4 ms·

Amazon is actually really hard to get fired from. I knew this one guy who used to binge drink during while working all day. He only got fired after he brought p

Amazon is actually really hard to get fired from. I knew this one guy who used to binge drink during while working all day. He only got fired after he brought production down for the third time in six months. I left because I had higher pay offers. I'm an idiot to say the least, but a person who can acknowledge their faults is likely to be someone who gets hired persistently because they know to address it.

hackandtrip 5y ago
The fact that an individual can bring production down is 1000% a problem in the process; outages should not attributed to single commits but to a series of problems in the process. Just saying this since the number of times someone being production down should not be cause of shame or firing
- kempbellt 5y ago
  Someone has to have the keys to the kingdom. Ideally, multiple people do - bus factor. If no one can bring production down this is also a problem. If only one person can, better hope they don't get hit by a bus, or take a vacation, or rage quit.
  - hackandtrip 5y ago
    100% agree on this and that's my point. Was that code merged without any review? If so, that is a recipe for disaster. Why no unit tests, integration tests, QA? What was the speed at which the outage was resolved? If a sane deployment strategy is in place, I'd hope that no big damage was actually done; if the error budget was burning fast, there should be some manual/automatic rollback. tl;dr they may have been a key factor in the outage, but it seems like it is a symptom of a deeper hole in the process.
- Sparkyte 5y ago
  It is complicated. They released code out of cycle which isn't a process issue. It's a person issue. You don't do that stuff without planning a MCM. You also don't become unreachable after a deploy.
tinyhouse 5y ago
That's actually very false. Amazon is not hard to get fired from, but it takes time since there's a mandatory pip process (for performance based firing) like in many tech companies (about 4 months in the US, longer in some European countries; it's often shorter if the candidate agrees to take large severance and leave).
- hackernews777 5y ago
  I thought he was referring to the fact you don't have to be particularly clever or competent person to keep your job. Amazon isn't known for firing people on the spot for honest mistakes (CoE gets filed and life goes on). It's usually more along the lines of people are not doing the work they were assigned to do.
  - Sparkyte 5y ago
    Absolutely what I was saying.
  - NBJack 5y ago
    I wish that was the case. I've seen brilliant people forced out of their jobs because a particular project was botched: a principal engineer, a former founder of a company bought by Amazon, an amazing director. And those were just the people I encountered on my journey. Amazon certainly won't "fire you on the spot" in most cases; that gets them all sorts of trouble. However, if something got screwed up and your name is on it, I'm sorry to say it's just a matter of time before it comes up in a review cycle. There are good folks at Amazon. Really. But as a whole, I don't see evidence of a company that even attempts to see the long-term value of people.
- kempbellt 5y ago
  Ah, ye old "Performance Improvement Plan". The passive-aggressively worded, modern version of whipping someone for "not working hard enough". If you ever get slotted for a PIP (such a cute name...), it's probably better to look for new employment as soon as possible.
  - 5y ago

hackandtrip 5y ago

The fact that an individual can bring production down is 1000% a problem in the process; outages should not attributed to single commits but to a series of problems in the process. Just saying this since the number of times someone being production down should not be cause of shame or firing

kempbellt 5y ago
Someone has to have the keys to the kingdom. Ideally, multiple people do - bus factor. If no one can bring production down this is also a problem. If only one person can, better hope they don't get hit by a bus, or take a vacation, or rage quit.
- hackandtrip 5y ago
  100% agree on this and that's my point. Was that code merged without any review? If so, that is a recipe for disaster. Why no unit tests, integration tests, QA? What was the speed at which the outage was resolved? If a sane deployment strategy is in place, I'd hope that no big damage was actually done; if the error budget was burning fast, there should be some manual/automatic rollback. tl;dr they may have been a key factor in the outage, but it seems like it is a symptom of a deeper hole in the process.
Sparkyte 5y ago
It is complicated. They released code out of cycle which isn't a process issue. It's a person issue. You don't do that stuff without planning a MCM. You also don't become unreachable after a deploy.

tinyhouse 5y ago

That's actually very false. Amazon is not hard to get fired from, but it takes time since there's a mandatory pip process (for performance based firing) like in many tech companies (about 4 months in the US, longer in some European countries; it's often shorter if the candidate agrees to take large severance and leave).

hackernews777 5y ago
I thought he was referring to the fact you don't have to be particularly clever or competent person to keep your job. Amazon isn't known for firing people on the spot for honest mistakes (CoE gets filed and life goes on). It's usually more along the lines of people are not doing the work they were assigned to do.
- Sparkyte 5y ago
  Absolutely what I was saying.
- NBJack 5y ago
  I wish that was the case. I've seen brilliant people forced out of their jobs because a particular project was botched: a principal engineer, a former founder of a company bought by Amazon, an amazing director. And those were just the people I encountered on my journey. Amazon certainly won't "fire you on the spot" in most cases; that gets them all sorts of trouble. However, if something got screwed up and your name is on it, I'm sorry to say it's just a matter of time before it comes up in a review cycle. There are good folks at Amazon. Really. But as a whole, I don't see evidence of a company that even attempts to see the long-term value of people.
kempbellt 5y ago
Ah, ye old "Performance Improvement Plan". The passive-aggressively worded, modern version of whipping someone for "not working hard enough". If you ever get slotted for a PIP (such a cute name...), it's probably better to look for new employment as soon as possible.
- 5y ago