11 ms·

What are the best options for Amazon SDEs thinking about leaving over RTO policy

190 points by aws_throwaway 2y ago

Any SDEs who are thinking of leaving Amazon over the 5-day RTO announcement, what are the best options for WFH flexibility, interesting projects, quality of colleagues, and salary? I'm a DB-focused SDE3 in the Seattle area, but am open to general systems programming projects, with 0-2 days/week onsite.

gotaran 2y ago
Downsize and move closer to the office
rexpop 2y ago
You join a union, or you join a different company. Or you threaten to, at any rate. Understand your leverage: job marketplace bargaining power stems from your willingness and ability to do the latter, while structural bargaining power stems from your willingness and ability to strike and/or engage in sabotage.
- kelvie 2y ago
  Would a SWE union push for work from home? I don't know how software unions have fared in the wild so far, or even any other type of engineers union in terms of work-from-home.
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    Presumably if the members prioritized it, that’s what the union would go for… don’t se any particular reason it wouldn’t be a priority. Seems to come up a lot.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    At the very least, I think one would push against nopen office floorplans.
  - vineyardmike 2y ago
    The film industry unions famously pushed to centralize all of the industry into a 30mi radius in LA (TMZ- thirty mile zone) [1], so it's totally possible to push for location-specific policies. The Alphabet Workers Union has been fighting against RTO mandates for a while now, AFAIK. Not super successfully, but they've gotten some extensions and delays a few times. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_zone
nfriedly 2y ago
If you're willing to take lower pay, there are a lot of good options out there. I took a nearly 50% cut about 5 years ago (a few months before the pandemic) to join a smaller company with a much less stressful environment and a very flexible WFH policy, and I don't regret it at all.
- bboygravity 2y ago
  That's a US perspective right? I don't think that exists much in Europe? I just got a 3 month freelance gig (Netherlands) and even that requires full time on-site for absolutely no reason other than "boss says so". There's also a housing crisis going on and they wonder why they have an open vacancy for literally 6+ months. I guess it's better to watch it burn than to allow WFH.
  - BartjeD 2y ago
    That's probably because you're a freelancer, which makes it a point for negotiation business to business. Employees have a legal right to work from home, so far as is reasonable in their circumstances and their employer's. There is legislation and jurisprudence on that, which makes it a lot less soft than it at first appears. The boss can't just say 'no'.
    - antimemetics 2y ago
      > Employees have a legal right to work from home Sorry but that’s a fantasy. I live in Germany and that is 100% not the case here. You might be able to negotiate it if you are an especially valuable employee but normally no chance
      - moooo99 2y ago
        I agree on the Germany perspective here. Although I may add, from my experience and what I observed on media, the return to office push post Covid wasn’t nearly as extreme here in Germany as it was in the US. I and my entire department still work mostly from home, with 2-3 days/month onsite. Pre Covid this would have been unimaginable, now there are multiple departments operating this way
tired-turtle 2y ago
(from my peers) the MO for those who want to leave seems to be slacking until PIP/Focus/Pivot (for the payout) while looking for outside opportunities. There are a ton of companies out there that meet your criteria, but you’ll have to do some digging. YMMV
- aws_throwaway 2y ago
  It's tempting but not really compatible with my personal sense of integrity. I don't judge others though since Amazon has zero integrity.
  - 93po 2y ago
    employment is just a business transaction, i don't believe people should tie their sense of integrity to how they interact with an organization that would fire you with zero notice and not even tell you why
    - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
      Integrity doesn't vary based on the actions of other people. A better move would be to use the networking opportunity to find other high-performance people who don't like the BS, and form a productish-consultingish worker-owned co-op to replace the soulless, erratic corporation with a more stable, humane environment.
      - whamlastxmas 2y ago
        Amazon is not people. It has no feelings
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    Personal integrity should not ever be in play when you’re talking about amoral objects like Amazon. When I command my computer to remove a file, I don’t think about the morality of destroying things. I issue the command and it does it. And I know my computer doesn’t care about personal integrity as it churns through its instructions. Amazon works the same way. These companies are all lawn mowers, just like Oracle. A lawn mower just cuts grass and does not deserve or respond to things like integrity and personal honor.
singlepaynews 2y ago
[flagged]
- refulgentis 2y ago
  No, Amazon is not a wrapper around Shopify and Easypost
