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Current Amazon engineer: it's far and away the most incompetently run bureaucracy with self-defeating dysfunctions forced on the huge number of layers. The r

Current Amazon engineer: it's far and away the most incompetently run bureaucracy with self-defeating dysfunctions forced on the huge number of layers. The recent "leaks" to Business Insider, pointed out to me by coworkers, are exactly what we see. Everything the parent comment mentioned is exactly what we see. Laughably, our middle manager berates us as incapable noobs, entirely unaware that some of us at least actually have been very valued and trusted and dependable hard core results driven engineers for decades. It's like a failed brainwashing attempt, and it's embarrassing to be associated with such idiocy. I contrast it with excellent experiences at Sun, Motorola, Apple and others over the past 20+ years, where in some cases I had very high engineering ranks with fabulous results, in very well run and just healthy orgs. I do believe there's intentional treatment of engineers as fungible assets, because the engineering quality is so shoddy and the business plan prioritizes maintaining system uptime, with no true priority given to tech debt removal, which actually would in short order surface measurable benefits.

tazjin 5y ago
> I contrast it with excellent experiences at Sun, Motorola, Apple and others over the past 20+ years, where in some cases I had very high engineering ranks with fabulous results, in very well run and just healthy orgs. I can understand how junior devs end up in these positions for a while and stay on the ride, but what is making someone with your level of experience you stick to Amazon? Is the compensation that good?
- jjtheblunt 5y ago
  Compensation seems good, but I'm there because I got fooled and plan to quit very soon, when graciously (not screw team-mates) feasible, because it's just a waste of time that could be spent helping positive efforts in healthy orgs.
  - Retric 5y ago
    I have felt that way before, but it’s better just to quit ASAP. It’s the company that’s making your teammates suffer and their also better off just quitting.
    - chipper02 5y ago
      I live by the motto "I work for money and appreciation, in that order. If you want loyalty, buy a dog!" It has served me well and removed a LOT of stress. I walked out of one crap-hole with a yelling management style on on week's notice. They told me it was unprofessional, and I laughed in the VP's face and told him he was lucky he got a week.
      - wyclif 5y ago
        That is also my motto at work. You know what's unprofessional? Managers screaming at people. The fact that they thought dysfunction like that is OK but one week's notice is "unprofessional" tells you everything you need to know.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > ...I'm there because I got fooled and plan to quit very soon, when graciously (not screw team-mates) feasible, because it's just a waste of time that could be spent helping positive efforts in healthy orgs. Quit now, and encourage your teammates to do likewise. I understand where you're coming from, but the attitude you have can be a source of exploitation (e.g. using loyalty to peers to keep you while the org screws all of you more).
    - lostmsu 5y ago
      There is usually on hire cash, that you must return if you don't work for a full year to prevent smart moves like this.
- johannes1234321 5y ago
  "Unique technical challenges" Some of the problems you can work on in such an environment are interesting. Combine that with the fact that you don't see this before joining and that some.manager s might be able to shield some of it you are where you are. And then throwing hands in the air and leaving is a step, as most other companies have "smaller" problems to solve and "also bad management" ...
lupire 5y ago
Only Apple is on Amazon's tier of technical success, and half of Apple's tech success is from non software. So on what basis ia Amazon incompetent at software? It sounds like Amazon is results driven, and pretty well-unit-tested code isn't critical for that.
- refactor_master 5y ago
  Sure, why test code when you can throw expendable people at it instead?
- cerved 5y ago
  OP made no mention of software and mentioned Sun and Motorola, so I don't think they made any point specifically about software. It may also be relevant to point out that Amazon is first and foremost a retailer, unlike the other companies mentioned.
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    > Amazon is first and foremost a retailer I feel these days that it's more correct to say Amazon was first and foremost a retailer, but these days they are just UberMegaCorp across so many businesses (Amazon site proper, AWS, WholeFoods, Kindle, Echo/Alexa, movie studios, etc. etc.) that it's hard to say they are foremost a retailer. I have a similar question, though, in that I've heard lots of nightmare anecdotes about Amazon code quality, but obviously whatever they are doing is working on some level.
    - BobbyJo 5y ago
