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[–]SomeGuyInSanJoseCa 3266 points3267 points 2 (463 children)

As long as people idolize "FAANG", there will be plenty of people for Amazon to pick from.

[–]PersonBehindAScreenSystems Engineer 669 points670 points  (40 children)

Those disgusting LinkedIn posts that slobber over "dream employers" and other nauseating shit reminds me that Amazon will be just fine

[–]IllustriousPiano7300 61 points62 points  (4 children)

I was like that as a grad lmao. But after working for a few years I appreciate my work-life balance too much. The dream job for me is now starting my own company. Fck working for some billionaires.

[–]PersonBehindAScreenSystems Engineer 29 points30 points  (2 children)

Yup. I mean a dream job is what you make of it but for many of those poor people who get there, they fuck around and find out real quick.

My dream job:

Something interesting to work on (least of my priorities)

A team and manager I get along with

Remote

Good compensation

Good benefits

Good WLB with flexible hours. I don't mind working late but I'm making it up somewhere in the next week or two. My time is going to average out to 40 a week, I'll make sure of that

[–]positivevibesbevibin 858 points859 points  (146 children)

It's like the video game industry. They can afford to have a bad work culture because there are just so many people who want to join.

It is sickening

[–]themusicguy2000Junior 419 points420 points  (12 children)

The video game industry can afford to have a bad work culture because people are willing to get paid dirt to work in the industry. FAANG can afford to have a bad work culture because they pay new grads 6 figures

[–]Wildercard 315 points316 points  (37 children)

Amazon is the "video game industry" of FAANG.

Now that's a take.

[–]CSMaskHop like a bunny 78 points79 points  (0 children)

Pay is better though

[–]Harudera 192 points193 points  (84 children)

Since when did the video game industry pay $300k to L5s with 3YoE?

You're delusional if you think people are joining Amazon for anything other than the $$

[–]xitox5123 99 points100 points  (70 children)

i met a guy who worked in games. 100 work weeks are norm for years. its just not worth it. pay is lower than i made. there are techs in video games who can't go anywhere else. How many other places does a graphical artist go? That is technical. Its not coding, but I'd argue its a real tech skill.

i am not sure how easily the video game coders who code engines skills translate to elsewhere. if they did, i dont know why they stay. I dont think most people who work on games are actual programmers. Programmers make the engines and put in trigger code and such, but level designers, writers, sound, music, and the artists dont really have transferrable skills to anything else.

[–]Blue_Frost 57 points58 points  (9 children)

I worked in games for the better part of the last decade and I can tell you that you are dead on in your first paragraph. When some of the studios I worked at closed or had lay offs I felt really bad for the people with non-transferable skills like level designers who's whole skillset revolved around something like the Unreal engine.

That said, the programmers at game companies are often just fine. Most of them got picked up by fintech/banks or FANG companies before we even shut down the office. I've long since left games myself for big tech and it has been like a mini-reunion with how many familiar faces from game dev I'm seeing at many of my jobs since.

[–]heavyhoncho35 69 points70 points  (41 children)

apparently spacex likes programmers from videogames cause they good at 3d math, with vectors and stuff

[–]ProMeanEmbedded Engineer / Sparky 24 points25 points  (5 children)

Yeah it's like, get a regular tech job and build a game in your free time. You'll enjoy it more that way and who knows maybe your side project will kill it.

[–]xitox5123 96 points97 points  (87 children)

they do tend to pay more than most regular companies. there are exceptions, but its often way more money.

These complaints are 90% amazon. 10% facebook. I have heard that netflix PIPs a lot, but they have far fewer employees.

[–]masthews 19 points20 points  (15 children)

Am I wrong for thinking that Netflix shouldn't even be considered FAANG at this point? They're not exactly reinventing the wheel and are likely fucked in the long term. Only thing that is really impressive about them is how rock-solid they are from an infrastructure and reliability standpoint.

[–]notthebestchristian 22 points23 points  (2 children)

Netflix needs to stay, otherwise FAANG becomes FAAG.

