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I use AWS at the companies I work for because of their amazing customer service. I'm fairly critical of Amazon's engineering culture and practices but as a cus

I use AWS at the companies I work for because of their amazing customer service. I'm fairly critical of Amazon's engineering culture and practices but as a customer I have to admit they are head and shoulders above their competition and frankly most SaaS providers as a whole. They've secured millions of dollars in revenue from me alone just by being so customer friendly.

oneplane 4y ago
Yep, that's been my experience as well. AWS (and Amazon as a whole) are bad for the people that work there, but as for their service offerings, it would take GCP and Azure combined to get even close.
- MisterPea 4y ago
  I think if you took a poll of AWS workers you'd find that most enjoy it. The culture leads to a vocal minority who REALLY hate it but my time there was some of the most enjoyable I've ever had. I've worked with some of the smartest people in the tech field, building products from scratch for billion dollar customers and learning every day. I've always told people that it's probably the best place you can start out of college. EDIT: This was back in 2016, I'm not sure how much has changed without Bezos and Jassy at helm of AWS
  - posguy 4y ago
    Amazon is a turn and burn employer at its heart. I've watched dozens of friends and acquaintances work there, rarely making it past 2 years, only to leave for less caustic organization thereafter. Unless your willing to put up with a huge ration of shit on a regular basis, or you make it into management, your time is limited by the up and out mentality of the organization as a whole. Amazon has created the perfect scenario to spend shitloads of money getting talent up to speed, only to part ways with them shortly thereafter.
    - amzn-throw 4y ago
      Sorry dude, you don't have credibility based on "Unless your willing to put up with a huge ration of shit on a regular basis, or you make it into management," Management at AWS arguably puts up with much more shit on a regular basis.
    - dastbe 4y ago
      I can't really speak to amazon retail, but in my 7 odd years in aws I found most people left because * working in infrastructure means doing a lot not quite so exciting things. most people aren't actually excited by ops, and a lot of your dev work will be on ops. its also the case that ops was historically not as well rewarded, though thats been fixed * every service needs to be held to the highest tier of operational excellence, and so you can't just chabuduo when things aren't working as well as they should. in the worst case, this means throwing bodies to the ops meatgrinder. * delivery speed is slowwwww. some of this in endemic to the space, but aws at the end of 2021 (when i left :) ) was a lot slower than than when i joined due to so much risk aversion and bureaucracy * comp wasn't as good compared many tech peers, and comp could very easily not keep pace if you weren't tippy top every year. this is imo the most self-defeating part of amazon culture as a whole because it incentivizes people rated between ~p10-p20 and p50 to leave.
      - Aeolun 4y ago
        > was a lot slower than than when i joined due to so much risk aversion and bureaucracy I feel like this is true for every single large company I’ve ever worked for. Things always feel like they’re regressing from a high point. I have no idea why it it. All of them had free coffee when I joined, and they’ve slowly removed the vending machines and just never replaced them.
        posguy 4y ago
        The team working on developing integrations for Amazon Payments certainly didn't have diddly squat in their break room when I visited a few years back. Not revenue generating = Get treated terribly at Amazon was a sight to behold in action.
  - simplotek 4y ago
    > I think if you took a poll of AWS workers you'd find that most enjoy it. Isn't the average tenure at Amazon less than 3 years? "Most" of the people who you'd ask would be fresh from the interview rounds and with only one or two performance review rounds under their belt.
  - glenngillen 4y ago
    Same here (2017-2019). The main reason I left was how much travel I had to do. With a young family at the time I wasn’t going to get those years back.
- jorblumesea 4y ago
  That's Amazon in general, it's an effective company from the outside because how it treats the people inside. The customer is everything, and other things are secondary. Including work life balance, employee happiness, burn out...
znpy 4y ago
Customer obsession is like the first of Amazon’s leadership principles.
Aeolun 4y ago
I’m fairly critical of all AWS’s weird limits and the quality of their non-core offerings (CDK is full of bugs and missing resources, half of which are caused by missing shit in CloudFormation). But I agree their support is very responsive.

oneplane 4y ago

Yep, that's been my experience as well. AWS (and Amazon as a whole) are bad for the people that work there, but as for their service offerings, it would take GCP and Azure combined to get even close.

MisterPea 4y ago
I think if you took a poll of AWS workers you'd find that most enjoy it. The culture leads to a vocal minority who REALLY hate it but my time there was some of the most enjoyable I've ever had. I've worked with some of the smartest people in the tech field, building products from scratch for billion dollar customers and learning every day. I've always told people that it's probably the best place you can start out of college. EDIT: This was back in 2016, I'm not sure how much has changed without Bezos and Jassy at helm of AWS
- posguy 4y ago
  Amazon is a turn and burn employer at its heart. I've watched dozens of friends and acquaintances work there, rarely making it past 2 years, only to leave for less caustic organization thereafter. Unless your willing to put up with a huge ration of shit on a regular basis, or you make it into management, your time is limited by the up and out mentality of the organization as a whole. Amazon has created the perfect scenario to spend shitloads of money getting talent up to speed, only to part ways with them shortly thereafter.
  - amzn-throw 4y ago
    Sorry dude, you don't have credibility based on "Unless your willing to put up with a huge ration of shit on a regular basis, or you make it into management," Management at AWS arguably puts up with much more shit on a regular basis.
  - dastbe 4y ago
    I can't really speak to amazon retail, but in my 7 odd years in aws I found most people left because * working in infrastructure means doing a lot not quite so exciting things. most people aren't actually excited by ops, and a lot of your dev work will be on ops. its also the case that ops was historically not as well rewarded, though thats been fixed * every service needs to be held to the highest tier of operational excellence, and so you can't just chabuduo when things aren't working as well as they should. in the worst case, this means throwing bodies to the ops meatgrinder. * delivery speed is slowwwww. some of this in endemic to the space, but aws at the end of 2021 (when i left :) ) was a lot slower than than when i joined due to so much risk aversion and bureaucracy * comp wasn't as good compared many tech peers, and comp could very easily not keep pace if you weren't tippy top every year. this is imo the most self-defeating part of amazon culture as a whole because it incentivizes people rated between ~p10-p20 and p50 to leave.
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      > was a lot slower than than when i joined due to so much risk aversion and bureaucracy I feel like this is true for every single large company I’ve ever worked for. Things always feel like they’re regressing from a high point. I have no idea why it it. All of them had free coffee when I joined, and they’ve slowly removed the vending machines and just never replaced them.
      - posguy 4y ago
        The team working on developing integrations for Amazon Payments certainly didn't have diddly squat in their break room when I visited a few years back. Not revenue generating = Get treated terribly at Amazon was a sight to behold in action.
- simplotek 4y ago
  > I think if you took a poll of AWS workers you'd find that most enjoy it. Isn't the average tenure at Amazon less than 3 years? "Most" of the people who you'd ask would be fresh from the interview rounds and with only one or two performance review rounds under their belt.
- glenngillen 4y ago
  Same here (2017-2019). The main reason I left was how much travel I had to do. With a young family at the time I wasn’t going to get those years back.
jorblumesea 4y ago
That's Amazon in general, it's an effective company from the outside because how it treats the people inside. The customer is everything, and other things are secondary. Including work life balance, employee happiness, burn out...

znpy 4y ago

Customer obsession is like the first of Amazon’s leadership principles.

Aeolun 4y ago

I’m fairly critical of all AWS’s weird limits and the quality of their non-core offerings (CDK is full of bugs and missing resources, half of which are caused by missing shit in CloudFormation). But I agree their support is very responsive.