      There a plenty of things that decouple incompetency in their software org from business success: 1) Amazon has been incredibly successful frontrunning two MASSIVE verticals: online retail, and cloud computing. They were early winners and invested an INSANE amount of money to be #1. That gives them a lot of leeway to fuck up and still be on top. Even if they stopped doing anything at all but maintaining whatever shit show is going on behind the scenes, it'll be a while before they aren't #1 in at least one of those two huge markets. 2) Tech debt doesn't hurt you today, it hurts you tomorrow. You can cut corners and get products out the door fast, but eventually features and products that should take X amount of time, instead take 5X. Given their lead in their units heavily reliant on software, I doubt it would hurt them anytime soon. 3) You can shit on a lot of people for a long time before it hurts hiring when your stock has shot up the way Amazon's has. Money will make people do dumb things. 4) It takes a long time for poor hiring and management practices to incapacitate an organization the size of Amazon. Turn over at the bottom may be high, but I doubt it's the same at the top, at least up until the past few years. When leadership starts turning over more you'll see a lot more business mistakes.
dnautics 5y ago
well the good news (for amazon) is that I used to work at a place where I was trying to build a cloud. And management suffered from EXACTLY THE SAME PROBLEMS (though for different structural reasons, there was no "build a feature" incentive). And then we hired someone who used to work on amazon cloud who came with rave reviews, even though he completely failed my interview, which basically tested "do you read the spec?". Then I told him to take notes while I was onboarding him, which he didn't do, and then I quit, because of the management problems. > the engineering quality is so shoddy What stuns me is just how well AWS works. I mean, did you ever try to use Azure in 2015? Hell, even GCP was worse in that era. Now, it's on-par, but IMO "more confusing" which beggars belief considering how confusing AWS is.
- blueblisters 5y ago
  Yeah it’s surprising that despite the negative comments in this thread, AWS works almost flawlessly for stuff that matters (uptime, reliability etc.). Of course it’s painful to work with sometimes, but so are other cloud vendors. There’s literally zero incentive to change things internally until external KPIs start turning red.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    IMHO that's the down side of Amazon's customer obsession. As long as it works for the customer, nothing will change. Regardless of internal benefits. And that system quite obviously works. Disclaimer: Former logistics Amazonian.
- johndubchak 5y ago
  I feel for all of you in this thread that work at Amazon and complain of the poor conditions. There are no shortage of stories that point to a very large problem in that company, for certain. However, I believe the underlying theme, if there is one, is incompetent Management and Leadership. This is systemic in Technology companies because, to me, the “bean counters” try to run the companies like a basic Manufacturing organization of commodities where line items and people are substitutable things and can be dialed and tweaked at the planning stage.
taway_zonian257 5y ago
> Everything the parent comment mentioned is exactly what we see. Current sde1 bluebadge. I also see exactly what the parent comment mentioned. I also saw a few nasty episodes such as L6 managers quitting in less than a year in because they hated the pressure they were subjected to, and a yellowbadge say during a all-hands to a bunch of newly arrivals that he was at the company when they joined and he will still be at the company when they all left. I know of a team where SDE2s and SDE3s felt the need to pull in all-nighters and even work the entire weekend to meet the deadlines that their L7 leadership pulled out of their ass. I myself felt compelled to work close to 12 hours a day and weekends during a period just because my senior manager wanted to shine. And yes, I've already see a fair share of colleagues disappear. Of course YMMV but I'm baffled why I'm seeing accurate descriptions of what I'm personally experiencing on a daily basis being faced with such a sense of incredulity. > because the engineering quality is so shoddy and the business plan prioritizes maintaining system uptime, I've created this throwaway account just to comment on the issue of engineering quality being shoddy. It's true that engineering quality is shoddy but the problem is caused by Amazon's structure and not by the engineers themselves. For example, each and every single engineer is expected to deliver major tasks alone as part of their evaluation process, and this means that by design we are placed on tasks where we are way over our head and we are still expected to deliver things out of thin air. This sort of trial by fire is sold under the premise of allowing us to deliver consistently at the next level before being considered for a promotion, but in practice if you screw up that's expected to also be held against you.
- mavsman 5y ago
  Former AWS/Alexa engineer. Totally forgot about the whole badge color thing. Can't stand that crap. Things are very dependent on team and manager and org but I will say that one of the things I'll never miss is our Re:Invent launch. That was horrible. Our team (startup acquisition) basically had a giant retro after the launch to figure out how we could avoid doing that again. Most of the startup members left the team of the company 2 years in. I learned a lot.
  - nimabo 5y ago
    What do the badge colors mean?
rodgerd 5y ago
> I do believe there's intentional treatment of engineers as fungible assets, because the engineering quality is so shoddy and the business plan prioritizes maintaining system uptime, with no true priority given to tech debt removal, which actually would in short order surface measurable benefits. I mean this how Amazon treats all of its employees. It can't quite lock devs and ops people to a desk and have them piss in bottles, but they would if they could.

