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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.

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.
  - ryandvm 4y ago
    > expect 30 to 40 percent attrition every year Christ. If that's not a red flag, I don't know what is.
    - koliber 4y ago
      What would you say is an average engineer tenure in our industry? Roughly speaking, 35% attrition means an average tenure of 2.7 years. When I asked engineers how many year do they think an engineer stays at a job in the industry, I got answers between 2 to 3 years. While I aim for longer relationships and lower attrition rates, knowing the benchmarks is helpful when judging whether something is good or bad.
      - Frost1x 4y ago
        This approach results in a bit of a self-fufilling prophecy, though. If you aim for meeting averages (anecdotal or not), then why would you expect turnover better than average? You'll probably end up optimizing just above that average and likely not hit a critical point high enough to deviate form the underlying problem, because your goal isn't about minimizing turnover even if it's an idealistic goal, when push comes to shove its about getting ROI above all and everything else is secondary. I argue that aside from TC optimizing engineers, most engineers do not want to jump ship that often, especially in the current hiring process. Unfortunately, there's a business culture that created these environments where turnover is this high, sometimes higher. If you provide no stability for your engineers, no WLB, poor internal growth opportunities relative to market, poor training, and grunt work then you should expect this. The way to reduce employee turnover is to provide a significantly better overall deal to employees, otherwise you'll continue to have flighty engineers and just point at the numbers, "well this is what's going on in the industry." Yes, and if you've adopted the rest of the culture of the industry, why would you expect yourself to be much different then? Don't start with the expectation engineers will leave in 2.7 years and build a culture around that, look at places engineers stay longer and build a culture around that. Issue is that those places tend to be less efficient and profitable for investors because the engineers are getting a bigger slice of the pie in some fashion, be it improved WLB, better training, less hostility, etc.
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.

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.
- ryandvm 4y ago
  > expect 30 to 40 percent attrition every year Christ. If that's not a red flag, I don't know what is.
  - koliber 4y ago
    What would you say is an average engineer tenure in our industry? Roughly speaking, 35% attrition means an average tenure of 2.7 years. When I asked engineers how many year do they think an engineer stays at a job in the industry, I got answers between 2 to 3 years. While I aim for longer relationships and lower attrition rates, knowing the benchmarks is helpful when judging whether something is good or bad.
    - Frost1x 4y ago
      This approach results in a bit of a self-fufilling prophecy, though. If you aim for meeting averages (anecdotal or not), then why would you expect turnover better than average? You'll probably end up optimizing just above that average and likely not hit a critical point high enough to deviate form the underlying problem, because your goal isn't about minimizing turnover even if it's an idealistic goal, when push comes to shove its about getting ROI above all and everything else is secondary. I argue that aside from TC optimizing engineers, most engineers do not want to jump ship that often, especially in the current hiring process. Unfortunately, there's a business culture that created these environments where turnover is this high, sometimes higher. If you provide no stability for your engineers, no WLB, poor internal growth opportunities relative to market, poor training, and grunt work then you should expect this. The way to reduce employee turnover is to provide a significantly better overall deal to employees, otherwise you'll continue to have flighty engineers and just point at the numbers, "well this is what's going on in the industry." Yes, and if you've adopted the rest of the culture of the industry, why would you expect yourself to be much different then? Don't start with the expectation engineers will leave in 2.7 years and build a culture around that, look at places engineers stay longer and build a culture around that. Issue is that those places tend to be less efficient and profitable for investors because the engineers are getting a bigger slice of the pie in some fashion, be it improved WLB, better training, less hostility, etc.

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.