  - immibis 2y ago
    If you did want to try completing with Amazon, mind you, you could start out that way to see if it's viable on a small scale. It probably isn't, but real world experience as to exactly why it isn't is invaluable. With regard to the post though, it's a useless and condescending reply.
    - refulgentis 2y ago
      Interesting — what do you make of "start an Amazon competitor" as advice for someone looking to stay WFH? Is it possible that pointing out Amazon is not, in fact, a wrapper around two B2B SaaS, more polite and conducive to inquiry than just saying it's idiotic and off-topic?
      - immibis 2y ago
        terrible advice
- Uptrenda 2y ago
  Stunning lack of awareness for Amazon and business sense. Holy...
keyle 2y ago
Talk to your manager and try to explain that it doesn't work for you, try and approach it like it's not reasonable in your case to demand 5 days a week - they talk about whenever humanly possible in the memo, I didn't read it in details, but you might be able to sway the fact that it won't work for you your way. Do not mention quitting over it though, or you'll definitely go straight into the HR crosshair. If you're done with Amazon, apply to local startups. Likely you won't get the same kind of money, but you might be happier and "you've got that on your resume".
josh2600 2y ago
We’re hiring for these roles, fully remote. Email is in my profile.
ethagnawl 2y ago
Depending on your appetite for risk and in/stability, you should not have trouble finding work at a start-up (FT or consulting). Doubly so if your db-focus touches on vector search. The timing is a tricky one, though. I personally know folks who were able to demand a premium for their past Amazon work experience but that cachet will fade quickly as people start jumping ship over this stupid, regressive policy.
giveupthrow 2y ago
You should definitely quit!
tapanjk 2y ago
A thought experiment, something you may not want to hear. Have you thought of playing along and see if you would actually like going back to office full time? Also, while you are at office 5 days a week, how about try to get to the next level before you switch? Many will leave (just like you are planning to) and hence it will be easier for the long timers to get promoted in an environment where there will be a lot of inflow of new employees at all levels. I am not suggesting that this is the right way to think about your situation, but that it is 'another way' to think about it. Who knows, you might end up profiting from this adversity. Wish you all the best!
- robin_reala 2y ago
  It’s not always that easy. Many people over the last few years have reorganised their life under the expectation of continued hybrid working, and can’t trivially reorganise it back to full time.
  - lnsru 2y ago
    I am one of these naive people who expected happy home office forever. It bit me hard, because I bought an old house outside of big city and spent the time I would need to commute renovating it. The return to the office happened, I quit. The other place was weird. It advertised generous home office ruling. But under very special manager home office was forbidden. It was just too stupid to file a complaint to HR and I left. So my construction site was stuck for 1,5 years and it was very stressful. Found by accident a job near my home. Small company with private office for me and unlimited home office ruling. Use home office only when I am ill. During this period I found out, that I absolutely love my private office and hate daily commuting and open offices.
  - lopkeny12ko 2y ago
    > Many people over the last few years have reorganised their life under the expectation of continued hybrid working Why should an employer bear the burden of an employee's own poor decision making?
    - 2y ago
bb88 2y ago
Unpopular opinion maybe... Just put up with it for a while -- then leave when a better opportunity shows itself. I flew more than half the country to work for a financial institution in NY, and enjoyed it for 2 years. I got to see a different part of the country, and racked up a bunch of frequent flyer miles. Another contracted me, wanted to keep me as a FTE, I told them I wasn't moving. They hired me as a remote worker.
blindriver 2y ago
All companies are returning to 5 days RTO, don't kid yourself. I would just bite the bullet and hold out at AMZN until the job market unfreezes and then jumpship then.
- whateveracct 2y ago
  I've been working remotely for 8 years..there are remote jobs out there. Good ones too with good pay. Especially good when you balance for time saved not going to an office and being forced to be "on the job" for 8hrs a day. Shrink that effective wage denominator.
  - munksbeer 2y ago
    > and being forced to be "on the job" for 8hrs a day. Shrink that effective wage denominator. I'm in the UK and go to the office once or twice a week. I feel pretty lucky that our company is still very ok with remote work. But then, we're a smallish outfit and many of us put in a fair bit more than 8 hours a day. We're not forced to, but we get paid well for it, so I'm ok with that.
- Balgair 2y ago
  I'm in biotech and WFH is here to stay in this industry, for what it's worth.
  - jawbah 2y ago
    I really want to get into it, but 99% of opportunities seem to be in the US. Does biotech hire Canadian devs to work remotely?