tazjin 5y ago

> I contrast it with excellent experiences at Sun, Motorola, Apple and others over the past 20+ years, where in some cases I had very high engineering ranks with fabulous results, in very well run and just healthy orgs. I can understand how junior devs end up in these positions for a while and stay on the ride, but what is making someone with your level of experience you stick to Amazon? Is the compensation that good?

jjtheblunt 5y ago
Compensation seems good, but I'm there because I got fooled and plan to quit very soon, when graciously (not screw team-mates) feasible, because it's just a waste of time that could be spent helping positive efforts in healthy orgs.
- Retric 5y ago
  I have felt that way before, but it’s better just to quit ASAP. It’s the company that’s making your teammates suffer and their also better off just quitting.
  - chipper02 5y ago
    I live by the motto "I work for money and appreciation, in that order. If you want loyalty, buy a dog!" It has served me well and removed a LOT of stress. I walked out of one crap-hole with a yelling management style on on week's notice. They told me it was unprofessional, and I laughed in the VP's face and told him he was lucky he got a week.
    - wyclif 5y ago
      That is also my motto at work. You know what's unprofessional? Managers screaming at people. The fact that they thought dysfunction like that is OK but one week's notice is "unprofessional" tells you everything you need to know.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > ...I'm there because I got fooled and plan to quit very soon, when graciously (not screw team-mates) feasible, because it's just a waste of time that could be spent helping positive efforts in healthy orgs. Quit now, and encourage your teammates to do likewise. I understand where you're coming from, but the attitude you have can be a source of exploitation (e.g. using loyalty to peers to keep you while the org screws all of you more).
  - lostmsu 5y ago
    There is usually on hire cash, that you must return if you don't work for a full year to prevent smart moves like this.
johannes1234321 5y ago
"Unique technical challenges" Some of the problems you can work on in such an environment are interesting. Combine that with the fact that you don't see this before joining and that some.manager s might be able to shield some of it you are where you are. And then throwing hands in the air and leaving is a step, as most other companies have "smaller" problems to solve and "also bad management" ...

lupire 5y ago

Only Apple is on Amazon's tier of technical success, and half of Apple's tech success is from non software. So on what basis ia Amazon incompetent at software? It sounds like Amazon is results driven, and pretty well-unit-tested code isn't critical for that.

refactor_master 5y ago
Sure, why test code when you can throw expendable people at it instead?
cerved 5y ago
OP made no mention of software and mentioned Sun and Motorola, so I don't think they made any point specifically about software. It may also be relevant to point out that Amazon is first and foremost a retailer, unlike the other companies mentioned.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  > Amazon is first and foremost a retailer I feel these days that it's more correct to say Amazon was first and foremost a retailer, but these days they are just UberMegaCorp across so many businesses (Amazon site proper, AWS, WholeFoods, Kindle, Echo/Alexa, movie studios, etc. etc.) that it's hard to say they are foremost a retailer. I have a similar question, though, in that I've heard lots of nightmare anecdotes about Amazon code quality, but obviously whatever they are doing is working on some level.
  - BobbyJo 5y ago
    There a plenty of things that decouple incompetency in their software org from business success: 1) Amazon has been incredibly successful frontrunning two MASSIVE verticals: online retail, and cloud computing. They were early winners and invested an INSANE amount of money to be #1. That gives them a lot of leeway to fuck up and still be on top. Even if they stopped doing anything at all but maintaining whatever shit show is going on behind the scenes, it'll be a while before they aren't #1 in at least one of those two huge markets. 2) Tech debt doesn't hurt you today, it hurts you tomorrow. You can cut corners and get products out the door fast, but eventually features and products that should take X amount of time, instead take 5X. Given their lead in their units heavily reliant on software, I doubt it would hurt them anytime soon. 3) You can shit on a lot of people for a long time before it hurts hiring when your stock has shot up the way Amazon's has. Money will make people do dumb things. 4) It takes a long time for poor hiring and management practices to incapacitate an organization the size of Amazon. Turn over at the bottom may be high, but I doubt it's the same at the top, at least up until the past few years. When leadership starts turning over more you'll see a lot more business mistakes.

