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Thank you for this. I'm currently (today) trying to negotiate an offer with AWS and while the brand/tech is making it really tempting, Work/life balance is real

Thank you for this. I'm currently (today) trying to negotiate an offer with AWS and while the brand/tech is making it really tempting, Work/life balance is really important to me right now as a father of a 3 year old (the only child I am planning to have).

geoduck14 4y ago
From one dad to another - cherish this time with your child. It goes SO fast.
- brazzledazzle 4y ago
  Yes, please believe us. It sounds so cliche but it goes too fast.
- mooreds 4y ago
  There is a limited period of time where you (the parents) will be the sun rising and setting for your child. (A few years.) That was special for me; there's no love like the love of a young child. After that, your kids will start to turn towards friends, teachers, and other relatives. As they should--it's an important part of becoming a full fledged human. But it's still a bit bittersweet to see the end of being able to do no wrong in your kiddo's eyes.
danpalmer 4y ago
> The brand/tech is making it really tempting Really? I’ve always felt that the Amazon brand is relatively low quality. I’ve also heard that tech-wise it’s less interesting than you might assume from the outside, and they just burn out engineers on problems rather than solving them well. I’m relatively uninformed so don’t make a decision based on this, but maybe something to consider.
- locusofself 4y ago
  What I really mean to say is that most startups are using AWS. While you don't have to work at AWS to get AWS skills obviously, having worked there would potentially signal that you really know AWS well and can bring that knowledge into the cooler/smaller company. The interview process is fairly difficult, not google/meta level, but not a walk in the park.
  - badpun 4y ago
    I don’t think that’s the case. When working on AWS, you’ll be assigned to a team doing some AWS product and so you’ll probably get to know it really well, but you’ll be more or less oblivious about the other 50+ products. Whereas, as a mere user of AWS, you’ll get more rounded knowledge.
- bradknowles 4y ago
  We've had guys on our team recently get some patents issued in their name, because what we are working on is a hard problem at a massive scale, and we are solving things that have never been solved before. I will agree that Amazon has some weird stuff around their internal development environment, which I think is well documented elsewhere. OTOH, when you're building services to handle billions of customers all around the world, there are some things you have to do a little differently.

geoduck14 4y ago

From one dad to another - cherish this time with your child. It goes SO fast.

brazzledazzle 4y ago
Yes, please believe us. It sounds so cliche but it goes too fast.
mooreds 4y ago
There is a limited period of time where you (the parents) will be the sun rising and setting for your child. (A few years.) That was special for me; there's no love like the love of a young child. After that, your kids will start to turn towards friends, teachers, and other relatives. As they should--it's an important part of becoming a full fledged human. But it's still a bit bittersweet to see the end of being able to do no wrong in your kiddo's eyes.

danpalmer 4y ago

> The brand/tech is making it really tempting Really? I’ve always felt that the Amazon brand is relatively low quality. I’ve also heard that tech-wise it’s less interesting than you might assume from the outside, and they just burn out engineers on problems rather than solving them well. I’m relatively uninformed so don’t make a decision based on this, but maybe something to consider.

locusofself 4y ago
What I really mean to say is that most startups are using AWS. While you don't have to work at AWS to get AWS skills obviously, having worked there would potentially signal that you really know AWS well and can bring that knowledge into the cooler/smaller company. The interview process is fairly difficult, not google/meta level, but not a walk in the park.
- badpun 4y ago
  I don’t think that’s the case. When working on AWS, you’ll be assigned to a team doing some AWS product and so you’ll probably get to know it really well, but you’ll be more or less oblivious about the other 50+ products. Whereas, as a mere user of AWS, you’ll get more rounded knowledge.
bradknowles 4y ago
We've had guys on our team recently get some patents issued in their name, because what we are working on is a hard problem at a massive scale, and we are solving things that have never been solved before. I will agree that Amazon has some weird stuff around their internal development environment, which I think is well documented elsewhere. OTOH, when you're building services to handle billions of customers all around the world, there are some things you have to do a little differently.