9 ms·

I work at Amazon and we are still hiring like crazy. Last year was the worst I remember regarding attracting talent. We have 6 heads open and only managed to fi

I work at Amazon and we are still hiring like crazy. Last year was the worst I remember regarding attracting talent. We have 6 heads open and only managed to fill 1. A selected few companies have deep pockets and enough cash to weather a recession. They might take this chance to snatch away as many qualified people as possible and come through the other end with a competitive advantage. On the other end of the spectrum many companies are slowly failing. Layoffs and hiring freezes are even news anymore. So yes, inertia is big but the tide is changing. I predict that when Big Tech fill their bellies the will stop competing so fiercely and the market will cool down for real. In the meanwhile, if you wanted to join big co, now it's your best chance.

turtledove 4y ago
When I worked in AWS the mantra was we aim to fill more seats than there are engineers graduating every year, indefinitely. Amazon needs engineers desperately. It's too bad for them that their mistreatment of their workforce is finally catching up with them. The way they skimped on wages, benefits, work life balance, accommodations, vacation, etc everywhere they can AND they put in draconian IP and moonlighting restrictions... It's no surprise they are having trouble hiring. Anyone considering a role as an engineer at Amazon... Do your research.
- akhmatova 4y ago
  We aim to fill more seats than there are engineers graduating every year, indefinitely. A quick bit of head arithmetic (comparing with the number of 65,000 graduates in CS per year) indicates that this can't possibly be true for the present -- let alone at any moment in the past. And is more likely off by an order of magnitude (and perhaps then some). So you can add to your list of Amazon's self-blocking behaviors: "They way they tout mantras and slogans, without ever bothering to check if they have anything to do with reality ..."
  - turtledove 4y ago
    The numbers I had suggested approximately 17,000 tech jobs per quarter. So, not too far off from your number. I was also told to expect 30 to 40 percent attrition every year, as engineers burnt out.
    - akhmatova 4y ago
      So, not too far off from your number. "Off by factor of 3.9 -- so not too far off from your number". Is that how engineers talk at Amazon? Or is this the privilege of management types, only?
      - saulpw 4y ago
        17,000 per quarter = 68,000 per year
        akhmatova 4y ago
        The reason I misread that as "per year" as the quarterly figure can't possibly be right. Going by federal compliance reports, for example - they just don't have that 68k engineers, total (in 2022, let alone when that number was passed down to you).
        turtledove 4y ago
        Tech jobs encompasses CS grads in roles beyond just engineer. Amazon experiences attrition rates of 30% per year plus a 5% rate of "top grading" mandated every six months. So right away, we're looking at tens of thousands of roles to fill if there is zero growth. I don't know why you think these numbers are so wildly impossible if you look at the number of tech roles and Amazon's growth rates pre pandemic.
        akhmatova 4y ago
        I don't know why you think these numbers are so wildly impossible if you look at the number of tech roles pre-pandemic. And that number was what, specifically? Going by which source? So right away, we're looking at tens of thousands of roles to fill if there is zero growth. I can totally imagine they have 10k+ actual tech rolls to fill per year; just not 68k, and probably not even half that number. Even assuming their ridiculous (and artificially accelerated) attrition rates.
- ActorNightly 4y ago
  >The way they skimped on wages Levels.fyi is pretty accurate and while they do not pay as high, they certainly do not pay low. > benefits No issues here. They have 20 weeks of paternity/maternity leave now, fully paid. >work life balance very generous WFH during and after the pandemic, lots and lots of teams with no complaints about work life balance. >accommodations, vacation Vacation is on par with other big tech, and again, wfh is very lenient. > It's no surprise they are having trouble hiring. All big tech is having trouble hiring, because they need qualified people, and those are hard to find. CS turned into one of those fields that people get into for money, and a lot of people think that they can approach a technical field by simply learning patterns and regurgitating them. May work for some turnkey web app shops, doesn't work for big tech. Anyone considering a role as an engineer at Amazon... Do your research, but not in online forums where there is no accountability.
  - lkschubert8 4y ago
    One small correction, they offer 20 weeks paid for the parent who gives birth and 6 for any parent that doesn't.
    - turtledove 4y ago
      That's a pretty big correction, given the time off other companies give to parents. Google and Meta give months to each parent.
      - msikora 4y ago
