4 ms·

AWS and Amazon is not for everyone, and that's not quite about us being 'elite' or the 'we only hire the top X%' (though statements like that are probably true

AWS and Amazon is not for everyone, and that's not quite about us being 'elite' or the 'we only hire the top X%' (though statements like that are probably true too). It's more that the first part of "Work Hard. Have Fun. Make History" is true at Amazon and long-time Amazon employees tend to be unusually driven and missionary and very much about shipping things. For those this suits, it's great, we tend to weed out bullshitters and we're vastly less political than other operations I've seen. But it's not for everyone and others move on, and that does contribute to some churn. If you're considering Amazon, it's important to think hard about whether this is for you or not. Our 'median tenure' numbers are constantly skewed by how much we've been growing. At times our doubling rate has been as little as 18-months, and so you get a lot of employees who haven't been here very long just from that too. Our actual attrition numbers are pretty middle of the range for tech. This year we has a spike in attrition at the beginning of the year - as did other tech companies - but we think we've been out-performing industry over the year as a whole. We were also ranked the #1 company where Americans want to work by LinkedIn, which is not nothing. Amazon is full of very long-tenured folks and tends to have very stable leadership teams too.

rnk 4y ago
I worked back at microsoft when gates was still there. we had saturday meetings all the time. Like a couple of times a month. I was routinely doing work at 11pm trying to get things checked in before midnight. This was before gates had kids, we all joked. The stock made the job lucrative but it was killer, I can't believe I did that. Mostly I saw people retire, not quit or get fired. The difference with amazon is that everyone experienced knows a fair number of people who quit because of the stress and negatives, with lots of money on the table if it goes 2 or 3 months. I have two friends who quit, each with a quarter million coming if they stayed one more quarter. It would have to be pretty bad for that. I didn't see this happen at microsoft. We made progress in our jobs, and rest and vest wasn't even an ironic statement.
- scarface74 4y ago
  If you work at any of the major tech companies and have been there for awhile, you are always “leaving money on the table” because of invested RSUs.
  - rnk 4y ago
    That fact is true, a fair point - when I left microsoft I left money behind but I got to go to a new faang job and left that ass ballmer behind ;-) But these friends were coming up on their 3 year anniversary I think. Amazon backloaded stock for a while. And it was more than 250k. I asked them why they couldn't get sit for a week, then take vacation, just do no shit for a month at amazon. And these two people separately said it was just so stressful they couldn't take it any more.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      It’s the same concept. The first two years you are getting your base + prorated signing bonus + 5% of your RSUs the first year and 15% the second year. If the stock price stays level. Your 4 year compensation is going to stay about level - you get a slightly smaller signing bonus the second year. If it goes up significantly by year 2.5 (20% every six months after year 2). You will see a massive jump. If Amazon did just pay you base + stock at an even 25/25/25/25. You would still be “leaving money on the table”.

rnk 4y ago

I worked back at microsoft when gates was still there. we had saturday meetings all the time. Like a couple of times a month. I was routinely doing work at 11pm trying to get things checked in before midnight. This was before gates had kids, we all joked. The stock made the job lucrative but it was killer, I can't believe I did that. Mostly I saw people retire, not quit or get fired. The difference with amazon is that everyone experienced knows a fair number of people who quit because of the stress and negatives, with lots of money on the table if it goes 2 or 3 months. I have two friends who quit, each with a quarter million coming if they stayed one more quarter. It would have to be pretty bad for that. I didn't see this happen at microsoft. We made progress in our jobs, and rest and vest wasn't even an ironic statement.

scarface74 4y ago
If you work at any of the major tech companies and have been there for awhile, you are always “leaving money on the table” because of invested RSUs.
- rnk 4y ago
  That fact is true, a fair point - when I left microsoft I left money behind but I got to go to a new faang job and left that ass ballmer behind ;-) But these friends were coming up on their 3 year anniversary I think. Amazon backloaded stock for a while. And it was more than 250k. I asked them why they couldn't get sit for a week, then take vacation, just do no shit for a month at amazon. And these two people separately said it was just so stressful they couldn't take it any more.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    It’s the same concept. The first two years you are getting your base + prorated signing bonus + 5% of your RSUs the first year and 15% the second year. If the stock price stays level. Your 4 year compensation is going to stay about level - you get a slightly smaller signing bonus the second year. If it goes up significantly by year 2.5 (20% every six months after year 2). You will see a massive jump. If Amazon did just pay you base + stock at an even 25/25/25/25. You would still be “leaving money on the table”.