] from [company] and your profile looks like a great fit. [Company] is a company that [description of company]." Sure, you're aware of FAANG companies, but you're not aware of their HR practices, their healthcare, etc. In other words your knowledge is likely shallow, and that's what first line contacts expect.
        ntsplnkv2 7y ago
        I think you're misunderstanding (or I am), the context. I'm assuming we are talking about an interview scenario, as you are asking questions about possible employment - not receiving a "cold call" email from a recruiter. In an interview, you are expected to know what the company is about.
  - KaoruAoiShiho 7y ago
    It's about sending a message dude. If enough people do this the recruiters will take it back upstream. I applaud the parent, and seriously you gotta stop thinking so much about potential embarrassment. Fear of embarrassment is one of the most effective ways to keep people disempowered.
    - kenjackson 7y ago
      Unless this happened to a high percentage of perceived strong candidates, the likely internal note from Amazon would probably be, "we dodged a bullet on this one".
  - bcrosby95 7y ago
    Yeah, maybe they should save their concerns for when it's time for Jeff to interview them.
- whateveracct 7y ago
  I think the only effect this is gonna have is make you feel good about yourself lol (not saying you should feel good about yourself for this either though)
- Ghjklov 7y ago
  The less fortunate employees still have to pay rent. With your approach, now there's just less people in the company who could have fought for them from within.
  - JSavageOne 7y ago
    If he "fought from within" then Amazon would probably just fire him. Corporations have little tolerance for labor rights initiatives and dissent.
    - karatestomp 7y ago
      This is why, if we software folks were going to organize so we could do things like effectively support less-fortunate workers, the time to do it was any point in the last ~8 years when times were good. Oh well, maybe next boom. We'll have little ability to affect corporate and government behavior in this downturn.
    - Ghjklov 7y ago
      Yeah, they have to fire him and then hire someone else. That costs time and money. Then he can make some noise about it and get media attention on his firing. If this happens enough times, perhaps corporations may be incentivized to change how they do things.
- enitihas 7y ago
  Just out of curiosity, what is the all high and mighty company that you work for?
- bdcravens 7y ago
  I'm certain Amazon has no shortage of developers who want to work there, so all this does is cause their hiring pool to lean toward the kind of employees to further entrench the culture you're opposing.
  - cosmodisk 7y ago
    Does Amazon have hordes of dev outside the gate willing to take a job? Yes. Do those hordes get smaller if Amazon not doing the right thing? Absolutely.Look at what happened to Facebook with all the scandals,the pool shrank by 25,% or so..
- ThrowawayR2 7y ago
  That's analogous to being proud of grilling a supermarket checkout clerk over their employer's policies, over which they have no say in or even knowledge of. I'm unable to fathom the logic behind considering this a sensible thing to do.
  - pmiller2 7y ago
    It’s more like asking a public-facing representative of the company whose job partially consists of answering questions about the company a hard question. Not as pithy as your cashier analogy, but closer to the truth. Your cashier is more analogous to an Amazon warehouse worker, or a literal Whole Foods cashier.
  - tenaciousDaniel 7y ago
    I'm not sure logic had anything to do with it. Rather, a hefty amount of arrogance and narcissism.
  - runawaybottle 7y ago
    Amazon literally fired one of their warehouse workers for trying to establish a labor movement within Amazon. That’s not okay, you know? I don’t know. Perhaps that’s where we really are in life, that so few of us can justify working at a place for any other reason than money.
- aezakmi 7y ago
  Lmao what a massive retard.
- amzn-throw 7y ago
  Why do you think Amazon has stopped shipping everything but essentials? It's not because they don't think people don't want all these things stuck at home.. Its because the entire warehouse process has been turned inside out and expanded with constant safety measures, wipe downs, disinfectants, etc. This slows down everything. Amazon is doing a ton, and not out of altruism, but because it's the pragmatic thing to do. The workers need to be safe so they don't quit and so they don't get sick. We are just not bragging about it (internally or externally). And neither am I, I just feel the need to defend it from the narrative that the company is sitting on its billions while letting the mass of warehouse staff get sick and die, or whatever you are implying.
  - whoisjuan 7y ago
