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AMD needs 1000 Developers with Linux Skills

65 points by Newky 16y ago

jswetnam 16y ago
Beware of management employing 'impact' as a verb
- dimitar 16y ago
  Well I guess HR dude probably told a lot more, but it was edited out. Its just regular HR placeholder speech. He may have also been intentionally vague.
hunterjrj 16y ago
I do not work for AMD but am close friends with an AMD employee working in the Markham (Toronto) office. They enjoy their position considerably, but complain that the work-life balance isn't there. Just a note to those who are thinking of applying, but who are also seeking that balance.
- gst 16y ago
  As a European I always had the impression (from what I've read) that at most US-based IT companies there's not really a work-life balance. I currently work 40 hours a week and get 5 weeks of holiday per year (+ public holidays + sickdays) and that's already something where I think that the "life" part of the work-life balance is somewhat low. So home much time do you have for your "life" if you start at, e.g., at a valley based company/startup?
  - aaronblohowiak 16y ago
    many valley startups expect six day workweeks and think that vacation is the time you spend between jobs.
callmeed 16y ago
Interesting that they want to move into cloud & software products so aggressively. What large hardware companies have done similar moves successfully in the past? (honest question)
- icegreentea 16y ago
  Cisco is working pretty hard to get their enterprise stuff out there (though really it's just part of a plan to drive more hardware sales).
- queensnake 16y ago
  > Interesting that they want to move into cloud & software products so aggressively. Well if, looking at the future, CPU time will be commoditized and centralized implying less sales, they should try to get in on what /will/ happen which is the cloud business. Makes sense.
- smhinsey 16y ago
  IBM leaps to mind, but they are old enough that it's probably not a fair comparison.
- dmoney 16y ago
  Sun. Oh, wait...
ecaron 16y ago
I wonder when this hiring is supposed to start, the jobs sure aren't on AMD's site yet: http://www.linkup.com/results.php?c=Advanced%20Micro%20Devices%2C%20Inc http://www.linkup.com/results.php?c=Advanced%20Micro%20Devic... (linking to my site instead of AMD's since our results are prettier than https://www.amd.apply2jobs.com/ProfExt/index.cfm?fuseaction=mExternal.searchJobs https://www.amd.apply2jobs.com/ProfExt/index.cfm?fuseaction=...)
bx_lr 16y ago
Notice the following "AMD says it maintains a start-up mentality even though it's a large company". This is becoming a trend now, hardly the only company touting this. My current company is doing the same. My old company approached me recently and told me are going to start working in start-up mode in California, and this is an old and rigid company. I'm holding Paul Graham, Joel Spolsky and others accountable for this. They have glamourized start-ups so much that these big and established companies have started feeling bad about themselves. Or maybe they have finally realized that big organizations and rigid processes don't work very well. There are probably upsides to this. But the downsides are killing me. Obviously for large company working in start-up mode means that engineers work even harder, are more accountable and have to deliver to even more ridiculous schedules. And the result is even more chaos and avoidance of work and responsibility, more panic in QA, and so forth. Personally I don't like this trend. If I want to work start-up hard, I will join a start-up and potentially become rich in the process. Working in start-up mode in a big company has so far meant that I work through weekends and don't get paid for that.
- adamc 16y ago
  So find another job or another career. I'm not being mean: there are still jobs that are 40 hours per week. If those jobs don't appeal to you, switch careers and find a work-life balance that does. People get exploited because they don't act on their other options. I work 40 hours a week.
  - bx_lr 16y ago
    I was just pointing out a trend. It seems that more and more companies are trying to appeal to the start-up types. I'm not too optimistic that these big-corp-in-start-up-mode ideas will work, most people are not up to the task. I view this kind of mode as an exception not the norm. Personally I don't mind working hard. In my case the work has been interesting enough and I'm viewing the long hours as an investment to acquire certain technology experience. At the same time I do feel an increasing urge to go and start working for real start-ups again.
- jasonkester 16y ago
hasenj 16y ago
This is slightly off-topic but I hope they release decent Radeon drivers for Linux. . My experience with their proprietary drivers wasn't very good. I ended up switching to the open source driver, which (unfortunately) doesn't support 3D very well.