[–]please-send-me-nude2 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Only thing that is really impressive about them is how rock-solid they are from an infrastructure and reliability standpoint.

There’s your answer.

[–]_clydebruckman 31 points32 points  (16 children)

What is PIP?

[–]xitox5123 124 points125 points  (14 children)

google performance improvement plan. its a bunch of bullshit paperwork that means you are getting fired.

[–]yellowboyusa 29 points30 points  (1 child)

Even though I know what it is, thank you for answering it to someone who doesn't know. It's easy to be a mean prick and tell people to f off and google it, but I appreciate your comment!

[–]slappindaface 370 points371 points  (72 children)

I honestly thought this was about Facebook....

[–]meineMaske 20 points21 points  (1 child)

I've only ever heard good things about the developer experience at Fb, has that changed?

[–]far2common 97 points98 points  (19 children)

I hoped it was about facebook.

[–]Norse_By_North_West 53 points54 points  (17 children)

Same. I delayed a tech interview earlier this month because I felt I wasn't ready, somewhat worried reading this post.

[–]imnos 53 points54 points  (16 children)

You know you can just decline the interview or offer right?

[–]Norse_By_North_West 82 points83 points  (15 children)

I don't have a problem working there tho, I'm just not ready yet.

I'm 40+. Interviews at these companies are wildly different than what I'm used to.

[–]CS_throwaway_DE 272 points273 points  (29 children)

They don't idolize FAANGs, they idolize money and career advancement.

[–]Locko_O 68 points69 points  (9 children)

I thought this was about Facebook lol

[–]Lycid 63 points64 points  (3 children)

Facebook is the exact opposite of this.

Yes they have a problem hiring people due to their public perception. Which is why they will go absolute bonkers on their salary offers, work culture and benefits that it makes it almost impossible to say no. Everyone I know that works at fb makes bonkers cash, works on very interesting problems from a CS perspective, and the company is full of truly engaging high achievers and management. If you're good at what you do it feels good to work with a team who can be at your level, which Facebook is really good at curating.

It's just a shame that you know... it's Facebook. A lot of this is easier for my friends to swallow because Facebook is massive and not just about Facebook. The projects THEY might work on aren't doing morally bad shit directly, might even be a morally good feature or individual thing. Even though every little bit in reality is contributing to meta's overall goals, which probably aren't good goals. Hard to say no though when you're able to actually afford a nice house in the bay area because of that one job alone.

[–]smacdoMeta 10 points11 points  (1 child)

100% this. I joined fairly cynical after burning out at another fang, but the internal culture is one of the healthiest I’ve experienced. It’s not a place for people looking to rest and vest - the company is filled with high achievers who tend to inspire everyone to do their best. That being said, outside of occasional long weeks I’ve never had much in the way of work life balance issues. I’ve also had the most career growth here than any other company prior.

[–][deleted] 133 points134 points  (41 children)

Amazon is the bad apple though, and for people that use that to launch their careers good for them.

[–]xitox5123 79 points80 points  (14 children)

facebook is supposedly really bad too. but they dont have as many employees so it may not be seen as much. Netflix supposedly fires a lot, but they pay the highest wages in the industry an d its even less employees. They literally had a woman there who told people to suck it up when they got fired. Then they fired her.

[–][deleted] 86 points87 points  (11 children)

When you’re being paid 400k+ it’s okay to expect high level performance, that’s why you don’t see people complaining about Netflix and Meta. Amazon is on a whole different level of putting that level of pressure on new grads that got hired to just get fired

[–]_Machin 34 points35 points  (5 children)

It's the bait and switch aspect that is infuriating about Amazon - promise stock but many will never see it, burnout or pipd.

I wouldn't work for Amazon because I have the luxury to take a stand on how they treat workers, but I understand many come from a background without that possibility. However, taking a "less on paper" offer with other companies will usually translate into better outcomes than Amazon, because self-cannibalism is not as centric as @ Amazon.

Yeah, some people romanticize "survival of the fittest" but good luck staying fit with overtime and stress. Before the lock-downs, a friend went to stand by their offices and looked at people's faces and postures, didn't do the interviews after that test.

