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I quit Amazon 3 weeks ago after nearly a decade. Work from home was one of the biggest reasons. In my view, the personality traits that are conducive to promot
by mabbo 5y ago
I quit Amazon 3 weeks ago after nearly a decade. Work from home was one of the biggest reasons.
In my view, the personality traits that are conducive to promotion up the Amazon leadership ladder are strongly aligned with loving work-from-office. Most people L10 and higher not only don't understand the desire for permanent work from home, I think maybe they cannot understand it. It's just too foreign to many of them.
The first announcement was "We can't wait to be back in the office, and we know you can't either". Senior engineers started quitting. Then it was "Okay, okay, you can work from home 2-3 days per week, but only with your L10's approval". The exodus continued.
Now it's "Fine, you can work from home with your L8's approval, but you better be ready to show up on 24 hour notice if we say so!". The biggest benefit of work from home is not needing to commute, and lower cost of living by leaving the HCOL cities.
They don't get it. Other companies do. And anyone who has spent 5 or more years working for Amazon is well-trained enough to get a better paying job with a company that understands the cultural shift that just happened to the developer world.
Edit: I know not all developers are anti-office. But for those of us who are, working for people who don't understand us, who make policies based on what works best for them, is a problem.
- anonporridge 5y agoIt's the circle of life. Success leads to ossification, which creates opportunity for new life to exploit untapped potential.
- esond 5y agoI was just last week in an interview for a role at Amazon and was told that -- while they would entertain a permanent remote arrangement for the right candidate -- it was the interviewer's honest opinion that being fully remote would hurt my chances to advance in the organization. I figured, well, at least he was honest with me.
- smashem 5y agoFunny, I left Amazon two weeks ago because WFH burned me out. I'm currently taking a sabbatical. * Zoom fatigue is real. * I find it much harder to collaborate with peers. * I feel like less of a part of the company. Not being in the office, so I'm no longer seeing that busy bee activity on the floors, not able to mingle with other people from other teams, not seeing new faces, no team activities, and no desk with my name on it. It's a very isolated feeling. * I find it even more Groundhog Day. To wake up from bed, walk a few steps to my desk, and start plugging away. Yeah, commuting can suck, but at least there's more stimulation and "life" to it. * Deadlines, at least from my perspective, got even more ridiculous since WFH started.
- dudul 5y ago> I find it even more Groundhog Day. To wake up from bed, walk a few steps to my desk, and start plugging away. Yeah, commuting can suck, but at least there's more stimulation and "life" to it. How about replacing your commuting by a morning walk outside?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mabbo 5y agoAnd that's a totally valid view. Strangely enough, I suspect Amazon will be a great company for you long-term if you go back. Management is aligned with your needs, not mine. The question is whether there are enough developers like you to run one of the largest software companies in the world, while maintaining 'the bar'.
- ducharmdev 5y agoThis is so accurate, especially the 3rd bullet. When WFH, all interactions are centered around your immediate work responsibilities; although minimizing social interactions at work sounds great for some, it can make it much harder to gauge where you stand in relation to all the people you work with.
- felipellrocha 5y agoExactly right. It’s extremely dehumanizing, ultimately making a tool of a human, and that will probably make it easier for people to exploit others.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- paulryanrogers 5y agoOne thing I found helpful was some chill time in virtual rooms periodically. For those who opted in it seemed to work well. For folks who are all business all the time it was fine to opt out. IME different life seasons can bring different preferences. With a young family and project house I don't want to socialize as much with coworkers as I did when I was a single 20 something.
- aerosmile 5y agoYou are right - the market has shifted and developers can now work from home, far away from their office, and still get paid great salaries. This may also work for marketers, designers, and few other digital verticals. For the majority of regular people (teachers, bakers, warehouse workers, hospitality workers, waiters, medical workers, etc etc) this is going to stay a pipe dream with physical barriers in place that will never enable them to get something similar. What an advantage in life to have chosen this career path over any of the above ones. And what a shame whenever we come across one of those "I am a developer and it's horrible!" type of posts.
- christophilus 5y agoIf you’re going to work from home, do so for a company where WFH is first class. I’ve worked for remote-only companies and for mixed companies. The mixed ones were really terrible WFH experiences. The remote-only / remote-first ones were excellent. It really makes a difference. /anecdote
- mabbo 5y agoFunny enough, I start with Shopify tomorrow. They went remote-only last year.