    - Balgair 2y ago
      Most of it is in San Diego or Boston, really. I'm not sure on remote devs, as honestly, biotech isn't really dev heavy (much to it's detriment). I'd look at the larger players in the space for jobs there, as they will likely be working in Canada too and may need help with local law compliance. If you're looking to switch things up, compliance is a very boring but deadly necessary sector of biotech that always needs people. I'll forewarn that the pay is less, though the stability is greater too (but not by all that much). https://www.biospace.com/news https://www.biospace.com/news This may be a good site to keep your finger on the pulse of the industry and to find companies looking for talent. At the end of the day, you are going to take less salary for a greater sense of mission and purpose. It's not as bad as teaching and nursing, but you're on that slide ruler now. Negotiate hard on starting salary.
acquiremoney 2y ago
Afaik netflix and Microsoft is remote.
- wordofx 2y ago
  MS is hardly remote. Lots of people being asked to come back. Just not a blanket statement like Amazon.
  - oblio 2y ago
    Yet.
  - strombofulous 2y ago
    Who is being asked to come back?
swisniewski 2y ago
Have you had a conversation with your manager? If the policy requires S-Team approval, it could be hard at the SDE 3 level, though it should be much easier at the PE level. If your Director is willing to go to bat, and you have a track record, it’s not unachievable. TBH, the policy is likely not aimed you… Though I will say…back in my AWS days, I did gain a bunch from being able to drop into Mark Brooker’s office and ask questions about distributed systems. I didn’t get always like it… but I learned a lot from it. If you have a solid performance argument in your favor, make it and see what happens. Worse case, they say “no” and you leave anyways.
- devsda 2y ago
  > Worse case, they say “no” and you leave anyways. If they say no, for some it puts self-imposed (imaginary) pressure to leave as soon as possible and that can lead to accepting mediocre offers. It's better to try this only if you are someone who can give enough time for job search in case of a rejection and not rush things.
PKop 2y ago
Keep working from home until they fire you, while making contingency plans. What are they going to do if many just keep staying home while actually doing work? At the very least this will drag out the resolution of the issue much longer.
- jeffrallen 2y ago
  That strategy comes with a nonzero chance of having unemployment delayed (fired for cause). So if OP chooses that route, he/she better have a bulletproof reserve and a plan B and plan C if it takes longer than expected to get a new job. I do think that this is a just strategy, though. If you give 100% of what was contracted, and your colleagues know you are all in on the success of the team, your high functioning team can outlast the winds of change from HR, easy.
  - Bluescreenbuddy 2y ago
    If you get fired from your 6 figure cushy engineering job and need that unemployment, what are you even doing..
    - azemetre 2y ago
      There is nothing wrong about collecting unemployment insurance if you’re unemployed, regardless of your previous job or salary. I don’t know where this mind worm of not using programs that were literally made for these circumstances but you are entitled to use them and should collect them. The company pays for unemployment insurance, if they don’t want to pay their premium rates increasing they shouldn’t have fired people.
  - PKop 2y ago
    This is true if he quits too though, which I thought was the other option being considered. If he wants to just comply and keep working there then this post is unnecessary. Being fired would come much later than quitting. In the mean time he can pursue other jobs too while also calling their bluff that they'll reverse mandate like they've done before.
sashank_1509 2y ago
Palantir and Microsoft are north remote friendly and based in Seattle.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  Palantir explicitly enables sketchy corporations and unfriendly regimes in doing mildly annoying to very bad things.
  - relaxing 2y ago
    lol what’s on the “mildly annoying” end?
- Bluescreenbuddy 2y ago
  Yeah but then you have to work for Palantir.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
aussieguy1234 2y ago
If you're entrepreneurial minded, head to your nearest startup meetup/founder networking event and chat to founders. Nearly all the founders are non technical and have the same problem, no tech talent to build their product and no funding to to hire one. But you could get a significant percentage of the business if you become a co-founder and you would basically have the pick of the bunch. You probably don't even have to leave amazon if you can smash out a quick prototype over a weekend, then only leave if they get funding and the startup takes off.
- yieldcrv 2y ago
  vomit. if you're going to do that, launching your own SaaS product is better
- greatpostman 2y ago
  Never build a product for some random non technical founder
- RussianCow 2y ago