    > stopped shipping everything but essentials Not true. They are still shipping non-essentials just with longer delivery times. Now, objectively speaking, Amazon could have done far better in prevention when this started. Why is it that just recently they introduced temperature checks? That’s should have been a -day one- (pun intended) measure. They were doing that in China months ago.
- dominotw 7y ago
  lol.. reminded me of some guy going to chick-fil-a and harassing their employees about being closed on sunday.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- throw_m239339 7y ago
  Unlike the downvoters here, I applaud the fact that you have ethical and morals standards and can afford to stick with them. If more engineers did that, the world would be a better place.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    I'm not sure there's anything ethical about berating a line recruiter. If you don't want to work there just politely decline the offer. Don't take it out on someone just trying to put food on their family's table.
    - pmiller2 7y ago
      Asking a question and expecting a satisfactory answer is not berating someone.
      - kenjackson 7y ago
        It's asking a question and already knowing the answer to someone who has almost no ability to impact it. That's like going to McDonald's and asking the cashier if the hamburgers used killed cows in them. And when they say yes, say, "I'm not eating here then!". It's a show.
        pmiller2 7y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22815152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22815152
    - runawaybottle 7y ago
      Dude, Amazon is going to have this candidate sit through hours of phone screens, and faang level interviews, it’s not like they lower their standards. Sure, it’s a tad pretentious (honestly it’s the most pretentious thing I’ve read all day lol) on her part, but whatever, no one is perfect. It’s all part of the game.
  - deleted 7y ago
- the_jeremy 7y ago
  I have problems with most tech companies on some level (Microsoft includes too much telemetry, Apple is monopolistic on the app store, Google owns half the internet, Netflix's autoplay is an anti-pattern). Amazon's feels like "company treats lower-wage workers poorly", which is true of every company I know of except Apple.
- commandlinefan 7y ago
  ... and the recruiter said, "welp, I tried to find a U.S. citizen and couldn't, H1B visa here we come!"
- tareqak 7y ago
  I for one am glad that you took this action. I do something similar for Amazon specifically: I politely decline the offer to interview up front stating that I take issue with how Amazon treats its employees across many of its departments and I link the FACE of Amazon website here: https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/ https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/ . I was not always this way. I interviewed there twice and was rejected both times. It was disappointing at the time, but I consider it a blessing now because I know that I am not ambitious / competitive to the necessary degree I would need to be to do well there. I still buy things on Amazon, and I consume a lot of content on their wholly-owned subsidiary Twitch, but I do not believe that a ruthless focus on the customer necessarily means ruthlessly treating employees and contractors to as close to the breaking point as permitted by law. For Amazon specifically, I’ve started looking more towards companies like Costco and NewEgg for what they carry. I’ve done the same with other tech companies too: I only have Google for Gmail, and a silent Twitter account that I do nothing on besides update passwords and 2FA if I see the day where my voice counts for something.
fenwick67 7y ago
Over and over it seems like we've reached peak STEM career grooming and then there's more
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  What a nasty way to refer to someone offering free educational resources.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    "Amazon Future Engineer" is a remarkably poor name for your free CS educational resources.
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      I don't think so - they're saying you could work for them if you wanted to and it's an achievable goal. For a lot of people the idea of working at somewhere like Amazon probably seems an insurmountable challenge if they don't have access to quality education. Try to see the good in things and not be a cynic.
      - tenaciousDaniel 7y ago
        I helped a friend out with his Amazon application. I had never applied for a position there before. I thought I was a competent engineer, but their questions were crazy and made me realize that there's a lot I still have to learn. I don't see anything wrong with the title. It's a harder interview than most.
      - apazzolini 7y ago
        I agree with trying to see the good in things. But as the saying goes, fool me five hundred times...
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        Coming from Amazon themselves, it seems like they're preparing you specifically for a job at Amazon and not with transferrable skills.
