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Amazon.com has been around for awhile, and it has been successful for awhile, so I find this especially surprising: ------------ Amazon.com, notably, has a me

Amazon.com has been around for awhile, and it has been successful for awhile, so I find this especially surprising: ------------ Amazon.com, notably, has a median stay with the company of just one year, a figure Ms. Bardaro ascribed to the intense pace of work there. (The study did not include workers in Amazon’s warehouses, where skills and turnover are different.) “We’re based in Seattle, and know a lot of people at Amazon,” she said. “The consensus is that you are run through a gamut there, make money, burn out and leave.” ------------ I would not have thought that this was sustainable, but if this is accepted practice at Amazon, then perhaps this is sustainable. I am somewhat surprised that Amazon finds this productive. But perhaps they get enough out of that 1 year average that it offsets the costs of having to hire new people every year, and the cost of teaching them how the company works.

brandonbloom 13y ago
> I would not have thought that this was sustainable Having lived near Amazon & with many friends who have worked there, here's the secret: Amazon pays a significant premium for new grads. Starting salaries are 20 to 40 percent higher at Amazon than at Microsoft, Google, & Facebook in WA. However, promotions and raises are also much rarer, so if you actually stay 5 years, it probably averages out minus the stressful pace. If you plan to stay in the big corporate game, the smart move for a new grad is to leverage your one year at Amazon into a 10 to 20% pay bump in a move to Microsoft or Google.
- tensor 13y ago
  This only suggests that Amazon's practice is not sustainable. They are paying a premium yet getting perpetually inexperienced people who won't stay as they gain experience. Surely there is more going on here? This doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
  - ryguytilidie 13y ago
    I don't necessarily agree that some of the best college students graduating each year are inexperienced. A lot of them have been working for 10+ years on their own stuff and have interned 3 times or so.
  - eshvk 13y ago
    I don't think it is deliberate.From my friends who joined over the past three years, I think the problem is that burnout as well as incredibly dysfunctional teams is the reason people quit after two years or so. They have been trying to retain people by throwing more money at them (both those who join and might be aware through their friend network of the stigma) and those who are already working there.
  - nandemo 13y ago
    I guess it is sustainable, in the sense that there are far more new grads each year than new Amazon hires, and Amazon can afford to pay extra (as evidenced by their financials). It's just far from optimal.
  - barry-cotter 13y ago
    Sixty hour work weeks are sustainable for most twenty somethings, not healthy but sustainable. If you pay twenty per cent more than MS for fresh grads but get fifty per cent more work out of them you'll come out ahead. This does require real standards in hiring to ensure your perpetually mildly sleep deprived workers can do glue code in their sleep because a lot of the time they will be. This model also requires a constant stream of fresh grads but at market + 20% that won't be a problem. The turnover does suggest that Amazon's reputation as a hellish place to work is well earner but it could easily be as profitable long term as Google's much more humane one.
sn0v 13y ago
Isn't that what happens at most game dev studios? Extended crunch periods, burn outs etc.
rscale 13y ago
Perhaps the "intense pace of work" is the organizational equivalent of the myriad situations where the marginal returns of an additional hour of work are negative, but it feels like they should be positive, so we work/hack/study a bit more.
saosebastiao 13y ago
I can understand the burnout. I personally love it, but I don't think I'm the norm. It doesn't look particularly sustainable, at least from a traditional HR overview...But I still think they get enough of the masochistic super-geniuses to keep the company moving along at its sometimes mind-boggling pace.
hristov 13y ago
The little dirty secret of the tech industry is that if you put yourself in the right time at the right place and get the strategic advantage you can make so much money that a lot of mistakes can be hidden. Warren Buffet says that when the tide goes low you can see who is swimming naked. The opposite is true, when the tide is high you cannot see who is swimming naked, so one should not make too much assumptions about their clothes. In the late 90's everyone thought that microsoft had found the perfect way to manage programmers and run a software company. All kinds of companies would try to emulate microsoft methods. But in reality, that clever fox Gates guided Microsoft into the perfect strategic position. Once microsoft had to compete in fields that were outside their monopoly the results were not as dominating. Similarly Amazon is in a great strategic position nowadays, because they have built out the infrastructure that the US uses to shop online. Their stock is flying high, so everyone assumes they must be doing something right. And they undoubtedly are. But that does not necessarily mean that their practices of managing programmers are optimal or even good. In fact if you look at Amazon's finances you are stricken at how little profit they make. It is unclear why, because their financial statements are very opaque. But it is entirely possible that they are hemorrhaging money because of the way the hire and fire programmers but the whole thing is hidden by their strategic position. It is not like a company that does software development better can come in and beat Amazon at selling things on the internet.
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  > The little dirty secret of the tech industry is that if you put yourself in the right time at the right place and get the strategic advantage you can make so much money that a lot of mistakes can be hidden. I wish I could staple this to the top of every discussion about the management practices of dozens of companies that come up on HN. When you're floating down a Mississippi made of money, the sheer current of cash will move you along. You require none of the complicated and difficult additional mechanisms and culture to cope with the dangers and difficulties of the deepwater maritime world. An injudicious observer might conclude that all the guff that comes with facing the open seas is unnecessary -- why, look at this luxurious barge! They have no need for the drills! No need for a captain! Navigation is a wasteful chore! The problem is that success is not a discrete, directed acyclic graph. It is integral calculus over fuzzy numbers.
mrxd 13y ago
Might be related: Amazon increased headcount by 57% in 2012: http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2013/01/amazon-added-32000-employees-in-past.html http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2013/01/am...
codeonfire 13y ago
What this is about is hiring people, loading them up with blame, then firing them. The tactic allows totally incompetent managers to keep their jobs indefinitely. I am talking about so-called "dev managers" who fundamentally don't understand what a web service is. Has zero to do with software development.