  This is terrible advice. The non-technical founders who are struggling to find someone to implement their "great idea" are never[0] worth working for. It's not like you'd get a 50% share of the company anyway. [0]: I'm sure exceptions exist. I've never met one.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  Tenuous side-hustles don't get grown and built in a crisis to make a living. It's far better to have a stable 9-5 gig and then build things on the side intending to grow them, or at least let them validate/bake with other income and/or savings to see where they go.
- snapcaster 2y ago
  Have you ever seen anyone do this to success?
gigatexal 2y ago
Hi OP I hope you figure this out. As most folks are saying if you’re a talented Amazon engineer basically you’ll have the “pick of the litter”, companies should be fawning over you. I think you’ll be fine finding new work be it at Microsoft or Google or at a bank like JPMorgan or a startup. Of course be sure they do fully remote before applying or during the process but I think you’ll be fine. You’re a SDE3 at Amazon! Pivoting to an unrelated thing: do you know the PM for Redshift? I don’t want to shit on the team but Redshift compared to BigQuery or Snowflake sucks. It’s missing features both at the SQL level and the developer UX level. For example the amount of hoops one has to go through to create an external table against S3 of parquet files is far more involved and annoying than say defining one against GCS on BigQuery. I’ve tried engaging in conversation with Amazon people on LinkedIn or otherwise to no avail. I just want to know what the roadmap holds and if there will be more efforts to bring it to parity with its main competitors. I figured it was a long shot to ask but considering you’re a DB focused dev I thought I’d try.
xiaodai 2y ago
they figured you have no where to go
24currynigger 2y ago
[flagged]
zb1plus 2y ago
Idk why Amazon employees aren't unionizing over this. A major AWS outage due to striking employees could hit them where it hurts and make Amazon's management realize how stupid they are to consider this policy change.
- janalsncm 2y ago
  The actual answer to your question, besides the fact that all of us SDEs consider ourselves exceptional at our jobs, is that there are a lot of people whose immigration status depends on their job. They can’t strike. For that and other reasons, Amazon knows they can do what they want. I would love for labor to get a win, but it’s easy for me to say since I don’t work at Amazon. Someone else should bell the cat.
  - relaxing 2y ago
    Let them try to run the operation on a skeleton crew.
- clayhacks 2y ago
  I just joined Amazon but I’m definitely on board for unionization. Just need to figure out who else is. It seems like the real solution here is a collective unit to bargain with management to say no 5 days is not necessary. And probably get some other benefits too. But given amazons anti-union tactics in the warehouses I can’t imagine they’d be friendly to a corporate union either
- indrora 2y ago
  Former AWS here. I mentioned unionization on my personal social media account and was approached by legal that I should “consider my public statements about my job carefully.” It is well known that Amazon hires organizations like the Pinkertons to break up unionization efforts at all levels, even going as far as to bait union supporters into signing fake union interest forms on false pretense and then attrition-fire individuals who signed by giving them no hours, pushing them into ineffective or frustrating conditions, PIPs, etc.
  - 2y ago
throwawayawsaws 2y ago
I quit when they introduced the 3-days RTO last year. I just called few people that called me for years and landed a new job within a month. It also came with the raise, as I was approaching the cliff. Just pick on of the competitors of the AWS product you're working on.
Terretta 2y ago
If you would enjoy a fintech and can readily out engineer the average AWS TAM, we're hiring "Work Anywhere" in the U.S. (preference for Americas/New_York TZ for better overlap with UK etc.). We fly you business class to HQ in NYC area for an Mon - Thu about twice a quarter. You'd be on a small (4-8) capability or service owning team, including investment strategy (quant, strat, ML, discretionary, etc.) domain lead engineers on same team. We are small enough 'talent density' is still high, and everyone -- even non dev parts of firm -- is a builder.
em1sar 2y ago
[dead]
larubbio 2y ago
I left Amazon back when the 3-day RTO was announced. Their recruiters periodically ping and ask if I'd be interested in returning. So leaving on good terms will give you options to return if you want. I haven't seen a recent who's hiring post, but searching for the most recent one can help you find jobs that are hybrid or remote friendly. Also the startup I went to after I left is fully remote and hiring, my email is in my profile.
Luke20w 2y ago
Startups are a great option. Many are remote, have a super high upside, and have interesting projects you can actually be involved in every aspect of. If anyone is interested in the startup I’m at (Vertice AI), shoot me an email at lukew@verticeanalytics.ai - we’re hiring
zopf 2y ago
Shameless plug, I suppose: https://www.wellthapp.com/careers https://www.wellthapp.com/careers Most of our engineers are WFH 3-5 days per week. Come build systems (TypeScript, Postgres, ElasticSearch, Redis, AWS, Redshift, etc) that improve the lives of the neediest patients in the U.S. healthcare system through the power of behavioral economics.