- doopy1 5y agoWhat makes a good experience vs. a poor one for you?
- ipaddr 5y agoA team that has strong reading and writing abilities and a culture that promotes documentation and decentralization of work through tickets or some other form. Vs A culture that will always prefer an hour long zoom meeting to a 2 minute exchange on stack. A zoom based culture is one that hasn't fully walked away from the office.
- dvtrn 5y agoHasn’t fully walked away from the office and probably hasn’t learned that “management by meeting” is probably an indicator that management isn’t sure what they’re managing for. Probably.
- imutemyteam 5y agoYou forgot the biggest benefit of working from home: Using a camera cover, and working butt naked.
- Tempest1981 5y ago> Senior engineers started quitting. > The exodus continued. Wasn't this already happening pre-pandemic?
- mabbo 5y agoDefinitely. But it's gotten worse, in my view. The Toronto office (where I worked) is seeing a shift in the seniors vs juniors ratio. The rate of senior engineers leaving is exceeding the rate of promotion and hiring- not that Amazon has ever had an easy time hiring senior engineers in Toronto.
- HenryKissinger 5y agoI'm curious. Why? Amazon pays competitively, and they're the biggest player in online retail and cloud services. Why wouldn't engineers want to work for them?
- mabbo 5y agoFor the engineers that can pass Amazon's 'hiring bar', other companies will often match or do better on total comp. For a long time in Toronto they were the highest offer, but those days are over. Amazon also has an on-call culture that - depending on the team - can be brutal. And it's often viewed as the team's own fault and problem to fix. There are some really wonderful niches within Amazon that I will continue to refer friends to.
- EE84M3i 5y agoAmazon doesn't pay competitively.
- pinewurst 5y agoBecause their reputation as an engineering employer is awful?
- CRConrad 5y agoTheir reputation as an employer is as awful as can be. And why would anyone who knows how they treat their warehouse workers -- and who doesn't? -- think they're fundamentally a friend of any employee?
- baby 5y agoI have this theory that one of the contributing factors to the "I don't want to go to the office" trend in the US (which I'm part of), is that cities are also not made for commuting. Coming from Europe, where public transport is really practical, and cities are built for density, your commute is often much less cumbersome AND you can enjoy some social life after work since you're in the city. Here (the bay) it was just the worst. Companies can't build in cities so they build large offices in suburbs. There's a lack of housing so no matter where you live you'll end up paying like crazy. And there's pretty much no practical public transport so you're just going to live through hell. I spent some time in LA and I can't even imagine how people deal with that there. I'm never going to commute ever again after that experience, unless I'm back to Europe.
- felipellrocha 5y agoYeah, it’s an infrastructure problem. I love my commute because it allows me to disconnect from work after I’m done with it. I don’t think my American colleagues understand that, even though i get a lot of sympathy from my European colleagues. I had to, though, be intentional about setting up my commute so i had time to read a book to and fro, and I’m sure not everyone is willing to think about it in those terms. I foresee a movement in a few years of “commute forward” people trying to improve on their work-life balance, once they realize how much of life they’re going to be missing once they start commingling work and home life together.
- roguas 5y agoI hate the commute, I love the cache clearing it provided. It can be easily replaced by a hike in the afternoon or a book session in the garden.
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago> I foresee a movement in a few years of “commute forward” people trying to improve on their work-life balance, once they realize how much of life they’re going to be missing once they start commingling work and home life together. Could we just agree that people are different and that some of us do not feel the way you do? When I'm working I put on work clothes, I sit at my work desk and I take my work coffee cup. When I am done, I roll down my roll-top desk, and go pick up the kids on foot. Arguably I appreciate that work culture in North-America and Asia may not be conducive of this. But ultimately we can all have the separation we need. For me I built it around routines and work/leisure separation. For you it is your commute. Could we not let us both have what we want?
- klausjensen 5y agoHCOL => High Cost of Living I looked it up so you don't have to.
- mercy_dude 5y ago> a company that understands the cultural shift that just happened. Can anyone name some of those companies? I would like to start applying in those places.
- HeavyStorm 5y agoI'm not anti office at all. In fact sometimes I almost miss it. However, I'm anti commute all the way. I'll never go back to working full time at a office where I need to commute to.