momofarm 7y ago
So bascially some grade 12 kids could took your job.....seriously!?
- Kalium 7y ago
  If a grade 12 kid can come take my job, I deserve it. And so does the kid.
12bits 7y ago
The python course is asking for a lot of personal information, for something free to do while we're all isolating.
- stronglikedan 7y ago
  > free online computer science classes for any student or teacher affected by school closures due to COVID-19 in the US. I would imagine they need the information to verify that requirement.
erikw 7y ago
Something I'd like to see massive companies do to is offer lower skilled internships. I had a tough time convincing anyone to hire me coming out of a bootcamp, and I saw a lot of other people in similar situations- even people who I know are much better developers than I am. Internships also tend to require someone to be enrolled in an accredited institution. Offering a simple coding test and a small stipend seems like it would be pretty low risk for a company that has the cash and manpower to run a program like this. Large companies seen uniquely positioned to be able to try something of this size.
- gazelle21 7y ago
  I think Automattic does something like this. I ran into the same issue after graduating from a boot camp, I had to freelance my way into a real job and even then I think it was dumb luck more than my programming ability.
- ptudan 7y ago
  I just don't think the cost/benefit is there. These people would take more training (more time of "more skilled" engineers"). They already have way too many competent applicants for the "more skilled" internships.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    Internships are more about fostering talent than making money off of intern labor. It makes sense to have something at the start of the talent pipe as well as towards the end of it.
- keenmaster 7y ago
  There should be a medical residency-style job matching algorithm. Most jobs are way more fungible across companies than corporations would like to think. If a graduate would be almost equally ecstatic to work as an SE-1 at Apple, Amazon, Google, Netflix, etc...why should they have to apply to each one independently? Of course, the applicant would rank them by preference. If none of them want the applicant, he/she would "drop" to less sought after firms. Companies on the platform would agree on certain tests the applicant would need to take, and at which institution. They would also agree on the information they all want (in a common app). Interviews would play little to no role in the process, since only technical interviews offer any marginal value according to emprical evidence. If social skills are important, they can be included in an empirically proven test of social skills. Imagine a VR simulation where you are grouped with other applicants, and ML algos are fed dozens of inputs based on your interactions in the simulated environment. Human testmasters can still have input into the process, delivering guided exercises, looking out for algo-hacking, interacting with test-takers, and weeding out anomalies.
ericol 7y ago
This is US only: I think that's an important distinction to make.
MisterBastahrd 7y ago
The supply of developers is not going to outstrip demand for quite some time, especially as automation continues to eat low-skill jobs.
monadic2 7y ago
When are we going to be able to go back to apprenticeships? When we abandon privately held businesses?
Der_Einzige 7y ago
If this course doesn't focus almost entirely on leetcode style problems, than it's pretty bunk for actually getting into Amazon. Amazon's OA is significantly worse than even it's big competitors regarding the required leetcode grind. I don't think there's a Software Engineer who was hired in the last several years at Amazon who wasn't grilled on a few leetcode medium (and likely, a hard or two) style problems. Moreover, if you're good enough to get into Amazon and deal with it's reputation for horrible WLB, back-stabbing and political culture, bad pay (for a "FAANG"), horrible vesting, mediocre benefits, and working for a literal vampire, than you can (and should) go work for one of it's competitors who will pay you and treat you strictly better. Microsoft, Google, Apple, the unicorns, and even Oracle OCI all fit the bill. Microsoft will give you easier leetcode questions and a 20 hour work week. Oracle OCI certainly will pay you better (their whole schtick is to poach Amazon Employees for their own cloud). Amazon is rightfully shamed as being "not good enough to stay in the FAANG" because they treat their engineers so badly. I guess the only reason to work for them is that they need a lot of Java devs for AWS and many places are slowly abandoning Java - but even then - there are so many java shops around still that you shouldn't have trouble finding work. I suppose COVID may change things a bit but we should be telling aspiring engineers the truth about Amazon.