        I got 12 weeks as a male at my mid size tech company. Vacation is "unlimited", which is often kind of a bad deal, but I do take about 6 weeks a year. Not sure how many holidays we have, but they just added several day off this year. I've been here for a while though so my pay is probably quite a bit under market despite promotions.
  - april_22 4y ago
    I think Amazon is on par with BigTech when it comes to software engineering, though the way they treat their workers in the warehouses has really hurt the overall reputation of the the company.
- tmaly 4y ago
  My friend just accepted an offer there. He said they were the highest in pay among several other places he had offers from.
  - thebean11 4y ago
    Is he including year 3 and 4 RSUs when calculating that? If so not a great comparison as comparable companies don't back-weight RSUs and also give bigger refreshers after year 1. Amazon has dramatically increased pay in the last year though, to be fair.
    - helen___keller 4y ago
      Not sure if it’s new but Amazon gives cash bonus to flatten comp, so it’s cash heavy for years 1 and 2 then stock heavy for years 3 and 4
      - turtledove 4y ago
        Amazon deliberately tries to pay higher initial offers, but they hold back comp increases aggressively. Your friend might have a couple good years, but they won't last.
shepherdjerred 4y ago
Are the interviews still pointlessly hard? I would consider going back to AWS, but there’s no way I’m spending a month grinding leetcode.
- baq 4y ago
  I’m convinced this is a conscious decision to weed out the ‘unmotivated’ (old and/or people with families).
  - burntoutfire 4y ago
    This, plus sunken cost fallacy - people who had to work hard to get in will be less willing to just leave if they find out that the job itself sucks.
- ActorNightly 4y ago
  The interviews aren't designed to be representative of the work that you do, its more about whether or not you are willing to put in the time to study and get to know some topic to be effective at it, and integrate that into your general knowledge. This is why Amazon doesn't base the interviews for specific teams in terms of technical knowledge, because the understanding is that some Amazon SDE working in web service should be able to take a position doing ML and be an effective contributor in a reasonable amount of time. Furthermore, the ranking isn't on whether or not you even figure out the problem. One of the things that gets looked at is coachability - if you are given a hint about the solution, can you immediately recognize it and run with it and implement code fast? Many people fail at this step - they can't put thoughts into code even when told almost explicitly on how they should approach the problem.
- mmmm2 4y ago
  I've been thinking about this as well, and I think it becomes fairly clear why they do it if you look at it from a BigTechCo's perspective. From Google's perspective (or whoever), they're about to sink a million dollars into a new hire. I'm getting this number from salary, stock, benefits, other engineers time, etc. They won't see a return on this investment for 6 months to a year, because it takes a long time to learn their obscure, complicated tech stack. They want to be sure they're getting someone who's willing to grind on "pointless" tech problems, because that's what they'll be doing for their first year there: learning the tech stack.
mcntsh 4y ago
Amazon has a bad reputation as an employer. I've personally never considered applying nor have I ever answered an Amazon recruiter.
- ActorNightly 4y ago
  - 100xdang 4y ago
    - ipnon 4y ago
      Technically customers just moved their business to Amazon, presumably because the price and experience were preferable.
  - kramerger 4y ago
    There are multiple confirmed stories from former Amazon (and Tesla) employees about workplace issues. Please don't dismiss anything you don't like as a leftist reddit conspiracy.
- count 4y ago
  Amazon the gigantic e-commerce megacorp and AWS the cloud company are technically the same 'Amazon' but have pretty different work cultures. Being a dev on the bookstore and being a dev on EC2 are different experiences. I think bringing Jassy on as CEO of the whole thing is going to enable the AWS culture to bleed over into the Amazon side of the house, which is a good thing for everyone.
  - GoodJokes 4y ago
  - b3morales 4y ago
    Perhaps, but it takes years, if not decades, to completely change a company's culture like that. The e-commerce side is the (much) older sibling and I assume still the majority of the revenue.
actually_a_dog 4y ago
Maybe you should stop referring to workers as "heads," and, you know, treat employees like humans who have lives and stuff. That would probably go a long way toward attracting talent.
mancerayder 4y ago
I interviewed people who wanted to leave AWS. Theme I picked up psychologically: "I would really like to leave, the work life balance sucks and it's long hours, but it pays really well." Qualified, smart people interviewing around for better lives but similar pay.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