190 points by aws_throwaway 2y ago

gotaran 2y ago

Downsize and move closer to the office

rexpop 2y ago

You join a union, or you join a different company. Or you threaten to, at any rate. Understand your leverage: job marketplace bargaining power stems from your willingness and ability to do the latter, while structural bargaining power stems from your willingness and ability to strike and/or engage in sabotage.

kelvie 2y ago
Would a SWE union push for work from home? I don't know how software unions have fared in the wild so far, or even any other type of engineers union in terms of work-from-home.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  Presumably if the members prioritized it, that’s what the union would go for… don’t se any particular reason it wouldn’t be a priority. Seems to come up a lot.
- fragmede 2y ago
  At the very least, I think one would push against nopen office floorplans.
- vineyardmike 2y ago
  The film industry unions famously pushed to centralize all of the industry into a 30mi radius in LA (TMZ- thirty mile zone) [1], so it's totally possible to push for location-specific policies. The Alphabet Workers Union has been fighting against RTO mandates for a while now, AFAIK. Not super successfully, but they've gotten some extensions and delays a few times. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_zone

nfriedly 2y ago

If you're willing to take lower pay, there are a lot of good options out there. I took a nearly 50% cut about 5 years ago (a few months before the pandemic) to join a smaller company with a much less stressful environment and a very flexible WFH policy, and I don't regret it at all.

bboygravity 2y ago
That's a US perspective right? I don't think that exists much in Europe? I just got a 3 month freelance gig (Netherlands) and even that requires full time on-site for absolutely no reason other than "boss says so". There's also a housing crisis going on and they wonder why they have an open vacancy for literally 6+ months. I guess it's better to watch it burn than to allow WFH.
- BartjeD 2y ago
  That's probably because you're a freelancer, which makes it a point for negotiation business to business. Employees have a legal right to work from home, so far as is reasonable in their circumstances and their employer's. There is legislation and jurisprudence on that, which makes it a lot less soft than it at first appears. The boss can't just say 'no'.
  - antimemetics 2y ago
    > Employees have a legal right to work from home Sorry but that’s a fantasy. I live in Germany and that is 100% not the case here. You might be able to negotiate it if you are an especially valuable employee but normally no chance
    - moooo99 2y ago
      I agree on the Germany perspective here. Although I may add, from my experience and what I observed on media, the return to office push post Covid wasn’t nearly as extreme here in Germany as it was in the US. I and my entire department still work mostly from home, with 2-3 days/month onsite. Pre Covid this would have been unimaginable, now there are multiple departments operating this way

tired-turtle 2y ago

(from my peers) the MO for those who want to leave seems to be slacking until PIP/Focus/Pivot (for the payout) while looking for outside opportunities. There are a ton of companies out there that meet your criteria, but you’ll have to do some digging. YMMV

aws_throwaway 2y ago
It's tempting but not really compatible with my personal sense of integrity. I don't judge others though since Amazon has zero integrity.
- 93po 2y ago
  employment is just a business transaction, i don't believe people should tie their sense of integrity to how they interact with an organization that would fire you with zero notice and not even tell you why
  - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
    Integrity doesn't vary based on the actions of other people. A better move would be to use the networking opportunity to find other high-performance people who don't like the BS, and form a productish-consultingish worker-owned co-op to replace the soulless, erratic corporation with a more stable, humane environment.
    - whamlastxmas 2y ago
      Amazon is not people. It has no feelings
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Personal integrity should not ever be in play when you’re talking about amoral objects like Amazon. When I command my computer to remove a file, I don’t think about the morality of destroying things. I issue the command and it does it. And I know my computer doesn’t care about personal integrity as it churns through its instructions. Amazon works the same way. These companies are all lawn mowers, just like Oracle. A lawn mower just cuts grass and does not deserve or respond to things like integrity and personal honor.

