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Interviewing is broken. When I was at Amazon, it became impossible to hire candidates, and generally the engineers we brought on board were non-US citizens. Ty

Interviewing is broken. When I was at Amazon, it became impossible to hire candidates, and generally the engineers we brought on board were non-US citizens. Typically they're Indians without U.S. residency status, often times U.S. college grads or often even transfers from Amazon's Indian offices. Not only did we pay below other FAANGs, but with these hires, we'd pay them at the low end of our own scale. What are they going to do? Quit? Ha! If they quit, they have to leave the country. So most of them just suck it up. Many of them had spouses and children. Quitting Amazon meant they'd have to uproot their entire family. A second order effect the entire industry on how to work around Amazon (and other big tech's) styling of interviewing. What amazes me are all the Youtube channels from Amazon engineers and other big tech companies with this "influencer" persona. At the end of the day, many of these kids at Amazon are doing shitty migration projects, shoveling legacy code around all day, and dealing with on-call hell. But we have this entire cult of working in big tech and going through all these gymnastics to get through pointless interviews. Perhaps Google, Netflix, etc. are much better places to work, but it boggles my mind anyone would invest so much energy in getting a job at Amazon. It's absolutely a shit place to work that doesn't treat people like human beings.

avs733 5y ago
>Interviewing is broken. Nothing you describe suggests to me that it was the interviewing that was broken, it sounds like the employment was broken.
almost_usual 5y ago
I’ve never worked at Amazon but this seems to be a common theme with interview candidates who work there. They talk about to burnout and stressful on-calls shifts. I’m not sure how this unfolds for Amazon in the long run.
- deltaonefour 5y ago
  They're already having problems with hiring. I get pinged by one or two amazon recruiters DAILY. Literally, not even exaggerating here.
novok 5y ago
Unless your an L1 transfer, you can still change jobs fairly easily on an H1B, because everyone else in tech is also willing to do H1B transfer paperwork. So you can quit, it just takes longer... And even as an L1, you can still apply at other jobs, because they will apply for the H1B for you and if successful, hire you then. So yes between the waiting periods you do have to keep it up, but the barriers are not that high compared to citizens otherwise. And this is my personal experience as a visa worker.
- kyawzazaw 5y ago
  The issue is the Greencard sponsoring through EB-3. You have to wait till the process reaches i-140 or I-485 or otherwise you have to restart the process. This is worse for Indian and Chinese citizens due to their priority date from the 7% rule.
  - dilyevsky 5y ago
    At least in my day if you changed the employer without changing the role you didn’t lose your place in line after PERM application was completed. I knew many Indians/Chinese nationals who changed several jobs while waiting EB2/3 to come through. Frankly I think green card golden handcuffs are heavily played up in these discussions to advance a specific narrative
    - novok 5y ago
      Yeah the start to perm process to get your priority number is a 6 month - 1 year thing, and you only really need to do it once. And once your priority date is up maybe you have to stay there for 1 year.
      - Ao7bei3s 5y ago