65 points by Newky 16y ago

jswetnam 16y ago

Beware of management employing 'impact' as a verb

dimitar 16y ago
Well I guess HR dude probably told a lot more, but it was edited out. Its just regular HR placeholder speech. He may have also been intentionally vague.

hunterjrj 16y ago

I do not work for AMD but am close friends with an AMD employee working in the Markham (Toronto) office. They enjoy their position considerably, but complain that the work-life balance isn't there. Just a note to those who are thinking of applying, but who are also seeking that balance.

gst 16y ago
As a European I always had the impression (from what I've read) that at most US-based IT companies there's not really a work-life balance. I currently work 40 hours a week and get 5 weeks of holiday per year (+ public holidays + sickdays) and that's already something where I think that the "life" part of the work-life balance is somewhat low. So home much time do you have for your "life" if you start at, e.g., at a valley based company/startup?
- aaronblohowiak 16y ago
  many valley startups expect six day workweeks and think that vacation is the time you spend between jobs.

callmeed 16y ago

Interesting that they want to move into cloud & software products so aggressively. What large hardware companies have done similar moves successfully in the past? (honest question)

icegreentea 16y ago
Cisco is working pretty hard to get their enterprise stuff out there (though really it's just part of a plan to drive more hardware sales).
queensnake 16y ago
> Interesting that they want to move into cloud & software products so aggressively. Well if, looking at the future, CPU time will be commoditized and centralized implying less sales, they should try to get in on what /will/ happen which is the cloud business. Makes sense.
smhinsey 16y ago
IBM leaps to mind, but they are old enough that it's probably not a fair comparison.
dmoney 16y ago
Sun. Oh, wait...

ecaron 16y ago

I wonder when this hiring is supposed to start, the jobs sure aren't on AMD's site yet: http://www.linkup.com/results.php?c=Advanced%20Micro%20Devices%2C%20Inc http://www.linkup.com/results.php?c=Advanced%20Micro%20Devic... (linking to my site instead of AMD's since our results are prettier than https://www.amd.apply2jobs.com/ProfExt/index.cfm?fuseaction=mExternal.searchJobs https://www.amd.apply2jobs.com/ProfExt/index.cfm?fuseaction=...)

bx_lr 16y ago

Notice the following "AMD says it maintains a start-up mentality even though it's a large company". This is becoming a trend now, hardly the only company touting this. My current company is doing the same. My old company approached me recently and told me are going to start working in start-up mode in California, and this is an old and rigid company. I'm holding Paul Graham, Joel Spolsky and others accountable for this. They have glamourized start-ups so much that these big and established companies have started feeling bad about themselves. Or maybe they have finally realized that big organizations and rigid processes don't work very well. There are probably upsides to this. But the downsides are killing me. Obviously for large company working in start-up mode means that engineers work even harder, are more accountable and have to deliver to even more ridiculous schedules. And the result is even more chaos and avoidance of work and responsibility, more panic in QA, and so forth. Personally I don't like this trend. If I want to work start-up hard, I will join a start-up and potentially become rich in the process. Working in start-up mode in a big company has so far meant that I work through weekends and don't get paid for that.

adamc 16y ago
So find another job or another career. I'm not being mean: there are still jobs that are 40 hours per week. If those jobs don't appeal to you, switch careers and find a work-life balance that does. People get exploited because they don't act on their other options. I work 40 hours a week.
- bx_lr 16y ago
  I was just pointing out a trend. It seems that more and more companies are trying to appeal to the start-up types. I'm not too optimistic that these big-corp-in-start-up-mode ideas will work, most people are not up to the task. I view this kind of mode as an exception not the norm. Personally I don't mind working hard. In my case the work has been interesting enough and I'm viewing the long hours as an investment to acquire certain technology experience. At the same time I do feel an increasing urge to go and start working for real start-ups again.
jasonkester 16y ago

hasenj 16y ago

This is slightly off-topic but I hope they release decent Radeon drivers for Linux. . My experience with their proprietary drivers wasn't very good. I ended up switching to the open source driver, which (unfortunately) doesn't support 3D very well.