singlepaynews 2y ago

[flagged]

refulgentis 2y ago
No, Amazon is not a wrapper around Shopify and Easypost
- immibis 2y ago
  If you did want to try completing with Amazon, mind you, you could start out that way to see if it's viable on a small scale. It probably isn't, but real world experience as to exactly why it isn't is invaluable. With regard to the post though, it's a useless and condescending reply.
  - refulgentis 2y ago
    Interesting — what do you make of "start an Amazon competitor" as advice for someone looking to stay WFH? Is it possible that pointing out Amazon is not, in fact, a wrapper around two B2B SaaS, more polite and conducive to inquiry than just saying it's idiotic and off-topic?
    - immibis 2y ago
      terrible advice
Uptrenda 2y ago
Stunning lack of awareness for Amazon and business sense. Holy...

keyle 2y ago

Talk to your manager and try to explain that it doesn't work for you, try and approach it like it's not reasonable in your case to demand 5 days a week - they talk about whenever humanly possible in the memo, I didn't read it in details, but you might be able to sway the fact that it won't work for you your way. Do not mention quitting over it though, or you'll definitely go straight into the HR crosshair. If you're done with Amazon, apply to local startups. Likely you won't get the same kind of money, but you might be happier and "you've got that on your resume".

josh2600 2y ago

We’re hiring for these roles, fully remote. Email is in my profile.

ethagnawl 2y ago

Depending on your appetite for risk and in/stability, you should not have trouble finding work at a start-up (FT or consulting). Doubly so if your db-focus touches on vector search. The timing is a tricky one, though. I personally know folks who were able to demand a premium for their past Amazon work experience but that cachet will fade quickly as people start jumping ship over this stupid, regressive policy.

giveupthrow 2y ago

You should definitely quit!

tapanjk 2y ago

A thought experiment, something you may not want to hear. Have you thought of playing along and see if you would actually like going back to office full time? Also, while you are at office 5 days a week, how about try to get to the next level before you switch? Many will leave (just like you are planning to) and hence it will be easier for the long timers to get promoted in an environment where there will be a lot of inflow of new employees at all levels. I am not suggesting that this is the right way to think about your situation, but that it is 'another way' to think about it. Who knows, you might end up profiting from this adversity. Wish you all the best!

robin_reala 2y ago
It’s not always that easy. Many people over the last few years have reorganised their life under the expectation of continued hybrid working, and can’t trivially reorganise it back to full time.
- lnsru 2y ago
  I am one of these naive people who expected happy home office forever. It bit me hard, because I bought an old house outside of big city and spent the time I would need to commute renovating it. The return to the office happened, I quit. The other place was weird. It advertised generous home office ruling. But under very special manager home office was forbidden. It was just too stupid to file a complaint to HR and I left. So my construction site was stuck for 1,5 years and it was very stressful. Found by accident a job near my home. Small company with private office for me and unlimited home office ruling. Use home office only when I am ill. During this period I found out, that I absolutely love my private office and hate daily commuting and open offices.
- lopkeny12ko 2y ago
  > Many people over the last few years have reorganised their life under the expectation of continued hybrid working Why should an employer bear the burden of an employee's own poor decision making?
  - 2y ago

bb88 2y ago

Unpopular opinion maybe... Just put up with it for a while -- then leave when a better opportunity shows itself. I flew more than half the country to work for a financial institution in NY, and enjoyed it for 2 years. I got to see a different part of the country, and racked up a bunch of frequent flyer miles. Another contracted me, wanted to keep me as a FTE, I told them I wasn't moving. They hired me as a remote worker.

blindriver 2y ago

All companies are returning to 5 days RTO, don't kid yourself. I would just bite the bullet and hold out at AMZN until the job market unfreezes and then jumpship then.

whateveracct 2y ago
I've been working remotely for 8 years..there are remote jobs out there. Good ones too with good pay. Especially good when you balance for time saved not going to an office and being forced to be "on the job" for 8hrs a day. Shrink that effective wage denominator.
- munksbeer 2y ago
  > and being forced to be "on the job" for 8hrs a day. Shrink that effective wage denominator. I'm in the UK and go to the office once or twice a week. I feel pretty lucky that our company is still very ok with remote work. But then, we're a smallish outfit and many of us put in a fair bit more than 8 hours a day. We're not forced to, but we get paid well for it, so I'm ok with that.
Balgair 2y ago
I'm in biotech and WFH is here to stay in this industry, for what it's worth.
- jawbah 2y ago
  I really want to get into it, but 99% of opportunities seem to be in the US. Does biotech hire Canadian devs to work remotely?
  - Balgair 2y ago
    Most of it is in San Diego or Boston, really. I'm not sure on remote devs, as honestly, biotech isn't really dev heavy (much to it's detriment). I'd look at the larger players in the space for jobs there, as they will likely be working in Canada too and may need help with local law compliance. If you're looking to switch things up, compliance is a very boring but deadly necessary sector of biotech that always needs people. I'll forewarn that the pay is less, though the stability is greater too (but not by all that much). https://www.biospace.com/news https://www.biospace.com/news This may be a good site to keep your finger on the pulse of the industry and to find companies looking for talent. At the end of the day, you are going to take less salary for a greater sense of mission and purpose. It's not as bad as teaching and nursing, but you're on that slide ruler now. Negotiate hard on starting salary.