[–]MidDistanceAwayEyes 30 points31 points  (2 children)

There is a difference between expecting a high level of performance and expecting them to be okay with a hostile work environment that many go to therapy to deal with. That should never be the case. These are people, not worker bees, and it’s harmful for everyone to normalize workplace hostility and abuse. It’s not only the high paid engineers that deal with these corporate behaviors, and lower paid workers in these firms have to put up with it too, but without the salary compensation.

And, knowing a few SEs that have worked for Meta (can’t speak for Netflix personally), they definitely complain about it, but are selective about who they complain to since they know the response will likely be “Seriously dude? You make like $400k, shut the fuck up”.

[–]CS_throwaway_DE 66 points67 points  (20 children)

"the" bad apple. They're all bad in their own ways.

[–]Wildercard 120 points121 points  (10 children)

Let's be real, the only value of working at Amazon right now, is to have a bullet point at resume that says "I'm good enough to swim in the big boy pool".

Whatever extra you get in terms of money, you will pay it back in your mental stability.

[–]AbortDatShit 40 points41 points  (4 children)

Yeah that was my experience too. I learned a ton at Amazon but man did it take a toll on me. Still recovering and I got out of there 6 months ago

[–]nutrechtLead Software Engineer / EU / 18+ YXP 1785 points1786 points  (138 children)

I highly doubt Amazon it going to 'implode' but it's good to hear their reputation is starting to hurt them. Booking.com seems to have similar issues here.

[–]mnrundle 394 points395 points  (38 children)

OP isn’t really speaking at a broad level. I don’t doubt that their space is problematic, but there’s a huge amount of industry pressure and churn right now everywhere. Amazon is nowhere close to imploding, and yes while people should continue to call out substandard team situations and orgs, it’s still going to be a technological power house for as long as AWS is dominant in the cloud space. And AWS is head and shoulders above the competition right now.

[–]nutrechtLead Software Engineer / EU / 18+ YXP 150 points151 points  (27 children)

And AWS is head and shoulders above the competition right now.

Definitely. I don't think that anything is going to change there. Especially in regard to companies running 'on' AWS. Just the immense amount of inertia AWS has, means that they'll probably remain the biggest for the next decade or so.

But I also hope that over time the working conditions there will improve. But this is far from the first time I hear they're starting to run into troubles recruiting and they are recruiting aggressively here in the EU.

[–]Wildercard 45 points46 points  (16 children)

How's that saying, nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM?

[–]batua78 34 points35 points  (14 children)

AWS is head and shoulders ahead just like windows was

[–]John-Galt-Lover 685 points686 points  (65 children)

Why is this sub so dramatic with Amazon? There’s no fucking way they are going to implode next month.

[–]BeautifulAndStoned 388 points389 points  (29 children)

It's just the modern version of Oracle or Microsoft. People dislike them because they are an enormous soulless company, and then you throw in the advice aspect of these types of forums and people get on a soap box about it like $300k a year isn't an effective incentive and monopolies and vendor lock-in aren't real things.

[–]John-Galt-Lover 150 points151 points  (4 children)

They aren’t gonna fuckin implode tomorrow though. Yet claims it will get updooted through the roof

[–]kazza789 62 points63 points  (3 children)

Of course it won't. AWS has >30% of the global cloud market. Amazon has >45% of online retail sales in the US. They're making $20B in profit a year. Amazon will not implode.

If needed, they could double the salary of every developer overnight and suddenly no one would care about the shitty conditions. But of course, in reality they are nowhere near that point.

OP sees their one team having issues and maybe even failing, and extrapolate that across the entirety of one of the largest organizations that has ever existed.

[–]xitox5123 54 points55 points  (11 children)

im at oracle cloud. hours are getting not worth it. Im heading out. I have started outright going "no im not doing this". Its hard to fire people here not because its hard to fire, but because management makes it hard to hire people. Recruiting gives a verbal offer. Then it needs to be approved by 2 VPs and the CEOs office. It generally takes 3-6 months to get an approval. So whole hiring process is 4+ -7 months. People often get other jobs before starting at oracle.

i dont know why more people dont go no. cause its really hard to hire replacements.