dnautics 5y ago

well the good news (for amazon) is that I used to work at a place where I was trying to build a cloud. And management suffered from EXACTLY THE SAME PROBLEMS (though for different structural reasons, there was no "build a feature" incentive). And then we hired someone who used to work on amazon cloud who came with rave reviews, even though he completely failed my interview, which basically tested "do you read the spec?". Then I told him to take notes while I was onboarding him, which he didn't do, and then I quit, because of the management problems. > the engineering quality is so shoddy What stuns me is just how well AWS works. I mean, did you ever try to use Azure in 2015? Hell, even GCP was worse in that era. Now, it's on-par, but IMO "more confusing" which beggars belief considering how confusing AWS is.

blueblisters 5y ago
Yeah it’s surprising that despite the negative comments in this thread, AWS works almost flawlessly for stuff that matters (uptime, reliability etc.). Of course it’s painful to work with sometimes, but so are other cloud vendors. There’s literally zero incentive to change things internally until external KPIs start turning red.
- hef19898 5y ago
  IMHO that's the down side of Amazon's customer obsession. As long as it works for the customer, nothing will change. Regardless of internal benefits. And that system quite obviously works. Disclaimer: Former logistics Amazonian.
johndubchak 5y ago
I feel for all of you in this thread that work at Amazon and complain of the poor conditions. There are no shortage of stories that point to a very large problem in that company, for certain. However, I believe the underlying theme, if there is one, is incompetent Management and Leadership. This is systemic in Technology companies because, to me, the “bean counters” try to run the companies like a basic Manufacturing organization of commodities where line items and people are substitutable things and can be dialed and tweaked at the planning stage.

taway_zonian257 5y ago

> Everything the parent comment mentioned is exactly what we see. Current sde1 bluebadge. I also see exactly what the parent comment mentioned. I also saw a few nasty episodes such as L6 managers quitting in less than a year in because they hated the pressure they were subjected to, and a yellowbadge say during a all-hands to a bunch of newly arrivals that he was at the company when they joined and he will still be at the company when they all left. I know of a team where SDE2s and SDE3s felt the need to pull in all-nighters and even work the entire weekend to meet the deadlines that their L7 leadership pulled out of their ass. I myself felt compelled to work close to 12 hours a day and weekends during a period just because my senior manager wanted to shine. And yes, I've already see a fair share of colleagues disappear. Of course YMMV but I'm baffled why I'm seeing accurate descriptions of what I'm personally experiencing on a daily basis being faced with such a sense of incredulity. > because the engineering quality is so shoddy and the business plan prioritizes maintaining system uptime, I've created this throwaway account just to comment on the issue of engineering quality being shoddy. It's true that engineering quality is shoddy but the problem is caused by Amazon's structure and not by the engineers themselves. For example, each and every single engineer is expected to deliver major tasks alone as part of their evaluation process, and this means that by design we are placed on tasks where we are way over our head and we are still expected to deliver things out of thin air. This sort of trial by fire is sold under the premise of allowing us to deliver consistently at the next level before being considered for a promotion, but in practice if you screw up that's expected to also be held against you.

mavsman 5y ago
Former AWS/Alexa engineer. Totally forgot about the whole badge color thing. Can't stand that crap. Things are very dependent on team and manager and org but I will say that one of the things I'll never miss is our Re:Invent launch. That was horrible. Our team (startup acquisition) basically had a giant retro after the launch to figure out how we could avoid doing that again. Most of the startup members left the team of the company 2 years in. I learned a lot.
- nimabo 5y ago
  What do the badge colors mean?

rodgerd 5y ago

> I do believe there's intentional treatment of engineers as fungible assets, because the engineering quality is so shoddy and the business plan prioritizes maintaining system uptime, with no true priority given to tech debt removal, which actually would in short order surface measurable benefits. I mean this how Amazon treats all of its employees. It can't quite lock devs and ops people to a desk and have them piss in bottles, but they would if they could.