5 ms·

It not that simple. Most engineers still want to get a good perf rating. Amazon plans projects with the assumption that everyone works 5 days a week. Therefore,

It not that simple. Most engineers still want to get a good perf rating. Amazon plans projects with the assumption that everyone works 5 days a week. Therefore, 4 days a week means you plan at most 4 days a week. If you choose to take a day off every week, then you will be at least 20% more productive than your peers to output at the same level. Unless you assume that your peers are 20% less productive than you, you will be at a disadvantage by working only 4 days a week.

ilrwbwrkhv 5y ago
Good engineers don't join Amazon.
- rubyfan 5y ago
  I read a lot that Amazon has a challenging culture. Is it just in dev/tech roles or is it a culture thing?
  - GoldenMonkey 5y ago
    Everywhere. They even made their warehouse staff come in during a tornado. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59641784 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59641784
  - fhood 5y ago
    Large portions of AWS are widely regarded as waking nightmares. Elsewhere largely seems to be fine.
    - rubyfan 5y ago
      They seem like two different companies to me.
  - yurishimo 5y ago
    There are plenty of stories out there about teams hiring people for the sole purpose of having someone to fire to meet a culling quota. If there is a company initiative to cut dead weight every year, it's going to develop cliques and clubs of people who want to keep their jobs above all else. I've also heard that people on those teams can generally be happy in their roles as long as they feel secure they aren't on the chopping block.
    - stainforth 5y ago
      Can I work that role at Amazon (I suppose get fired quickly) and get some value of having that on my resume? Seriously asking.
      - coolspot 5y ago
        Yes, FAANG job always looks good on the resume, compared to no-name companies. But staying for less than 12 months may look suspicious.
  - tedivm 5y ago
    They treat their top level (principal) people fine but the others like trash. Forcing people to return to the office unless they get special permission from their team (something no one I personally know has ever gotten, although if you have a twitter account with at least 50k followers the odds goes up considerably.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  That's probably part of the reason they're finally rolling out this part time program after years of testing with roles only available on the HR software team. Amazon seems to be finally seeing their chickens come home to roost after well over a decade of burning people out and developing a toxic reputation that keeps all the great people away. And now that their stock is stagnant and out of hyper growth, the bleeding is likely accelerating. It seems like programs like this are an attempt to try to incentivize (or, cynically, bait and switch) good engineers back in. Having said that, it's a step in the right direction and I hope to see more companies embrace part time SW roles.
- GoldenMonkey 5y ago
  Agreed. If the role is at Amazon, I don't even bother.
- computerliker69 5y ago
  Where do good engineers go, in your opinion?
  - m00x 5y ago
    From my interviews: Airbnb, Google, Netflix are the most consistently good engineers. MSFT and Meta have bad and good depending on the team. Uber and Amazon have the most surprising incompetence. I interviewed a Staff eng from Uber that couldn't figure out a junior engineer interview.
    - renewiltord 5y ago
      Interesting. I find that Google is retirement home engineers. Netflix is top quality if they didn't join first in 2020. Meta is same as you. Microsoft is questionable. But the Amazon thing is surprising a little. Some of the guys I've spoken to from there were fantastic! I guess I could be a terrible judge. Or I could be over-indexing on the guys I've encountered. Or there's some team effect here that I'm missing. Well, thanks for sharing! It's useful.
      - novok 5y ago
        There is a lot of noise and his sample size isn't good enough to properly evaluate people from many of those companies.
    - Teknoman117 5y ago
      Out of curiosity, what kind of roles were you interviewing people for?
    - tedivm 5y ago
      Uber has the worst hiring process. I had a junior system admin working for me in ~2012. He wasn't bad, in general, but he was extremely dishonest. We had a failure in a raid volume and volunteered to do the work, got trashed at a trivia night and then completely destroyed the system before passing out. This was one of many, many issues with him that were all documented. I have another friend, a woman, who had five years experience before working at Uber and several years there. She applied for a senior position but was denied. However, they did put her on the hiring committee for it. My friend knew what happened with my junior system admin (and new him personally). The first thing she noticed was that his resume was completely made up- he gave himself a senior devops title, lied about his previous internship being a job, and otherwise grossly overstated his skillset. My friend on the hiring committee pointed all of this out, and said a simple reference check would resolve this. He was hired for the senior position, she was treated like crap. He was later fired for stalking and sexually harassing a coworker. The hiring process at that company is just ridiculous.
- hiyer 5y ago
  There are plenty of great engineers at Amazon, although most of them are long-timers. It's probably true that good engineers don't join Amazon any more.
- argc 5y ago
  I work on a team in AWS and while I am average there are many really strong engineers in my org. Some are stuck due to visa issues, some just really like the area we work in. We all know we are paid below market and many of my team members have left, but I will say some that stayed got a really nice out of cycle raise because attrition was so bad.
- kache_ 5y ago
  Or rather, good engineers don't stay at amazon for more than 2 years
RobRivera 5y ago
a lot of assumptions about productivity being a function of time
- hintymad 5y ago
  Actually, my assumption is that my peers can be as competent as me. When everything being equal, time does matter.
  - RobRivera 5y ago
    how does one measure competence in such a diverse problem space and skillset as software engineering? how is productivity measured? does impact matter? some may say the PM and accounts folks may be in the hook there as much as the swe is. apples to apples comparisons even for swes is nuanced
nickd2001 5y ago
In my experience if people work 80% of the hours, they're at least 95% productive, because often on Fridays people don't start new things, or generally faff about, or are tired. Having an extra day off a week to recharge can work wonders for creativity, productivity, lower stress levels, finding solutions to awkward problems. I wonder if actually 80% hours leads to more output than the original 100% for a lot of people.