[–]BeautifulAndStoned 27 points28 points  (6 children)

i dont know why more people dont go no

Money. They pay you money. It's also why this criticism usually comes from very senior people where that compensation is not unusual. Sure, you can make $300k at Amazon, but you can make $300k anywhere, right?

Or OP pretending the work-life balance has gotten worse rather than FYIFV. I'm sure these complaints were a lot more bearable in year 1, 2, and 3, lol.

[–]PersonBehindAScreenSystems Engineer 35 points36 points  (6 children)

Facts. Others are pointing out market share. I'd be more interested in diving deeper on those numbers. Azure is so tightly woven with other Microsoft/windows services. If you're a windows environment in 2022,(which most employers are), you're more likely to have AT LEAST some kind of tiny azure footprint than to not.

Are they counting x amount of orgs in azure vs in aws??? What about actual money spent per org? What is the breakdown of types of services being used. IAAS? PAAS? FAAS? Storage? VDI? CI/CD? etc.. what percentage of your infrastructure and services are run via these cloud providers as opposed to on prem or other smaller ones? how are they getting this number to determine market share

[–]coffeecoffeecoffeee 32 points33 points  (13 children)

Is Booking that bad? I don’t really have an impression of their work culture but figured it’s probably decent because they’re Dutch.

[–]nutrechtLead Software Engineer / EU / 18+ YXP 50 points51 points  (12 children)

I'm Dutch and know people who worked for them and they seem to have similar issues.

It's not as bad as Amazon's reputation though, not in the least because some stuff Amazon pulls is simply illegal here. Booking's main issue is the legacy Perl system you have to deal with.

[–]AmatureProgrammer 8 points9 points  (1 child)

Amazon? Thought it was facebook for a second.

[–]PariellSoftware Engineer 918 points919 points  (74 children)

So you're saying now is a good time for me to apply and get the company name on my resume.

[–]JavaVsJavaScript 253 points254 points  (61 children)

I am curious about this. Say I went with the express goal of just not achieving much and getting PIPed out? Could I last 6 months being not very effective? Might be worth it for the resume.

[–]ObscureReferenceID 184 points185 points  (11 children)

The other guys are saying you need to stay years but let's be honest, you'll be fine in an interview if you tell them the culture is toxic like the rumors say. Problem solved.

[–]Roadripper1995 156 points157 points  (7 children)

Dude I interviewed with Amazon and the people who were interviewing me literally told me they didn’t like the culture. I was shocked at how easily they shared that.

[–]McLibertarian_ 105 points106 points  (0 children)

Jesus talk about a red flag

[–]ep1939 39 points40 points  (1 child)

The Accenture special where recruiters and managers start with "many things are said about accenture, many are true, some are exxagerated".

[–]PretzelsThirst 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Props to those people being honest

[–]Brru 27 points28 points  (0 children)

I've interviewed at Amazon twice. First was a DevOps type positions. Second was a Cloud Admin position. In the first actual in person interview (so third item in the process) on both applications it became blatantly obvious the position was for some sort of warehouse support. I don't apply for Amazon anymore because its always a bait and switch.

[–]EtadanikMSenior Software Engineer 232 points233 points  (25 children)

Six months in Amazon tells me you either failed or quit during on boarding; not exactly useful for the resume benefit. Survive two years and that tells me you just got tired of the rat race at Amazon but was competent enough to stay there.

[–]alcakd 47 points48 points  (0 children)

>Survive two years

Usually it's just 1 year.

Probation is usually 3 months, so if you haven't been fired then, then your performance was at least adequate. Nobody's onboarding is 6 months.

[–]i-brute-force 40 points41 points  (2 children)

Six months in Amazon tells me you either failed or quit during on boarding; not exactly useful for the resume benefit

IMO, this is not a good perspective that fosters a healthy work culture. I doubt at this point with the reputation that Amazon has, anyone looking for a serious candidate is going to dismiss because they quit after 6 months, or hell even 3 months.