acquiremoney 2y ago

Afaik netflix and Microsoft is remote.

wordofx 2y ago
MS is hardly remote. Lots of people being asked to come back. Just not a blanket statement like Amazon.
- oblio 2y ago
  Yet.
- strombofulous 2y ago
  Who is being asked to come back?

swisniewski 2y ago

Have you had a conversation with your manager? If the policy requires S-Team approval, it could be hard at the SDE 3 level, though it should be much easier at the PE level. If your Director is willing to go to bat, and you have a track record, it’s not unachievable. TBH, the policy is likely not aimed you… Though I will say…back in my AWS days, I did gain a bunch from being able to drop into Mark Brooker’s office and ask questions about distributed systems. I didn’t get always like it… but I learned a lot from it. If you have a solid performance argument in your favor, make it and see what happens. Worse case, they say “no” and you leave anyways.

devsda 2y ago
> Worse case, they say “no” and you leave anyways. If they say no, for some it puts self-imposed (imaginary) pressure to leave as soon as possible and that can lead to accepting mediocre offers. It's better to try this only if you are someone who can give enough time for job search in case of a rejection and not rush things.

PKop 2y ago

Keep working from home until they fire you, while making contingency plans. What are they going to do if many just keep staying home while actually doing work? At the very least this will drag out the resolution of the issue much longer.

jeffrallen 2y ago
That strategy comes with a nonzero chance of having unemployment delayed (fired for cause). So if OP chooses that route, he/she better have a bulletproof reserve and a plan B and plan C if it takes longer than expected to get a new job. I do think that this is a just strategy, though. If you give 100% of what was contracted, and your colleagues know you are all in on the success of the team, your high functioning team can outlast the winds of change from HR, easy.
- Bluescreenbuddy 2y ago
  If you get fired from your 6 figure cushy engineering job and need that unemployment, what are you even doing..
  - azemetre 2y ago
    There is nothing wrong about collecting unemployment insurance if you’re unemployed, regardless of your previous job or salary. I don’t know where this mind worm of not using programs that were literally made for these circumstances but you are entitled to use them and should collect them. The company pays for unemployment insurance, if they don’t want to pay their premium rates increasing they shouldn’t have fired people.
- PKop 2y ago
  This is true if he quits too though, which I thought was the other option being considered. If he wants to just comply and keep working there then this post is unnecessary. Being fired would come much later than quitting. In the mean time he can pursue other jobs too while also calling their bluff that they'll reverse mandate like they've done before.

sashank_1509 2y ago

Palantir and Microsoft are north remote friendly and based in Seattle.

hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
Palantir explicitly enables sketchy corporations and unfriendly regimes in doing mildly annoying to very bad things.
- relaxing 2y ago
  lol what’s on the “mildly annoying” end?
Bluescreenbuddy 2y ago
Yeah but then you have to work for Palantir.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

aussieguy1234 2y ago

If you're entrepreneurial minded, head to your nearest startup meetup/founder networking event and chat to founders. Nearly all the founders are non technical and have the same problem, no tech talent to build their product and no funding to to hire one. But you could get a significant percentage of the business if you become a co-founder and you would basically have the pick of the bunch. You probably don't even have to leave amazon if you can smash out a quick prototype over a weekend, then only leave if they get funding and the startup takes off.

yieldcrv 2y ago
vomit. if you're going to do that, launching your own SaaS product is better
greatpostman 2y ago
Never build a product for some random non technical founder
RussianCow 2y ago
This is terrible advice. The non-technical founders who are struggling to find someone to implement their "great idea" are never[0] worth working for. It's not like you'd get a 50% share of the company anyway. [0]: I'm sure exceptions exist. I've never met one.
hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
Tenuous side-hustles don't get grown and built in a crisis to make a living. It's far better to have a stable 9-5 gig and then build things on the side intending to grow them, or at least let them validate/bake with other income and/or savings to see where they go.
snapcaster 2y ago
Have you ever seen anyone do this to success?