        Your info on how long it takes is out of date (edit: at least for companies not large enough to "optimize" the process; see comment below mine). First, PERM currently takes about 16-18 months now. Processing times are way up: the PWD (Prevailing Wage Determination) phase alone is now 6 months; PERM certification itself is another 6 months (source: https://flag.dol.gov/processingtimes https://flag.dol.gov/processingtimes). To this you have add ~3 months for the recruitment phase, plus however many weeks/months it takes management and the lawyers to work out the job description. If you're audited (which I can tell from personal experience can happen for the most straightforward cases), that adds 4 months. What's worse is that, as per our law firms briefing, due to a recent lawsuit that Facebook lost, companies now have to be more conservative with the recruitment phase (make a much stronger effort to find Americans). And with that, the recruitment phase should be expected to "fail" (from the perspective of the potential immigrant) more often, which can multiply the PWD and recruitment phase time. This means that going forward, all in all it could take several years to get to PERM approved. If you switch jobs before you've filed I-140, gotten it approved and waited out 6 months (for portability under AC21), that resets the progress. Also note some companies like to delay starting the process until a few months after the employee starts working for them. Now remember that the maximum duration of an H-1B (without an approved I-140) is 6 years (5 years for L-1B). So there's definitely a bit of time pressure which makes changing jobs somewhat risky. Possible, but not a decision made lightly. You are correct that you only need to do it once... as long as your job duties stay within 50% of what your original job description was. If it was somewhat specialized, and the immigrant changes jobs, then they incur some amount of risk of an I-485 denial later.
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whimsicalism 5y ago
I think you are generalizing Amazon to the rest of the tech world. AFAICT, Amazon appears to be uniquely problematic in this regard. > it boggles my mind anyone would invest so much energy in getting a job at Amazon. If they can sponsor a visa... just consider the sort of poverty that exists in much of the rest of the world.
- atlgator 5y ago
  My firm (non-FAANG) does it too. It's like indentured servitude and it's awful.
senthil_rajasek 5y ago
The entire post is about how a specialized course is required to pass a technical interview in companies like Amazon and here you are making a comment that implies desperate Indians are hired with zero qualifications for the job only because they are desperate. I can't comment on the working conditions at Amazon but I have to say that those Indians must be highly qualified to have that job and should be paid fairly.
- ngc248 5y ago
  Those Indians are indeed qualified people and amazon also pays well enough. I don't know what the OP is comparing to when he/she says pay is low.
- ozzythecat 5y ago
  > here you are making a comment that implies desperate Indians are hired with zero qualifications for the job only because they are desperate I’m not implying Indians are desperate. Plenty of Indians work all across the American economy and contribute as much as any other ethnicity. I’m making a claim about Amazon hiring practices, especially with Indian transfers. Amazon pays below other top tech companies, and we paid Indian transfers at the bottom of our own pay scale. I’m not making any claim on these Indian people’s technical qualifications. Between two different candidates, a corporation goes with the one that they can get away with paying less. That’s the reality. Based on your name, I assume your Indian. If you’re offended, don’t attack the messenger. Your issue is with corporate America.
tandymodel100 5y ago
hn_throwaway_21 5y ago
Amazon is an exception in the industry as they routinely hire from tier-2 & tier-3 engineering universities. On the contrary, Product Managers come from tier-1 MBAs. My hypothesis is that given Amazon's strong emphasis on engineering processes, they are able to train and uplevel these devs to tier-1 level talent over time.
pewpew2020 5y ago
The pay for a new grad (even non US citizens) entering Amazon is 120k+. This not low at all. It should not be mind boggling why someone would choose to interview at Amazon.
- ozzythecat 5y ago
  $120K is on the low end and nothing to brag about in Seattle, WA or in the Bay Area. It’s also quite a bit less than other tech companies.