131 points by wallflower 7y ago

An Amazon recruiter recently reached out to me, and I asked what they were doing to support their warehouse and retail staff during their crisis, before we continued. He did not have an acceptable answer, so I declined to proceed with an interview. I suggest y'all do the same. This super-wealthy company is failing to provide for its less-fortunate employees, so we more-fortunate potential employees have to create an incentive for them to do so.

dangwu 7y ago
I'm sorry, but that's really embarrassing on your behalf. This is a lowly tech recruiter that has absolutely nothing to do with the warehouse and retail staff, and you're asking them questions that are suited for Amazon executives. Do you ask McDonald's cashiers what they're doing about humane slaughter and plant-based alternatives before buying a McFlurry?
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  How else would like expect potential candidate feedback to make it to execs if not by way of their front line recruiters? If candidate feedback isn't making it's way to execs, that's a serious problem in Amazon's hiring processes. If you're expecting less dialog between candidate and recruiter, just pipe LeetCode participants right into an automated onboarding process, no recruiter required. This would be a very Amazon thing to do!
- rootlocus 7y ago
  Amazon executives will eventually get the message if enough people follow through.
- karatestomp 7y ago
  They should be able to answer reasonable questions about how the company operates, surely? That one doesn't seem out of line, under the circumstances.
  - yftsui 7y ago
    Corporations doesn't allow you to comment on those by yourself publicly, unless a given statement is already given to them. The recruiter is doing the right thing protecting his/her own job.
    - karatestomp 7y ago
      They... can't tell you about how the company treats employees? How are you supposed to figure out whether it's worth interviewing?
      - kenjackson 7y ago
        A recruiter supporting one group probably won’t know a whole lot about other groups. I’m sure they can recite how all customers are supposed to be treated from the employee handbook, but I think you’re looking for something juicer.
- pmiller2 7y ago
  You don’t think a recruiter should have an answer to a question a lot of people are asking about the company these days? I would 100% expect something from an in house recruiter, or one of the better third party recruiters.
  - kenjackson 7y ago
    So you’re testing the recruiter? The recruiter would have an answer probably no more insightful than the NYTimes. Do you ask Google recruiters about their ethics and AI? Or Apple recruiters about factories in China? Or Tesla recruiters the long term impacts of batteries on the environment? In theory all potentially fair game, but a better question might be “I’m interested in this. Can you set up a call with someone who could address my questions on it.” And once the recruiter gave an answer are you then done and ready to talk about the role? This seems like a setup more than a sincere question.
    - pmiller2 7y ago
      It's not testing the recruiter. It's trying to get information about how the company works. That's exactly the sort of question I'd expect a recruiter to be able to answer, at some level. I would gladly accept "I don't have a really good answer for you, but I can set you up to talk to someone who does." If they don't have an answer better than the NYT, and they're willing to do that, I'd be satisfied with the recruiter on that point. As far as being ready to talk about the role, asking these questions is talking about the role, so I don't understand what you're getting at here.
      - dangwu 7y ago
        The thing is, they don't have any information that you don't have access to, and they're not going to be able to set you up with anybody who does (e.g. a director, VP, or CEO). Any information they do have is already publicly available. The company has 800K+ employees and any non-executive emails leak as soon as they're sent, if not simply made public immediately. Essentially, you're testing their ability to regurgitate corporate policies, which is completely pointless.
- choward 7y ago
  Recruiters are trying to convince you to work for the company therefore they should know a lot about the company since they need to be able to sell it to you. When you go to McDonanld's to buy some food you have already been convinced to go there through some other means. The cashier only needs to know how to take your order. There's no selling that needs to be done besides maybe asking you if you want to supersize it. And calling someone's comment embarrassing is embarrassing. See, I just did it and now I'm embarrassed.