gigatexal 2y ago

Hi OP I hope you figure this out. As most folks are saying if you’re a talented Amazon engineer basically you’ll have the “pick of the litter”, companies should be fawning over you. I think you’ll be fine finding new work be it at Microsoft or Google or at a bank like JPMorgan or a startup. Of course be sure they do fully remote before applying or during the process but I think you’ll be fine. You’re a SDE3 at Amazon! Pivoting to an unrelated thing: do you know the PM for Redshift? I don’t want to shit on the team but Redshift compared to BigQuery or Snowflake sucks. It’s missing features both at the SQL level and the developer UX level. For example the amount of hoops one has to go through to create an external table against S3 of parquet files is far more involved and annoying than say defining one against GCS on BigQuery. I’ve tried engaging in conversation with Amazon people on LinkedIn or otherwise to no avail. I just want to know what the roadmap holds and if there will be more efforts to bring it to parity with its main competitors. I figured it was a long shot to ask but considering you’re a DB focused dev I thought I’d try.

xiaodai 2y ago

they figured you have no where to go

24currynigger 2y ago

[flagged]

zb1plus 2y ago

Idk why Amazon employees aren't unionizing over this. A major AWS outage due to striking employees could hit them where it hurts and make Amazon's management realize how stupid they are to consider this policy change.

janalsncm 2y ago
The actual answer to your question, besides the fact that all of us SDEs consider ourselves exceptional at our jobs, is that there are a lot of people whose immigration status depends on their job. They can’t strike. For that and other reasons, Amazon knows they can do what they want. I would love for labor to get a win, but it’s easy for me to say since I don’t work at Amazon. Someone else should bell the cat.
- relaxing 2y ago
  Let them try to run the operation on a skeleton crew.
clayhacks 2y ago
I just joined Amazon but I’m definitely on board for unionization. Just need to figure out who else is. It seems like the real solution here is a collective unit to bargain with management to say no 5 days is not necessary. And probably get some other benefits too. But given amazons anti-union tactics in the warehouses I can’t imagine they’d be friendly to a corporate union either
indrora 2y ago
Former AWS here. I mentioned unionization on my personal social media account and was approached by legal that I should “consider my public statements about my job carefully.” It is well known that Amazon hires organizations like the Pinkertons to break up unionization efforts at all levels, even going as far as to bait union supporters into signing fake union interest forms on false pretense and then attrition-fire individuals who signed by giving them no hours, pushing them into ineffective or frustrating conditions, PIPs, etc.
- 2y ago

throwawayawsaws 2y ago

I quit when they introduced the 3-days RTO last year. I just called few people that called me for years and landed a new job within a month. It also came with the raise, as I was approaching the cliff. Just pick on of the competitors of the AWS product you're working on.

Terretta 2y ago

If you would enjoy a fintech and can readily out engineer the average AWS TAM, we're hiring "Work Anywhere" in the U.S. (preference for Americas/New_York TZ for better overlap with UK etc.). We fly you business class to HQ in NYC area for an Mon - Thu about twice a quarter. You'd be on a small (4-8) capability or service owning team, including investment strategy (quant, strat, ML, discretionary, etc.) domain lead engineers on same team. We are small enough 'talent density' is still high, and everyone -- even non dev parts of firm -- is a builder.

em1sar 2y ago

[dead]

larubbio 2y ago

I left Amazon back when the 3-day RTO was announced. Their recruiters periodically ping and ask if I'd be interested in returning. So leaving on good terms will give you options to return if you want. I haven't seen a recent who's hiring post, but searching for the most recent one can help you find jobs that are hybrid or remote friendly. Also the startup I went to after I left is fully remote and hiring, my email is in my profile.

Luke20w 2y ago

Startups are a great option. Many are remote, have a super high upside, and have interesting projects you can actually be involved in every aspect of. If anyone is interested in the startup I’m at (Vertice AI), shoot me an email at lukew@verticeanalytics.ai - we’re hiring

zopf 2y ago

Shameless plug, I suppose: https://www.wellthapp.com/careers https://www.wellthapp.com/careers Most of our engineers are WFH 3-5 days per week. Come build systems (TypeScript, Postgres, ElasticSearch, Redis, AWS, Redshift, etc) that improve the lives of the neediest patients in the U.S. healthcare system through the power of behavioral economics.