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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

by 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.
taamazonsde1234 4y ago
> I can't really speak to amazon retail, but in my 7 odd years in aws I found most people left because I've worked at Amazon for over 4 years. During this period, I saw around 80% of all team members being promoted to customer, perhaps half of them voluntarily. Amazon provided psychological service to those who felt they needed it, and a couple who quit confided in me they used the service. One guy overtly burned out and never showed up again. Long work hours were the norm. Plenty of CRs were posted after 10PM. Even SDE3s frequently posted CRs on Sundays. The senior manager was hell bent on proving leadership he could deliver projects in impossible deadlines and not rarely did he warned SDEs that failing to deliver on those promises were firable offenses. This in turn fostered a work environment that led to some backstabbing and less than ethical stunts from team members prone to those and desperate to make a good impression. It's true that Amazon's salary structure is designed to push out people. It is designed to impose a hefty pay cut after the second year or so. Nevertheless this is not the problem. The problem is the awful corporate culture that's designed to hold SDEs responsible for not delivering things even in impossible scenarios, and the backstabbing culture it sprouts by design. But I'm sure some people might have a good time working there.
- dastbe 4y ago
  not discounting your experience but > The senior manager was hell bent on proving leadership he could deliver projects in impossible deadlines and not rarely did he warned SDEs that failing to deliver on those promises were firable offenses. This in turn fostered a work environment that led to some backstabbing and less than ethical stunts from team members prone to those and desperate to make a good impression. is an extreme situation and one I never saw across ~3 orgs between amazon and aws.

by dastbe 4y ago

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.

taamazonsde1234 4y ago

> I can't really speak to amazon retail, but in my 7 odd years in aws I found most people left because I've worked at Amazon for over 4 years. During this period, I saw around 80% of all team members being promoted to customer, perhaps half of them voluntarily. Amazon provided psychological service to those who felt they needed it, and a couple who quit confided in me they used the service. One guy overtly burned out and never showed up again. Long work hours were the norm. Plenty of CRs were posted after 10PM. Even SDE3s frequently posted CRs on Sundays. The senior manager was hell bent on proving leadership he could deliver projects in impossible deadlines and not rarely did he warned SDEs that failing to deliver on those promises were firable offenses. This in turn fostered a work environment that led to some backstabbing and less than ethical stunts from team members prone to those and desperate to make a good impression. It's true that Amazon's salary structure is designed to push out people. It is designed to impose a hefty pay cut after the second year or so. Nevertheless this is not the problem. The problem is the awful corporate culture that's designed to hold SDEs responsible for not delivering things even in impossible scenarios, and the backstabbing culture it sprouts by design. But I'm sure some people might have a good time working there.

dastbe 4y ago
not discounting your experience but > The senior manager was hell bent on proving leadership he could deliver projects in impossible deadlines and not rarely did he warned SDEs that failing to deliver on those promises were firable offenses. This in turn fostered a work environment that led to some backstabbing and less than ethical stunts from team members prone to those and desperate to make a good impression. is an extreme situation and one I never saw across ~3 orgs between amazon and aws.