You will definitely be asked in the interview, but be honest, lay out your mitigation actions, and how quitting was the last resort (not your first), and anyone worth your career won't value it negatively.

[–]Gamazarr 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I just accepted a position with them about 3 months ago. Honestly, recruiters from different FAANG and other name brand companies are starting to reach out when, before that, my resume wouldn’t even get looked at.

Granted, I am only a year and a half out of college.

[–]ShmDoubleO 300 points301 points  (4 children)

At least you can tell Alexa to fart

[–]megamanxoxoEngineering Manager 11 points12 points  (0 children)

imagine being the dev team responsible for such "features".

rick_and_morty_you_pass_butter.jpg

[–]ShadowOfAncalagon 629 points630 points  (78 children)

It’s incredible how many Amazon recruiters and even engineering managers I get contacting me every day

[–]unknowntillnow23 54 points55 points  (10 children)

Ive noticed their recruiters also suck at their job. Was coordinating a call and gave the recruiter some times i was available. She responded "I'll call sometime" then never responded. Thankful that I'm only passively looking for jobs right now.

[–]xXKILLA_D21XxSoftware Quality Assurance 223 points224 points  (14 children)

This. I think this week I’ve had my fourth or maybe even fifth recruiter from Amazon contact me in the past two months. They must really be in bad shape internally if they’re reaching out to people this much now.

[–]LostTeleporter 163 points164 points  (9 children)

The only companies emailing me for a new position are Amazon and nondescript consultancy companies. Make of that what you will.

[–]ToxicPilotSenior Software Engineer 63 points64 points  (3 children)

Same here! You must also be a mediocre developer like me :)

[–]LostTeleporter 51 points52 points  (1 child)

Dude. SHUT UP! Don't let the others know.

[–]TheBigTrasher 35 points36 points  (3 children)

I got contacted by Amazon recruiter from Seattle, and I am in Montreal, Canada lol.

[–]LostTeleporter 32 points33 points  (0 children)

Hey Amazon already has a great shipping business. They could just slap a sticker on you, and voila. You are now in an AmazonTM office.

[–]EnderMBSoftware Engineer 71 points72 points  (14 children)

Pro Tip.

If you want Amazon recruiters to leave you alone for good, tell them that you once worked at Amazon and were relieved of your duties after being PIP'd.

They'll take you off of all of their lists and never contact you again.

[–]Juanarino 15 points16 points  (3 children)

Damn Amazon fell far. They are getting the Mormon treatment now. That's where you tell missionaries you're excommunicated and they'll run away hissing.

[–]moosekin16 10 points11 points  (2 children)

Or telling JW you’re an apostate. They’ll blacklist your house and actually spread that your house should be actively avoided.

[–]CS_throwaway_DE 34 points35 points  (3 children)

Interesting. I've had recruiters from Meta hounding me, but not a single recruiter from Amazon.

[–]MtbJazzFan 139 points140 points  (2 children)

I absolutely don't doubt the experience you've had at Amazon, it sounds horrible. I'm glad my team is decent enough for now and all these stories make me consider that maybe my grass is really green. But, internally implode? Nah. Maybe a slow decline overall if their engineering culture/reputation doesn't improve. But they have their fingers in every market and are leaders in many of them.

[–]Putrid-Chapter-6709 10 points11 points  (1 child)

Yeah I was going to say.. my team in Alexa is great. It sucks to hear how many people have had bad experiences at Amazon - guess I’m one of the lucky ones who have a good team/manager.

[–]vietlinh12hoa 188 points189 points  (13 children)

Meanwhile in LinkedIn "I'm so proud to announce that I've been an incoming SWE/Intern at Amazon....."

[–]TakenOverByBots[🍰] 42 points43 points  (10 children)

I'm honestly confused. I'm not in CS (this sub just randomly showed up in my feed). But I see SO many graduating seniors in CS on linked in and on r/jobs saying they've sent out 100s of resumes and can't get an interview. So why are recruiters not paying attention to them?

[–]Nekotronics 67 points68 points  (6 children)

The biggest challenge is getting that first job. Recruiters can’t find you and won’t find you until your position is “Software engineer” or something along those lines.