ilrwbwrkhv 5y ago

Good engineers don't join Amazon.

rubyfan 5y ago
I read a lot that Amazon has a challenging culture. Is it just in dev/tech roles or is it a culture thing?
- GoldenMonkey 5y ago
  Everywhere. They even made their warehouse staff come in during a tornado. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59641784 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59641784
- fhood 5y ago
  Large portions of AWS are widely regarded as waking nightmares. Elsewhere largely seems to be fine.
  - rubyfan 5y ago
    They seem like two different companies to me.
- yurishimo 5y ago
  There are plenty of stories out there about teams hiring people for the sole purpose of having someone to fire to meet a culling quota. If there is a company initiative to cut dead weight every year, it's going to develop cliques and clubs of people who want to keep their jobs above all else. I've also heard that people on those teams can generally be happy in their roles as long as they feel secure they aren't on the chopping block.
  - stainforth 5y ago
    Can I work that role at Amazon (I suppose get fired quickly) and get some value of having that on my resume? Seriously asking.
    - coolspot 5y ago
      Yes, FAANG job always looks good on the resume, compared to no-name companies. But staying for less than 12 months may look suspicious.
- tedivm 5y ago
  They treat their top level (principal) people fine but the others like trash. Forcing people to return to the office unless they get special permission from their team (something no one I personally know has ever gotten, although if you have a twitter account with at least 50k followers the odds goes up considerably.
anonporridge 5y ago
That's probably part of the reason they're finally rolling out this part time program after years of testing with roles only available on the HR software team. Amazon seems to be finally seeing their chickens come home to roost after well over a decade of burning people out and developing a toxic reputation that keeps all the great people away. And now that their stock is stagnant and out of hyper growth, the bleeding is likely accelerating. It seems like programs like this are an attempt to try to incentivize (or, cynically, bait and switch) good engineers back in. Having said that, it's a step in the right direction and I hope to see more companies embrace part time SW roles.
GoldenMonkey 5y ago
Agreed. If the role is at Amazon, I don't even bother.
computerliker69 5y ago
Where do good engineers go, in your opinion?
- m00x 5y ago
  From my interviews: Airbnb, Google, Netflix are the most consistently good engineers. MSFT and Meta have bad and good depending on the team. Uber and Amazon have the most surprising incompetence. I interviewed a Staff eng from Uber that couldn't figure out a junior engineer interview.
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    Interesting. I find that Google is retirement home engineers. Netflix is top quality if they didn't join first in 2020. Meta is same as you. Microsoft is questionable. But the Amazon thing is surprising a little. Some of the guys I've spoken to from there were fantastic! I guess I could be a terrible judge. Or I could be over-indexing on the guys I've encountered. Or there's some team effect here that I'm missing. Well, thanks for sharing! It's useful.
    - novok 5y ago
      There is a lot of noise and his sample size isn't good enough to properly evaluate people from many of those companies.
  - Teknoman117 5y ago
    Out of curiosity, what kind of roles were you interviewing people for?
  - tedivm 5y ago
    Uber has the worst hiring process. I had a junior system admin working for me in ~2012. He wasn't bad, in general, but he was extremely dishonest. We had a failure in a raid volume and volunteered to do the work, got trashed at a trivia night and then completely destroyed the system before passing out. This was one of many, many issues with him that were all documented. I have another friend, a woman, who had five years experience before working at Uber and several years there. She applied for a senior position but was denied. However, they did put her on the hiring committee for it. My friend knew what happened with my junior system admin (and new him personally). The first thing she noticed was that his resume was completely made up- he gave himself a senior devops title, lied about his previous internship being a job, and otherwise grossly overstated his skillset. My friend on the hiring committee pointed all of this out, and said a simple reference check would resolve this. He was hired for the senior position, she was treated like crap. He was later fired for stalking and sexually harassing a coworker. The hiring process at that company is just ridiculous.
hiyer 5y ago
There are plenty of great engineers at Amazon, although most of them are long-timers. It's probably true that good engineers don't join Amazon any more.
argc 5y ago
I work on a team in AWS and while I am average there are many really strong engineers in my org. Some are stuck due to visa issues, some just really like the area we work in. We all know we are paid below market and many of my team members have left, but I will say some that stayed got a really nice out of cycle raise because attrition was so bad.
kache_ 5y ago
Or rather, good engineers don't stay at amazon for more than 2 years

RobRivera 5y ago

a lot of assumptions about productivity being a function of time

hintymad 5y ago
Actually, my assumption is that my peers can be as competent as me. When everything being equal, time does matter.
- RobRivera 5y ago
  how does one measure competence in such a diverse problem space and skillset as software engineering? how is productivity measured? does impact matter? some may say the PM and accounts folks may be in the hook there as much as the swe is. apples to apples comparisons even for swes is nuanced

nickd2001 5y ago

In my experience if people work 80% of the hours, they're at least 95% productive, because often on Fridays people don't start new things, or generally faff about, or are tired. Having an extra day off a week to recharge can work wonders for creativity, productivity, lower stress levels, finding solutions to awkward problems. I wonder if actually 80% hours leads to more output than the original 100% for a lot of people.