brandonbloom 13y ago

> I would not have thought that this was sustainable Having lived near Amazon & with many friends who have worked there, here's the secret: Amazon pays a significant premium for new grads. Starting salaries are 20 to 40 percent higher at Amazon than at Microsoft, Google, & Facebook in WA. However, promotions and raises are also much rarer, so if you actually stay 5 years, it probably averages out minus the stressful pace. If you plan to stay in the big corporate game, the smart move for a new grad is to leverage your one year at Amazon into a 10 to 20% pay bump in a move to Microsoft or Google.

tensor 13y ago
This only suggests that Amazon's practice is not sustainable. They are paying a premium yet getting perpetually inexperienced people who won't stay as they gain experience. Surely there is more going on here? This doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
- ryguytilidie 13y ago
  I don't necessarily agree that some of the best college students graduating each year are inexperienced. A lot of them have been working for 10+ years on their own stuff and have interned 3 times or so.
- eshvk 13y ago
  I don't think it is deliberate.From my friends who joined over the past three years, I think the problem is that burnout as well as incredibly dysfunctional teams is the reason people quit after two years or so. They have been trying to retain people by throwing more money at them (both those who join and might be aware through their friend network of the stigma) and those who are already working there.
- nandemo 13y ago
  I guess it is sustainable, in the sense that there are far more new grads each year than new Amazon hires, and Amazon can afford to pay extra (as evidenced by their financials). It's just far from optimal.
- barry-cotter 13y ago
  Sixty hour work weeks are sustainable for most twenty somethings, not healthy but sustainable. If you pay twenty per cent more than MS for fresh grads but get fifty per cent more work out of them you'll come out ahead. This does require real standards in hiring to ensure your perpetually mildly sleep deprived workers can do glue code in their sleep because a lot of the time they will be. This model also requires a constant stream of fresh grads but at market + 20% that won't be a problem. The turnover does suggest that Amazon's reputation as a hellish place to work is well earner but it could easily be as profitable long term as Google's much more humane one.

sn0v 13y ago

Isn't that what happens at most game dev studios? Extended crunch periods, burn outs etc.

rscale 13y ago

Perhaps the "intense pace of work" is the organizational equivalent of the myriad situations where the marginal returns of an additional hour of work are negative, but it feels like they should be positive, so we work/hack/study a bit more.

saosebastiao 13y ago

I can understand the burnout. I personally love it, but I don't think I'm the norm. It doesn't look particularly sustainable, at least from a traditional HR overview...But I still think they get enough of the masochistic super-geniuses to keep the company moving along at its sometimes mind-boggling pace.

hristov 13y ago

The little dirty secret of the tech industry is that if you put yourself in the right time at the right place and get the strategic advantage you can make so much money that a lot of mistakes can be hidden. Warren Buffet says that when the tide goes low you can see who is swimming naked. The opposite is true, when the tide is high you cannot see who is swimming naked, so one should not make too much assumptions about their clothes. In the late 90's everyone thought that microsoft had found the perfect way to manage programmers and run a software company. All kinds of companies would try to emulate microsoft methods. But in reality, that clever fox Gates guided Microsoft into the perfect strategic position. Once microsoft had to compete in fields that were outside their monopoly the results were not as dominating. Similarly Amazon is in a great strategic position nowadays, because they have built out the infrastructure that the US uses to shop online. Their stock is flying high, so everyone assumes they must be doing something right. And they undoubtedly are. But that does not necessarily mean that their practices of managing programmers are optimal or even good. In fact if you look at Amazon's finances you are stricken at how little profit they make. It is unclear why, because their financial statements are very opaque. But it is entirely possible that they are hemorrhaging money because of the way the hire and fire programmers but the whole thing is hidden by their strategic position. It is not like a company that does software development better can come in and beat Amazon at selling things on the internet.

jacques_chester 13y ago
> The little dirty secret of the tech industry is that if you put yourself in the right time at the right place and get the strategic advantage you can make so much money that a lot of mistakes can be hidden. I wish I could staple this to the top of every discussion about the management practices of dozens of companies that come up on HN. When you're floating down a Mississippi made of money, the sheer current of cash will move you along. You require none of the complicated and difficult additional mechanisms and culture to cope with the dangers and difficulties of the deepwater maritime world. An injudicious observer might conclude that all the guff that comes with facing the open seas is unnecessary -- why, look at this luxurious barge! They have no need for the drills! No need for a captain! Navigation is a wasteful chore! The problem is that success is not a discrete, directed acyclic graph. It is integral calculus over fuzzy numbers.

mrxd 13y ago

Might be related: Amazon increased headcount by 57% in 2012: http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2013/01/amazon-added-32000-employees-in-past.html http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2013/01/am...

codeonfire 13y ago

What this is about is hiring people, loading them up with blame, then firing them. The tactic allows totally incompetent managers to keep their jobs indefinitely. I am talking about so-called "dev managers" who fundamentally don't understand what a web service is. Has zero to do with software development.