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I’m going to use this post as an opportunity to tell people about Amazon. The company has some of the most incompetent managers, who under pressure, will throw
by ozzythecat 4y ago
I’m going to use this post as an opportunity to tell people about Amazon.
The company has some of the most incompetent managers, who under pressure, will throw their own people under the bus. By incompetent, I mean “yes” men who tell 10 different people exactly what they want to hear.
These are people doing the bare minimum to keep their own jobs, and when things go off rails, they pass the blame to everyone around them, without ever accepting any responsibility.
It’s the opposite of everything described in this article.
I’ve been in meetings where VPs acknowledged their expectations on a service launch had led to 60+ SDEs leaving the organization or leaving Amazon entirely. They had no remorse.
I was personally told to not get involved in day to day matters and keep a distance with engineers in my own organization, so I can better focus on doing what’s right for the company.
The other problem was that the L5/L6 managers, often without US permanent residency status, would simply cower out of fear of losing their own jobs. If such a manager loses their job, they have maybe 30 days to find another employer who provides them sponsorship, or otherwise they have to move back to India.
This led to managers not acting on their teams interest or protecting their engineers. Instead, they do everything to protect their own careers.
I’m convinced most L7+ managers at Amazon have no ability to empathize with engineers. They are literally coached (like I was) on avoiding it. It’s a sign of weakness.
I do NOT recommend working at Amazon. It’s a form of suicide for your physical and mental health.
- lvl102 4y agoSadly, you can say that about nearly all of corporate America especially the big ones.
- taurath 4y agoQuite agree, having had to help ex Amazonians emotionally process their anti empathy training whenever they are hired at companies I’ve worked at. All my friends who’ve stayed at Amazon have gotten cold, distant, and the light behind their eyes is gone. If you see them entering “work mode” you see what is functionally a sociopath - brutal but effective. More have taken long breaks from work to get therapy. Some have left the industry entirely. I will not say that “it’s not like that for everyone” or “it depends what team you’re on”. The company is made to make you think a certain way.
- dudul 4y agoAmazon is on my blacklist when I evaluate resumes. I would never hire someone who spent more than 1 year at Amazon. I've seen first hand how these people are incapable of empathy, team work or fostering a good environment.
- ajb 4y agoYour cutoff point might be too short. The most empathic manager I ever met came from there, spending 1 year 9 months.
- radnor 4y agoI've heard similar sentiment from other hiring managers.
- gusgus01 4y agoIs this for managers or engineers as well? There are several reasons I've stayed at Amazon as an engineer, such as, the stock growth created golden handcuffs, covid added a lot of fear and uncertainty and reduced mobility, and the team I'm on has a lot of people I've grown fond of through shared tribulations. I've also found that the burnout creates a feedback loop that makes leaving hard to accomplish.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- blowski 4y agoThere does seem tive a certain type of person that thrives at Amazon, while the rest just about survive until they get out.
- ErrantX 4y agoI've worked with several ex-amazon managers & I agree. They are carefully trained to over promise, treat the business/product arm as an adversary not a colleague and burn out engineers to hit deadlines. 0 empathy. (Often these are not bad people, they have just been conditioned that this is an effective way to operate; my theory is it's the warehouse mentality that A employs at dist centers translated to the office)
- volkadav 4y agoCompletely agree. I spent five years at OCI, an AWS competitor in Seattle, and during that time had seven managers (I think, maybe I missed some hi-bye reorg). The rock bottom worst two of them had all of their prior management experience at Amazon, and their managerial pathologies were similar: zero empathy, absurdly two-faced, optics-obsessed, complete grin-fucker sadists to their underlings. Both of them ended up leaving my erstwhile employer and returning to Uncle Jeff's dickhead spawning grounds. "Too big of an asshole to be a culture fit" when the culture in question is Oracle should tell any reader everything they need to know about a culture where they do fit in. :p
- president 4y agoI'm convinced this model only really works because of the tech visa program. When you have a huge class of people that don't really have a choice between pushing back and keeping their hopes for a green card, you're going to get an environment where collective bargaining no longer works. I have experienced this at the last 3 places I've worked, all large enterprise software companies. There's no going back unfortunately and I feel bad for future generations of tech workers as it's already starting to feel like a bloodbath.
- adhesive_wombat 4y ago> an environment where collective bargaining no longer works I'm sure that's not intentional at allllllll