turtledove 4y ago

When I worked in AWS the mantra was we aim to fill more seats than there are engineers graduating every year, indefinitely. Amazon needs engineers desperately. It's too bad for them that their mistreatment of their workforce is finally catching up with them. The way they skimped on wages, benefits, work life balance, accommodations, vacation, etc everywhere they can AND they put in draconian IP and moonlighting restrictions... It's no surprise they are having trouble hiring. Anyone considering a role as an engineer at Amazon... Do your research.

akhmatova 4y ago
We aim to fill more seats than there are engineers graduating every year, indefinitely. A quick bit of head arithmetic (comparing with the number of 65,000 graduates in CS per year) indicates that this can't possibly be true for the present -- let alone at any moment in the past. And is more likely off by an order of magnitude (and perhaps then some). So you can add to your list of Amazon's self-blocking behaviors: "They way they tout mantras and slogans, without ever bothering to check if they have anything to do with reality ..."
- turtledove 4y ago
  The numbers I had suggested approximately 17,000 tech jobs per quarter. So, not too far off from your number. I was also told to expect 30 to 40 percent attrition every year, as engineers burnt out.
  - akhmatova 4y ago
    So, not too far off from your number. "Off by factor of 3.9 -- so not too far off from your number". Is that how engineers talk at Amazon? Or is this the privilege of management types, only?
    - saulpw 4y ago
      17,000 per quarter = 68,000 per year
      - akhmatova 4y ago
        The reason I misread that as "per year" as the quarterly figure can't possibly be right. Going by federal compliance reports, for example - they just don't have that 68k engineers, total (in 2022, let alone when that number was passed down to you).
        turtledove 4y ago
        Tech jobs encompasses CS grads in roles beyond just engineer. Amazon experiences attrition rates of 30% per year plus a 5% rate of "top grading" mandated every six months. So right away, we're looking at tens of thousands of roles to fill if there is zero growth. I don't know why you think these numbers are so wildly impossible if you look at the number of tech roles and Amazon's growth rates pre pandemic.
        akhmatova 4y ago
        I don't know why you think these numbers are so wildly impossible if you look at the number of tech roles pre-pandemic. And that number was what, specifically? Going by which source? So right away, we're looking at tens of thousands of roles to fill if there is zero growth. I can totally imagine they have 10k+ actual tech rolls to fill per year; just not 68k, and probably not even half that number. Even assuming their ridiculous (and artificially accelerated) attrition rates.
ActorNightly 4y ago
>The way they skimped on wages Levels.fyi is pretty accurate and while they do not pay as high, they certainly do not pay low. > benefits No issues here. They have 20 weeks of paternity/maternity leave now, fully paid. >work life balance very generous WFH during and after the pandemic, lots and lots of teams with no complaints about work life balance. >accommodations, vacation Vacation is on par with other big tech, and again, wfh is very lenient. > It's no surprise they are having trouble hiring. All big tech is having trouble hiring, because they need qualified people, and those are hard to find. CS turned into one of those fields that people get into for money, and a lot of people think that they can approach a technical field by simply learning patterns and regurgitating them. May work for some turnkey web app shops, doesn't work for big tech. Anyone considering a role as an engineer at Amazon... Do your research, but not in online forums where there is no accountability.
- lkschubert8 4y ago
  One small correction, they offer 20 weeks paid for the parent who gives birth and 6 for any parent that doesn't.
  - turtledove 4y ago
    That's a pretty big correction, given the time off other companies give to parents. Google and Meta give months to each parent.
    - msikora 4y ago
      I got 12 weeks as a male at my mid size tech company. Vacation is "unlimited", which is often kind of a bad deal, but I do take about 6 weeks a year. Not sure how many holidays we have, but they just added several day off this year. I've been here for a while though so my pay is probably quite a bit under market despite promotions.
- april_22 4y ago
  I think Amazon is on par with BigTech when it comes to software engineering, though the way they treat their workers in the warehouses has really hurt the overall reputation of the the company.
tmaly 4y ago
My friend just accepted an offer there. He said they were the highest in pay among several other places he had offers from.
- thebean11 4y ago
  Is he including year 3 and 4 RSUs when calculating that? If so not a great comparison as comparable companies don't back-weight RSUs and also give bigger refreshers after year 1. Amazon has dramatically increased pay in the last year though, to be fair.
  - helen___keller 4y ago
    Not sure if it’s new but Amazon gives cash bonus to flatten comp, so it’s cash heavy for years 1 and 2 then stock heavy for years 3 and 4
    - turtledove 4y ago
      Amazon deliberately tries to pay higher initial offers, but they hold back comp increases aggressively. Your friend might have a couple good years, but they won't last.