  - nkozyra 7y ago
    > should know a lot about the company OK, that's fair. But every aspect of the company or the part of the company they want you to work for? This is the introduction phase. After this you talk to someone who can get you more information and more information.
    - ntsplnkv2 7y ago
      Recruiters expect applicants to know about their company even if it's unrelated to the job, why should the reverse not be true, ESPECIALLY if it's topical, which the response to COVID is.
      - nkozyra 7y ago
        If that were true, most recruiter emails wouldn't start with "hi, I'm [name] from [company] and your profile looks like a great fit. [Company] is a company that [description of company]." Sure, you're aware of FAANG companies, but you're not aware of their HR practices, their healthcare, etc. In other words your knowledge is likely shallow, and that's what first line contacts expect.
        ntsplnkv2 7y ago
        I think you're misunderstanding (or I am), the context. I'm assuming we are talking about an interview scenario, as you are asking questions about possible employment - not receiving a "cold call" email from a recruiter. In an interview, you are expected to know what the company is about.
- KaoruAoiShiho 7y ago
  It's about sending a message dude. If enough people do this the recruiters will take it back upstream. I applaud the parent, and seriously you gotta stop thinking so much about potential embarrassment. Fear of embarrassment is one of the most effective ways to keep people disempowered.
  - kenjackson 7y ago
    Unless this happened to a high percentage of perceived strong candidates, the likely internal note from Amazon would probably be, "we dodged a bullet on this one".
- bcrosby95 7y ago
  Yeah, maybe they should save their concerns for when it's time for Jeff to interview them.
whateveracct 7y ago
I think the only effect this is gonna have is make you feel good about yourself lol (not saying you should feel good about yourself for this either though)
Ghjklov 7y ago
The less fortunate employees still have to pay rent. With your approach, now there's just less people in the company who could have fought for them from within.
- JSavageOne 7y ago
  If he "fought from within" then Amazon would probably just fire him. Corporations have little tolerance for labor rights initiatives and dissent.
  - karatestomp 7y ago
    This is why, if we software folks were going to organize so we could do things like effectively support less-fortunate workers, the time to do it was any point in the last ~8 years when times were good. Oh well, maybe next boom. We'll have little ability to affect corporate and government behavior in this downturn.
  - Ghjklov 7y ago
    Yeah, they have to fire him and then hire someone else. That costs time and money. Then he can make some noise about it and get media attention on his firing. If this happens enough times, perhaps corporations may be incentivized to change how they do things.
enitihas 7y ago
Just out of curiosity, what is the all high and mighty company that you work for?
bdcravens 7y ago
I'm certain Amazon has no shortage of developers who want to work there, so all this does is cause their hiring pool to lean toward the kind of employees to further entrench the culture you're opposing.
- cosmodisk 7y ago
  Does Amazon have hordes of dev outside the gate willing to take a job? Yes. Do those hordes get smaller if Amazon not doing the right thing? Absolutely.Look at what happened to Facebook with all the scandals,the pool shrank by 25,% or so..
ThrowawayR2 7y ago
That's analogous to being proud of grilling a supermarket checkout clerk over their employer's policies, over which they have no say in or even knowledge of. I'm unable to fathom the logic behind considering this a sensible thing to do.
- pmiller2 7y ago
  It’s more like asking a public-facing representative of the company whose job partially consists of answering questions about the company a hard question. Not as pithy as your cashier analogy, but closer to the truth. Your cashier is more analogous to an Amazon warehouse worker, or a literal Whole Foods cashier.
- tenaciousDaniel 7y ago
  I'm not sure logic had anything to do with it. Rather, a hefty amount of arrogance and narcissism.
- runawaybottle 7y ago
  Amazon literally fired one of their warehouse workers for trying to establish a labor movement within Amazon. That’s not okay, you know? I don’t know. Perhaps that’s where we really are in life, that so few of us can justify working at a place for any other reason than money.
