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When I interviewed at Amazon most of the teams I spoke to revolved around billing and logistics--which of course do require some algorithmics, but are also fan

by codex 13y ago

When I interviewed at Amazon most of the teams I spoke to revolved around billing and logistics--which of course do require some algorithmics, but are also fantastically boring. Has the situation improved?

AsymetricCom 13y ago
Can someone explain this thread to me? What exactly do you think programmers do? Yes.. algorithms are important.
jmduke 13y ago
To each their own. I think logistics are awesome, and to describe them as requiring 'some algorithmics' is sort of dismissive; this is a field where formulating a 1% improvement over a previous system translates into literally millions of dollars saved annually -- it's hard for me to imagine a field that is as 'pure' as that while still having enormous financial impact (besides maybe HFT?) (Disclaimer: I work for Amazon, but on the Kindle side of things.)
- ars_technician 13y ago
  >- it's hard for me to imagine a field that is as 'pure' as that while still having enormous financial impact Advertising algorithms, recommendation algorithms, pricing algorithms, basically any algorithm that is being run at scale for millions of customers.
saosebastiao 13y ago
Every team is different, and not all teams are going to be doing optimization or machine learning (where algorithm knowledge is very important). I happen to work with a bunch that do work in those areas.
Zombieball 13y ago
Amazonian here that works on a logistics team. I would say we actually make up a small portion of Amazon. Amazon has grown tremendously in the past few years and has many diverse (and cool) teams. That being said, I personally think transportation and logistics at Amazon has some really cool problems to tackle.
- alandarev 13y ago
  You think there are some cool problems? There are so few of them, that you were not assigned to any of these fancy problems? Apologies, if I misunderstood.

by codex 13y ago

AsymetricCom 13y ago

Can someone explain this thread to me? What exactly do you think programmers do? Yes.. algorithms are important.

jmduke 13y ago

To each their own. I think logistics are awesome, and to describe them as requiring 'some algorithmics' is sort of dismissive; this is a field where formulating a 1% improvement over a previous system translates into literally millions of dollars saved annually -- it's hard for me to imagine a field that is as 'pure' as that while still having enormous financial impact (besides maybe HFT?) (Disclaimer: I work for Amazon, but on the Kindle side of things.)

ars_technician 13y ago
>- it's hard for me to imagine a field that is as 'pure' as that while still having enormous financial impact Advertising algorithms, recommendation algorithms, pricing algorithms, basically any algorithm that is being run at scale for millions of customers.

saosebastiao 13y ago

Every team is different, and not all teams are going to be doing optimization or machine learning (where algorithm knowledge is very important). I happen to work with a bunch that do work in those areas.

Zombieball 13y ago

Amazonian here that works on a logistics team. I would say we actually make up a small portion of Amazon. Amazon has grown tremendously in the past few years and has many diverse (and cool) teams. That being said, I personally think transportation and logistics at Amazon has some really cool problems to tackle.

alandarev 13y ago
You think there are some cool problems? There are so few of them, that you were not assigned to any of these fancy problems? Apologies, if I misunderstood.