shepherdjerred 4y ago

Are the interviews still pointlessly hard? I would consider going back to AWS, but there’s no way I’m spending a month grinding leetcode.

baq 4y ago
I’m convinced this is a conscious decision to weed out the ‘unmotivated’ (old and/or people with families).
- burntoutfire 4y ago
  This, plus sunken cost fallacy - people who had to work hard to get in will be less willing to just leave if they find out that the job itself sucks.
ActorNightly 4y ago
The interviews aren't designed to be representative of the work that you do, its more about whether or not you are willing to put in the time to study and get to know some topic to be effective at it, and integrate that into your general knowledge. This is why Amazon doesn't base the interviews for specific teams in terms of technical knowledge, because the understanding is that some Amazon SDE working in web service should be able to take a position doing ML and be an effective contributor in a reasonable amount of time. Furthermore, the ranking isn't on whether or not you even figure out the problem. One of the things that gets looked at is coachability - if you are given a hint about the solution, can you immediately recognize it and run with it and implement code fast? Many people fail at this step - they can't put thoughts into code even when told almost explicitly on how they should approach the problem.
mmmm2 4y ago
I've been thinking about this as well, and I think it becomes fairly clear why they do it if you look at it from a BigTechCo's perspective. From Google's perspective (or whoever), they're about to sink a million dollars into a new hire. I'm getting this number from salary, stock, benefits, other engineers time, etc. They won't see a return on this investment for 6 months to a year, because it takes a long time to learn their obscure, complicated tech stack. They want to be sure they're getting someone who's willing to grind on "pointless" tech problems, because that's what they'll be doing for their first year there: learning the tech stack.

mcntsh 4y ago

Amazon has a bad reputation as an employer. I've personally never considered applying nor have I ever answered an Amazon recruiter.

ActorNightly 4y ago
- 100xdang 4y ago
  - ipnon 4y ago
    Technically customers just moved their business to Amazon, presumably because the price and experience were preferable.
- kramerger 4y ago
  There are multiple confirmed stories from former Amazon (and Tesla) employees about workplace issues. Please don't dismiss anything you don't like as a leftist reddit conspiracy.
count 4y ago
Amazon the gigantic e-commerce megacorp and AWS the cloud company are technically the same 'Amazon' but have pretty different work cultures. Being a dev on the bookstore and being a dev on EC2 are different experiences. I think bringing Jassy on as CEO of the whole thing is going to enable the AWS culture to bleed over into the Amazon side of the house, which is a good thing for everyone.
- GoodJokes 4y ago
- b3morales 4y ago
  Perhaps, but it takes years, if not decades, to completely change a company's culture like that. The e-commerce side is the (much) older sibling and I assume still the majority of the revenue.

actually_a_dog 4y ago

Maybe you should stop referring to workers as "heads," and, you know, treat employees like humans who have lives and stuff. That would probably go a long way toward attracting talent.

mancerayder 4y ago

I interviewed people who wanted to leave AWS. Theme I picked up psychologically: "I would really like to leave, the work life balance sucks and it's long hours, but it pays really well." Qualified, smart people interviewing around for better lives but similar pay.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]