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Why would anyone work at Amazon except for desperation? The hilarious thing about your "raising the bar" hiring is that the abusive hiring process, abusive wor

Why would anyone work at Amazon except for desperation? The hilarious thing about your "raising the bar" hiring is that the abusive hiring process, abusive work culture, abusive HR policies, and the rapidly declining reputation cap the bar. Why would good people work at fucking Amazon? They won't. So you'll end up with a bunch of backstabbing Machiavelli wannabes. And those people that shake out of Amazon? They don't have tech talent to rise above the machiavellis, so that means they are the FAILED machiavellian backstabbers. What could be worse? That means they will be ULTRA machiavellian out of paranoia in the next workplace. Sure, tell yourself "this happens everywhere". "It depends on the team". I have never met an amazon employee that didn't admit the place was a terrible workplace and they only worked there for the resume checkmark. Usually this pathetic machiavellian game theory plays out in middle management. Amazon however has trickled this down to the tech workers, which is not good. All that for "ok" pay? Your vesting is a three year carrot that the HR policies try to ensure that you won't be able to cash? What a crap company.

bradknowles 5y ago
Disclaimer: I was recently hired into AWS. I’m not seeing the kind of organization that you’re describing. There may be parts of Amazon that work that way, but I don’t see it. Maybe that’s an Amazon versus AWS thing, or maybe not. I would say that any company with 1.6m employees is going to have radically different policies and procedures in different parts of the company. Maybe you’ve only heard about the bad parts so far. I see this as the same issue as the future being distributed irregularly. We do have a hiring issue in our team, where we are short by dozens of SDEs that we wanted to have by now. And we are definitely still hiring. I can’t speak for anyone else, but my incentive comp is not backloaded, and I feel like I’m definitely getting market rate pay. I don’t consider myself to be desperate. I was already on my way out the door at Whole Foods when I virtually ran into a guy on one of the internal channels, and he thought I’d be a good fit for what they were looking for. I interviewed, and I got the job. But I think I could have gotten a job at a lot of other places, too. @AtlasBarfed — There is no part of what you’re describing that fits what I’m seeing in our team or what I can see of other teams. But I can only speak for myself and my own personal experience.
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  Your company has a stated policy, repeated all over the internet, or a 6% yearly desired attrition rate. Does your team have to align with that? It does not sound like it. Therefore, your team is an exception to the HR rule. Sounds like you are not typical then. And this is not an issue of HR policies applied to the "lower classes" of Amazon factory workers. These are HR policies applied to the developer class. Why are you so short of dozens of SDEs? I would say that is ... 30 or more? Because you can't hire them through your LUDICROUS hiring process? Because you've "desired attritioned" so many? Why are you so short of developers? Ask yourself that. How old is your team? What is the tenure of your coworkers? What is your turnover? How long have you been at your job? How many developers have you seen turned over? If you're short "dozens" of people, how does your team function? Do they just overwork you? If the team is functioning with 24+ shortfalls, why would Amazon fill them? Yes, working everywhere in the modern world is all corporate shit to some degree. Maybe you feel comfortable now, but your team can get reorg'd. Your boss may move on, and you'll get a new boss. Then all of a sudden a tech problem makes you look bad.

bradknowles 5y ago

Disclaimer: I was recently hired into AWS. I’m not seeing the kind of organization that you’re describing. There may be parts of Amazon that work that way, but I don’t see it. Maybe that’s an Amazon versus AWS thing, or maybe not. I would say that any company with 1.6m employees is going to have radically different policies and procedures in different parts of the company. Maybe you’ve only heard about the bad parts so far. I see this as the same issue as the future being distributed irregularly. We do have a hiring issue in our team, where we are short by dozens of SDEs that we wanted to have by now. And we are definitely still hiring. I can’t speak for anyone else, but my incentive comp is not backloaded, and I feel like I’m definitely getting market rate pay. I don’t consider myself to be desperate. I was already on my way out the door at Whole Foods when I virtually ran into a guy on one of the internal channels, and he thought I’d be a good fit for what they were looking for. I interviewed, and I got the job. But I think I could have gotten a job at a lot of other places, too. @AtlasBarfed — There is no part of what you’re describing that fits what I’m seeing in our team or what I can see of other teams. But I can only speak for myself and my own personal experience.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago
Your company has a stated policy, repeated all over the internet, or a 6% yearly desired attrition rate. Does your team have to align with that? It does not sound like it. Therefore, your team is an exception to the HR rule. Sounds like you are not typical then. And this is not an issue of HR policies applied to the "lower classes" of Amazon factory workers. These are HR policies applied to the developer class. Why are you so short of dozens of SDEs? I would say that is ... 30 or more? Because you can't hire them through your LUDICROUS hiring process? Because you've "desired attritioned" so many? Why are you so short of developers? Ask yourself that. How old is your team? What is the tenure of your coworkers? What is your turnover? How long have you been at your job? How many developers have you seen turned over? If you're short "dozens" of people, how does your team function? Do they just overwork you? If the team is functioning with 24+ shortfalls, why would Amazon fill them? Yes, working everywhere in the modern world is all corporate shit to some degree. Maybe you feel comfortable now, but your team can get reorg'd. Your boss may move on, and you'll get a new boss. Then all of a sudden a tech problem makes you look bad.