avs733 5y ago

>Interviewing is broken. Nothing you describe suggests to me that it was the interviewing that was broken, it sounds like the employment was broken.

almost_usual 5y ago

I’ve never worked at Amazon but this seems to be a common theme with interview candidates who work there. They talk about to burnout and stressful on-calls shifts. I’m not sure how this unfolds for Amazon in the long run.

deltaonefour 5y ago
They're already having problems with hiring. I get pinged by one or two amazon recruiters DAILY. Literally, not even exaggerating here.

novok 5y ago

Unless your an L1 transfer, you can still change jobs fairly easily on an H1B, because everyone else in tech is also willing to do H1B transfer paperwork. So you can quit, it just takes longer... And even as an L1, you can still apply at other jobs, because they will apply for the H1B for you and if successful, hire you then. So yes between the waiting periods you do have to keep it up, but the barriers are not that high compared to citizens otherwise. And this is my personal experience as a visa worker.

kyawzazaw 5y ago
The issue is the Greencard sponsoring through EB-3. You have to wait till the process reaches i-140 or I-485 or otherwise you have to restart the process. This is worse for Indian and Chinese citizens due to their priority date from the 7% rule.
- dilyevsky 5y ago
  At least in my day if you changed the employer without changing the role you didn’t lose your place in line after PERM application was completed. I knew many Indians/Chinese nationals who changed several jobs while waiting EB2/3 to come through. Frankly I think green card golden handcuffs are heavily played up in these discussions to advance a specific narrative
  - novok 5y ago
    Yeah the start to perm process to get your priority number is a 6 month - 1 year thing, and you only really need to do it once. And once your priority date is up maybe you have to stay there for 1 year.
    - Ao7bei3s 5y ago
      Your info on how long it takes is out of date (edit: at least for companies not large enough to "optimize" the process; see comment below mine). First, PERM currently takes about 16-18 months now. Processing times are way up: the PWD (Prevailing Wage Determination) phase alone is now 6 months; PERM certification itself is another 6 months (source: https://flag.dol.gov/processingtimes https://flag.dol.gov/processingtimes). To this you have add ~3 months for the recruitment phase, plus however many weeks/months it takes management and the lawyers to work out the job description. If you're audited (which I can tell from personal experience can happen for the most straightforward cases), that adds 4 months. What's worse is that, as per our law firms briefing, due to a recent lawsuit that Facebook lost, companies now have to be more conservative with the recruitment phase (make a much stronger effort to find Americans). And with that, the recruitment phase should be expected to "fail" (from the perspective of the potential immigrant) more often, which can multiply the PWD and recruitment phase time. This means that going forward, all in all it could take several years to get to PERM approved. If you switch jobs before you've filed I-140, gotten it approved and waited out 6 months (for portability under AC21), that resets the progress. Also note some companies like to delay starting the process until a few months after the employee starts working for them. Now remember that the maximum duration of an H-1B (without an approved I-140) is 6 years (5 years for L-1B). So there's definitely a bit of time pressure which makes changing jobs somewhat risky. Possible, but not a decision made lightly. You are correct that you only need to do it once... as long as your job duties stay within 50% of what your original job description was. If it was somewhat specialized, and the immigrant changes jobs, then they incur some amount of risk of an I-485 denial later.

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whimsicalism 5y ago

I think you are generalizing Amazon to the rest of the tech world. AFAICT, Amazon appears to be uniquely problematic in this regard. > it boggles my mind anyone would invest so much energy in getting a job at Amazon. If they can sponsor a visa... just consider the sort of poverty that exists in much of the rest of the world.

atlgator 5y ago
My firm (non-FAANG) does it too. It's like indentured servitude and it's awful.

senthil_rajasek 5y ago

The entire post is about how a specialized course is required to pass a technical interview in companies like Amazon and here you are making a comment that implies desperate Indians are hired with zero qualifications for the job only because they are desperate. I can't comment on the working conditions at Amazon but I have to say that those Indians must be highly qualified to have that job and should be paid fairly.

ngc248 5y ago
Those Indians are indeed qualified people and amazon also pays well enough. I don't know what the OP is comparing to when he/she says pay is low.
ozzythecat 5y ago
> here you are making a comment that implies desperate Indians are hired with zero qualifications for the job only because they are desperate I’m not implying Indians are desperate. Plenty of Indians work all across the American economy and contribute as much as any other ethnicity. I’m making a claim about Amazon hiring practices, especially with Indian transfers. Amazon pays below other top tech companies, and we paid Indian transfers at the bottom of our own pay scale. I’m not making any claim on these Indian people’s technical qualifications. Between two different candidates, a corporation goes with the one that they can get away with paying less. That’s the reality. Based on your name, I assume your Indian. If you’re offended, don’t attack the messenger. Your issue is with corporate America.

tandymodel100 5y ago

hn_throwaway_21 5y ago

Amazon is an exception in the industry as they routinely hire from tier-2 & tier-3 engineering universities. On the contrary, Product Managers come from tier-1 MBAs. My hypothesis is that given Amazon's strong emphasis on engineering processes, they are able to train and uplevel these devs to tier-1 level talent over time.

pewpew2020 5y ago

The pay for a new grad (even non US citizens) entering Amazon is 120k+. This not low at all. It should not be mind boggling why someone would choose to interview at Amazon.

ozzythecat 5y ago
$120K is on the low end and nothing to brag about in Seattle, WA or in the Bay Area. It’s also quite a bit less than other tech companies.