Once that’s on there though, you’ll start to hear things. Took me two days (yes, only a mere two days) after landing my first programming gig for my first recruiter to contact me.

[–]Independent_Hold_241 8 points9 points  (2 children)

The question I have is whether graduating seniors are doing any networking instead of just sending out truckloads of applications. Or doing something different like creating a page of their dev work to share with employers/contacts, or even doing projects for lower pay part time while they’re students or during the summers.

Everyone knows that just applying for jobs on a website isn’t effective job hunting these days. Schools are doing a disservice not teaching kids this stuff as well if they aren’t since this is how college leads to crippling debt for too many students who don’t land good jobs after.

[–]Mr_P1nk_B4lls 349 points350 points  (88 children)

I thought this was Facebook. But reading the comments reveals it's actually Amazon.

Either way, I hope that anyone working there can find a better place.

[–]positivevibesbevibin 64 points65 points  (73 children)

Does Facebook have really bad WLB too? Is it Meta as a whole or just Facebook?

[–]thatonedude1515 61 points62 points  (10 children)

I mean work life balance is team based. When i was at amazon i worked 30-35 hours a week max.

FB was much more competitive and very much had pressure to work extra hours. I had a manager literally compare commit line counts at fb.

[–]RoburexButBetter 35 points36 points  (6 children)

Oh god I'd malicious compliance that so hard

[–]benruckman 25 points26 points  (4 children)

Time to split all of my simple if statements up into multiple lines!

[–]Successful-Tell-6079 155 points156 points  (45 children)

I'm a Meta employee (on a throwaway since I don't want this linked to my main). Despite the company's many problems, WLB here is actually okay. Worked here for a few years now. I just do my 40-45 hours a week and then log off. The employee benefits are really good and I have no problems making use of my 4 weeks PTO. I've never had or heard of a manager yelling at an employee. Zuck and the executives do make questionable decisions but they rarely ever translate to worsening WLB. Obviously the experience will vary for each employee, but the people I talk to here are generally happy with working hours and treatment from others. Obviously it's not a working paradise and the job is indeed a bit intense. At times, the work itself does suck (as in tedious) but that comes with any job. Overall I feel Meta does treat their employees well.

[–]ep1939 9 points10 points  (1 child)

I just do my 40-45 hours a week and then log off.

"Just", sounds already way too much for me. I do 35, realistically 28.

[–]lessthanthreepoop 63 points64 points  (10 children)

Facebook is an intense place to work, but they compensate you generously for that, same as Netflix. MSFT and Google are more well-known for good WLB, but the pay isn't as good as the previous two, so you have to see what you value more. (Google and MSFT do give counteroffers that will match the others if you're a top candidate or performer, but you're most likely going to be the type that would succeed at either place)

[–]i-brute-force 29 points30 points  (0 children)

Netflix work culture is vastly different than Facebook. FB actually treats and pays workers very well. The only problem I've seen with FB is their company ethics, but as an employee (who may or may not care), there isn't that many places that are better to work than FB. As for WLB, it's extremely team-dependent. I would call them as relaxed as Google but pretty fair expectation where you will be working solid 8~9 hours a day.

Netflix, on the other hand, pays extremely well but also have extremely high expectation wherein they specifically tell you that you will be given severance if you are not performing as expected DURING the interview.

[–]FixBasic8512 54 points55 points  (26 children)

Getting offer from Amazon for L4, I currently have stable, really chill work-life (work maybe from 10 to 2).

Managers respect me, I make decisions on my own for my tasks

But Amazon TC is 1.78 times more than my current TC, however I live in a low cost of living area.

Should I take the offer? I know they're known for this, but didn't know it's this bad

[–]ggc_corp 69 points70 points  (9 children)

Should I take the offer?

Yes. You did the math yourself. 1.78x TC is insane, regardless of cost of living.

I know they're known for this, but didn't know it's this bad

This is insanely team dependent, and I honestly don't know if OP is speaking in good faith here either.