aezakmi 7y ago
Lmao what a massive retard.
amzn-throw 7y ago
Why do you think Amazon has stopped shipping everything but essentials? It's not because they don't think people don't want all these things stuck at home.. Its because the entire warehouse process has been turned inside out and expanded with constant safety measures, wipe downs, disinfectants, etc. This slows down everything. Amazon is doing a ton, and not out of altruism, but because it's the pragmatic thing to do. The workers need to be safe so they don't quit and so they don't get sick. We are just not bragging about it (internally or externally). And neither am I, I just feel the need to defend it from the narrative that the company is sitting on its billions while letting the mass of warehouse staff get sick and die, or whatever you are implying.
- whoisjuan 7y ago
  > stopped shipping everything but essentials Not true. They are still shipping non-essentials just with longer delivery times. Now, objectively speaking, Amazon could have done far better in prevention when this started. Why is it that just recently they introduced temperature checks? That’s should have been a -day one- (pun intended) measure. They were doing that in China months ago.
dominotw 7y ago
lol.. reminded me of some guy going to chick-fil-a and harassing their employees about being closed on sunday.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
throw_m239339 7y ago
Unlike the downvoters here, I applaud the fact that you have ethical and morals standards and can afford to stick with them. If more engineers did that, the world would be a better place.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  I'm not sure there's anything ethical about berating a line recruiter. If you don't want to work there just politely decline the offer. Don't take it out on someone just trying to put food on their family's table.
  - pmiller2 7y ago
    Asking a question and expecting a satisfactory answer is not berating someone.
    - kenjackson 7y ago
      It's asking a question and already knowing the answer to someone who has almost no ability to impact it. That's like going to McDonald's and asking the cashier if the hamburgers used killed cows in them. And when they say yes, say, "I'm not eating here then!". It's a show.
      - pmiller2 7y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22815152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22815152
  - runawaybottle 7y ago
    Dude, Amazon is going to have this candidate sit through hours of phone screens, and faang level interviews, it’s not like they lower their standards. Sure, it’s a tad pretentious (honestly it’s the most pretentious thing I’ve read all day lol) on her part, but whatever, no one is perfect. It’s all part of the game.
- deleted 7y ago
the_jeremy 7y ago
I have problems with most tech companies on some level (Microsoft includes too much telemetry, Apple is monopolistic on the app store, Google owns half the internet, Netflix's autoplay is an anti-pattern). Amazon's feels like "company treats lower-wage workers poorly", which is true of every company I know of except Apple.
commandlinefan 7y ago
... and the recruiter said, "welp, I tried to find a U.S. citizen and couldn't, H1B visa here we come!"
tareqak 7y ago
I for one am glad that you took this action. I do something similar for Amazon specifically: I politely decline the offer to interview up front stating that I take issue with how Amazon treats its employees across many of its departments and I link the FACE of Amazon website here: https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/ https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/ . I was not always this way. I interviewed there twice and was rejected both times. It was disappointing at the time, but I consider it a blessing now because I know that I am not ambitious / competitive to the necessary degree I would need to be to do well there. I still buy things on Amazon, and I consume a lot of content on their wholly-owned subsidiary Twitch, but I do not believe that a ruthless focus on the customer necessarily means ruthlessly treating employees and contractors to as close to the breaking point as permitted by law. For Amazon specifically, I’ve started looking more towards companies like Costco and NewEgg for what they carry. I’ve done the same with other tech companies too: I only have Google for Gmail, and a silent Twitter account that I do nothing on besides update passwords and 2FA if I see the day where my voice counts for something.

