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For the record, being on the other side, and working hard to CREATE these experiences that customers love is absolutely addictive and intoxicating. You have to

For the record, being on the other side, and working hard to CREATE these experiences that customers love is absolutely addictive and intoxicating. You have to actually give a shit about it though. Which most of us do. It requires effort and grit to have this level of "customer obsession", and to be fair, I would say we are mostly well compensated for it. But it's not for everyone. Plenty of SDEs, including in this market just want to punch in and punch out, and not meaningfully move the bar forward. That's probably OK. It's not good enough for me. My work is 1/3 of my life, 1/2 of my waking life. That better be fucking meaningful and significant. You'd be surprised, you might enjoy working here too.

lisper 4y ago
Kudos to you. If you think it's a fair deal, more power to you. I'll sleep better at night knowing that you feel like you're not being exploited, and that you're being fairly compensated for the work you do. But I've heard too many horror stories to ever take that risk myself.
- amzn-throw 4y ago
  This comment isn't directed to you specifically, but the many many others who feel the same. "What have you got to lose?" By that I mean, we're in a hot tech market. If it doesn't work out, you can likely find a job elsewhere with ease. OK, but we're about to hit a recession. I'd venture Amazon is a lot safer than many other tech companies to ride out a recession in - the core business (cloud and retail) is fundamentally sound. The company is only ever not profitable when it chooses not to be because it invests all gains into new R&D and lines of business. When things tighten in the market, Amazon refocuses on core optimizations, and realizes massive profits again. Certainly I can't predict layoffs or no layoffs, but noone can, at any company.
  - lisper 4y ago
    > If it doesn't work out, you can likely find a job elsewhere with ease. If that's true then I could just skip the Amazon pain and go straight to the "job elsewhere".

lisper 4y ago

Kudos to you. If you think it's a fair deal, more power to you. I'll sleep better at night knowing that you feel like you're not being exploited, and that you're being fairly compensated for the work you do. But I've heard too many horror stories to ever take that risk myself.

amzn-throw 4y ago
This comment isn't directed to you specifically, but the many many others who feel the same. "What have you got to lose?" By that I mean, we're in a hot tech market. If it doesn't work out, you can likely find a job elsewhere with ease. OK, but we're about to hit a recession. I'd venture Amazon is a lot safer than many other tech companies to ride out a recession in - the core business (cloud and retail) is fundamentally sound. The company is only ever not profitable when it chooses not to be because it invests all gains into new R&D and lines of business. When things tighten in the market, Amazon refocuses on core optimizations, and realizes massive profits again. Certainly I can't predict layoffs or no layoffs, but noone can, at any company.
- lisper 4y ago
  > If it doesn't work out, you can likely find a job elsewhere with ease. If that's true then I could just skip the Amazon pain and go straight to the "job elsewhere".