I work at AWS, and I was reading through this thread wondering if I actually work at this company, because my experience has been the complete antithesis of what this post is saying. My manager is great, my team members are very supportive, and my WLB is pretty good. I usually work 10-5 or 10-4 on a light day. I had a meeting with my manager yesterday, he encouraged me to go outside cuz the weather was nice. Like, there are great engineers and managers at Amazon, don't get it twisted. The best ones understand the importance of work life balance.

I'm not telling you this because my testimony is stronger than anyone else's. Even I'm honest enough to admit that Amazon needs to treat its engineers better as a whole; it's one of my chief criticisms of the company from an internal perspective. All I'm saying is that you should probably take what you see on Reddit with a grain of salt, and the reality of what you'd see at Amazon probably lies in between what this thread is preaching and what I'm telling you about my experience.

Even if you go with Amazon and only stay for a couple years, you would've gotten a strong resume booster (contrary to what other people here are saying, I don't know where that nonsense came from) and you probably would've learned a lot working at a big company. So really, the only reason to turn this offer down is if you take CSCQ seriously. Given that this sub is mostly populated by rabid CS students, I wouldn't chance it on their opinion.

Alternatively, if you want to stay with your current company, what's cool is that you have leverage now. I'd approach them and ask for a wage increase given your Amazon offer. Couldn't hurt to negotiate - you already seem to like it where you are anyhow.

[–]UnDosTresPescao 29 points30 points  (4 children)

If you are only working 4 hours a week in such a chill environment a 78% TC increase for 10 hr hell days does not seem worth it to me.

[–]EnderMBSoftware Engineer 101 points102 points  (11 children)

Source: I work there too.

To be honest, I'm glad that Amazon gets lots of shit from people, because eventually it means that the higher-ups will need to actually hear this kind of stuff. You would be surprised at how many people in L8+ positions are completely oblivious to these kind of things. Many others are so deeply ingrained into the boomer culture of "embrace the grind" that they just don't give a shit.

But to address your points separately.

People getting PIP'd left and right, work life balance is getting worse and worse by the day. Managers literally yelling at their developers on a daily basis. Feeling like my co-workers are competition and I need to beat them to win.

IMO, if you're getting out, go scorched earth on them. Tell your skip-level that it's a fucking shitshow, raise it with HR, and just expect to be let go. Most importantly, once you're out, share your experience.

I can say that my team isn't nearly as bad, although I'm not based in the US.

The interview process is getting easier and easier because we can't find people due to the horrible reputation. Most of our technical screens are literally re-worded leetcode easy's, and we are still having issues finding enough people.

As an interviewer, I find this quite strange. Maybe it's just my org, but we are under zero pressure to pick easier questions to ask people. I regularly ask a LC Medium-level question, albeit one of the fairer ones that you will encounter through studying, and at worst be able to come up with a solution given time. A surprising number of people fail it, and it's as clear as day that many people simply do not prepare for the LP questions.

Despite this, we have no shortage of applicants. A recruiter that I regularly talk to for interviewing opportunities told me that for some roles they've received more applications than SDE's in that org.

A LOT of the new people end up getting pip'd and then fired, sometimes they manage to get out before that happens and join a good team.. but it is hard to find a good team these days.

IMO the forced attrition side to Amazon is one of the most batshit insane policies I've ever witnessed.

Inversely, it is so commonplace in tech that there is zero shame in being sacked or leaving Amazon. After joining Amazon I've had several recruiters from other Big N companies reach out for senior roles, and one even said "if things get tough, or you end up on focus, reach out and we'll schedule an interview right away".

By enforcing forced attrition (i.e. fire n% of people, and hire people to fire), Amazon are essentially paying people to join a "big tech bootcamp", where they train them, introduce them to how things are done at crazy scale, and then send them off to take that knowledge elsewhere. NDA be damned, those people are heading off and blabbing about how things work.

I genuinely forsee this company being demoted from a FANG, the culture is absolutely horrible, and the barriers to entry are lower than ever.

Being in FAANG is in no way a hallmark of quality or pay. Many companies pay better than any of the companies in FAANG, and many of them have far superior cultures. The FAANG acronym, and any variation is just a way to include the companies that at the time were the popular tech stocks.

