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You should have just switched teams. Amazon has amazing teams working on deep technology, they also have huge systems with technical debt and stress. People don
by fdgsdfogijq 4y ago
You should have just switched teams. Amazon has amazing teams working on deep technology, they also have huge systems with technical debt and stress. People dont realize how different it can be inside the company.
- mr_tristan 4y agoHow easy is it to transfer between teams? Some companies make this easy, others make it almost harder to apply internally then externally.
- goostavos 4y agoI've been on 4 different teams at Amazon (now migrating to a 5th). It depends entirely on the team and as well as your current level. Some do loops just like with external candidates. Others barely require more than a conversation with someone on the team -- though this one is a huge red flag. Teams looking for warm bodies are seldom good teams. Most of the time its somewhere in between. You'll speak with the manager, speak with the team, you each review each other's artifacts, and if everyone's happy, you swap over. The balance of power is pretty nice. I've dropped out of the process many, many times after starting talking with management. Or even just learning more about what the team itself does (I couldn't live with myself if I worked on pre-roll ads, for example. So I noped out of that one).
- gruffle 4y agoI believe you also need approvals from your current manager(s) to switch teams?
- ldjkfkdsjnv 4y agoNope no approval required
- gruffle 4y agoInteresting, I was told the opposite by my managers...
- nixgeek 4y agoUnless you’re in Focus or Pivot, you’re a free agent. When Amazon is performance managing you in any sense it isn’t up to your existing manager if you can move, it would be an L10 (VP) exception on the receiving side to allow you to move, even if the hiring manager thinks you’re great.
- twelve40 4y agothat can't be right (but i have no idea). In the new group, nobody has any desire to at least do a reference check with the previous group? That would be the first thing as a hiring manager i would try to check for, say "this person is a d-bag that the entire group hated, and we were about to pip him/her anyway"? That would be kind of an equivalent of an approval, even if there is no formal approval.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bigfoot675 4y agoYes they do this. I don't know if the other guy just hasn't seen it himself or what
- therealcamino 4y agoI mean, yes, having your manager say "I will destroy your career if you think about leaving" would be a kind of approval needed, but short of that level of viciousness it sounds like no? Not familiar with Amazon culture so I don't know if that'd be considered acceptable behavior. I hope not!
- twelve40 4y agohave you considered that the manager may rightly have bad things to say? or that is just never warranted.
- bb88 4y agoI've seen a lot of red flags in my career where managers put people on PIPs -- when in reality it's not a PIP but a personality conflict. And from what I understand at Amazon, it's kind of the same thing, but PIPs have been aggressively weaponized.
- OnceUponADevops 4y agoChrist, I wish PIPs were that easy where I work. Some days it feels like the public sector trying to get rid of employees that coast for months at a time before we can work our way through the process to can them.
- Firmwarrior 4y agoPips take months too, they're really not ideal
- Aeolun 4y agoIsn’t that what a PIP is? A Personality Improvement Plan?
- lozenge 4y agoHow can you tell ahead of time if the team you're switching to has it any better?
- Syonyk 4y agoFind out what they drink for "Team alcohol evenings." Whiskey team? Ok, probably somewhat stressful but doable. Wine team? Plush and cushy, with a line of people who want to be on that team out the door. Vodka team? Oh hell no. Etc. ... I'm kidding. Sort of. But not entirely.
- hinkley 4y agoNot at Amazon, but offering a data point for Team Patron not being a good time.
- blippitybleep 4y agoYou better watch out for the team who all drink Tennent’s Super Lager.
- peteradio 4y agoMore like team alcohol mornings amirite
- blippitybleep 4y agoThe team who all have their standup down the canal with a half bottle.
- jjgreen 4y agoRedBull & Ketamine?
- akiselev 4y agoYou’re probably thinking of a crypto exchange as the money exits the “backdoor”.
- Patrol8394 4y agoThey all look shining from the outside, problems start when you join the new team and realize the pile of st you will be dealing with. Btw this happens in most companies, tons of tech debt. And those who created that st are off onto new projects recreating the exact same mess all over again. It is a cycle that never ends. Only chance is to join early and be in for the long run.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dtgriscom 4y ago... your censorial asterisks italicized part of your post ...
- BurningFrog 4y agoIf you're good at cleaning up "pile of shit" code, you will always have work! It's s lot of fun with the right attitude.
- jdeaton 4y agoThe problem is sometimes your organization does not reward these efforts at all.
- beebmam 4y agoI've made a great career of being a code janitor and doing what others don't want, while having a good attitude. In the last few years, I just rewrite everything I possibly can in Rust and I've yet to regret it.
- spike021 4y agoBefore I left Amazon I tried transferring to multiple teams after speaking with hiring managers. They all (IIRC 4 separate ones) wanted either a full on-site loop or at minimum two coding interviews). I was an L5 with about 5-6 years of experience, 1.5 at that point at Amazon.
- shitlord 4y agoHiring managers have a lot of latitude at Amazon, so there isn't a consistent standard. I don't want to share too much PII but I was in a similar situation. I was able to transfer teams after an informal chat with a few engineers on the team (discussing past projects, the new team's product vision, etc.). There was no whiteboarding involved.
- bboygravity 4y agoSo the internal hiring managers are there for no reason at all?
- SkyArrow 4y agoThe hiring managers are themselves managers of the team e.g. for a team of devs, a software development manager. In parent comment's case, the manager likely asked for opinions from the team after the chats before giving the final approval.
- shitlord 4y agoYup, that's exactly what happened. IME, the best managers are the ones who trust and enable their teams to make the right decisions. It would be a red flag if the manager was just giving out offers without allowing the team to provide their input.