fenwick67 7y ago

Over and over it seems like we've reached peak STEM career grooming and then there's more

chrisseaton 7y ago
What a nasty way to refer to someone offering free educational resources.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  "Amazon Future Engineer" is a remarkably poor name for your free CS educational resources.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    I don't think so - they're saying you could work for them if you wanted to and it's an achievable goal. For a lot of people the idea of working at somewhere like Amazon probably seems an insurmountable challenge if they don't have access to quality education. Try to see the good in things and not be a cynic.
    - tenaciousDaniel 7y ago
      I helped a friend out with his Amazon application. I had never applied for a position there before. I thought I was a competent engineer, but their questions were crazy and made me realize that there's a lot I still have to learn. I don't see anything wrong with the title. It's a harder interview than most.
    - apazzolini 7y ago
      I agree with trying to see the good in things. But as the saying goes, fool me five hundred times...
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      Coming from Amazon themselves, it seems like they're preparing you specifically for a job at Amazon and not with transferrable skills.

momofarm 7y ago

So bascially some grade 12 kids could took your job.....seriously!?

Kalium 7y ago
If a grade 12 kid can come take my job, I deserve it. And so does the kid.

12bits 7y ago

The python course is asking for a lot of personal information, for something free to do while we're all isolating.

stronglikedan 7y ago
> free online computer science classes for any student or teacher affected by school closures due to COVID-19 in the US. I would imagine they need the information to verify that requirement.

erikw 7y ago

Something I'd like to see massive companies do to is offer lower skilled internships. I had a tough time convincing anyone to hire me coming out of a bootcamp, and I saw a lot of other people in similar situations- even people who I know are much better developers than I am. Internships also tend to require someone to be enrolled in an accredited institution. Offering a simple coding test and a small stipend seems like it would be pretty low risk for a company that has the cash and manpower to run a program like this. Large companies seen uniquely positioned to be able to try something of this size.

gazelle21 7y ago
I think Automattic does something like this. I ran into the same issue after graduating from a boot camp, I had to freelance my way into a real job and even then I think it was dumb luck more than my programming ability.
ptudan 7y ago
I just don't think the cost/benefit is there. These people would take more training (more time of "more skilled" engineers"). They already have way too many competent applicants for the "more skilled" internships.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  Internships are more about fostering talent than making money off of intern labor. It makes sense to have something at the start of the talent pipe as well as towards the end of it.
keenmaster 7y ago
There should be a medical residency-style job matching algorithm. Most jobs are way more fungible across companies than corporations would like to think. If a graduate would be almost equally ecstatic to work as an SE-1 at Apple, Amazon, Google, Netflix, etc...why should they have to apply to each one independently? Of course, the applicant would rank them by preference. If none of them want the applicant, he/she would "drop" to less sought after firms. Companies on the platform would agree on certain tests the applicant would need to take, and at which institution. They would also agree on the information they all want (in a common app). Interviews would play little to no role in the process, since only technical interviews offer any marginal value according to emprical evidence. If social skills are important, they can be included in an empirically proven test of social skills. Imagine a VR simulation where you are grouped with other applicants, and ML algos are fed dozens of inputs based on your interactions in the simulated environment. Human testmasters can still have input into the process, delivering guided exercises, looking out for algo-hacking, interacting with test-takers, and weeding out anomalies.

ericol 7y ago

This is US only: I think that's an important distinction to make.

MisterBastahrd 7y ago

The supply of developers is not going to outstrip demand for quite some time, especially as automation continues to eat low-skill jobs.

monadic2 7y ago

When are we going to be able to go back to apprenticeships? When we abandon privately held businesses?

Der_Einzige 7y ago

If this course doesn't focus almost entirely on leetcode style problems, than it's pretty bunk for actually getting into Amazon. Amazon's OA is significantly worse than even it's big competitors regarding the required leetcode grind. I don't think there's a Software Engineer who was hired in the last several years at Amazon who wasn't grilled on a few leetcode medium (and likely, a hard or two) style problems. Moreover, if you're good enough to get into Amazon and deal with it's reputation for horrible WLB, back-stabbing and political culture, bad pay (for a "FAANG"), horrible vesting, mediocre benefits, and working for a literal vampire, than you can (and should) go work for one of it's competitors who will pay you and treat you strictly better. Microsoft, Google, Apple, the unicorns, and even Oracle OCI all fit the bill. Microsoft will give you easier leetcode questions and a 20 hour work week. Oracle OCI certainly will pay you better (their whole schtick is to poach Amazon Employees for their own cloud). Amazon is rightfully shamed as being "not good enough to stay in the FAANG" because they treat their engineers so badly. I guess the only reason to work for them is that they need a lot of Java devs for AWS and many places are slowly abandoning Java - but even then - there are so many java shops around still that you shouldn't have trouble finding work. I suppose COVID may change things a bit but we should be telling aspiring engineers the truth about Amazon.