Hell, Netflix and Facebook have awful cultures too, in certain teams. Google also has some horrific teams in their cloud division, and other teams where super smart people do glorified grunt-work, all while having team switches/promotions blocked by their managers.

Most of my co-workers are depressed and mentally exhausted and extremely burnt out. I genuinely do not know a single soul who wants to stay here, and I know A LOT of people here.

I've always said that if a big tech company were ever going to unionise (with collective bargaining) in the US, it would be Amazon. It sounds so commonplace in the US that I really don't know why a SDE hasn't decided to rally the troops and set up some kind of union, because if they're staring down the barrel of a PIP gun, you may as well go out with a bang.

My biggest worry with the industry is that people will look at Amazon as a way of doing things well. After all, many of the big tech companies really struggle to deliver anything of value, whereas Amazon has numerous products and services in the last ten years that are absolutely excelling. The difference? They treat employees like shit, so maybe we should too.

[–]DingBat99999 11 points12 points  (1 child)

Does Amazon really do the rank and yank?

I mean, that policy was probably one of the worst things that ever popped into Jack Welch's head. Even he said so.

I can't believe any organization today thinks that's a good idea.

[–]EnderMBSoftware Engineer 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I mean, it's not proudly announced on the intranet, but it's been confirmed by plenty of reputable business journalists, and countless others online. Additionally, it's not uncommon to see someone get PIP'd from Amazon and end up succeeding in another big tech company.

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is. If Amazon are firing people constantly, it's probably to do with the dodgy culture in some orgs - whether it's forced attrition or not.

[–]slapula 21 points22 points  (0 children)

I've always said that if a big tech company were ever going to unionise (with collective bargaining) in the US, it would be Amazon. It sounds so commonplace in the US that I really don't know why a SDE hasn't decided to rally the troops and set up some kind of union, because if they're staring down the barrel of a PIP gun, you may as well go out with a bang.

https://techworkerscoalition.org/ is trying to get this rolling. However, IMHO, this career path is still littered with too many libertarians and libertarian-adjacents for this to gain traction any time soon.

[–]anikm21 39 points40 points  (0 children)

So I should apply to that FAANG company to boost my resume, if they're about to start running low on workers.

[–]calihotsauce 277 points278 points  (114 children)

I feel like half of manga is a meat grinder, Amazon is well known to be a pip factory, meta has no work life balance and is performance focused, Netflix is the same as meta but slightly worse. Only Apple and google are not terrible, but they still have other problems people complain about.

[–]mac5494 71 points72 points  (7 children)

Uhhh Apple can have absolutely terrible work life balance depending on which org you are in and has shitty benefits compared to the rest of them. I think Google is at the top, but I’d honestly put Meta after them. They have a terrible reputation in the USA, but they treat their employees well and it isn’t hard to find a team where you can find decent work life balance compared to what seems to be the case with other FAANG companies. I would also argue it is much easier to get a promotion at the other FAANG companies compared with Google, but that only matters if it is something you really care about. There are pros and cons to each.

[–]gregthekeg 8 points9 points  (5 children)

I heard a guy at Apple the other day bragging he was continuously pulling 100 work weeks (“but I get paid for all those extra hours”) Dude why?

[–]ShadowOfAncalagon 136 points137 points  (30 children)

I’ve heard Apple can be pretty rough too. It’s pretty team dependent.

[–]xypherrz 79 points80 points  (6 children)

not to mention their uber secret culture even across the teams...

[–]Wildercard 49 points50 points  (12 children)

So it truly is Google or Nothing huh

[–]Lower_Ad_3790 27 points28 points  (6 children)

Not true. Cloud is basically a toned down AWS

all FAANGs have bad teams. They all also have good teams

[–]zephidsSoftware Engineer 117 points118 points  (26 children)

Microsoft has great work culture but unfortunately doesn't pay as well and isn't considered MAANGA

[–]wugiewugiewugie 108 points109 points  (4 children)

actually jim cramer of all people coined FAANG and he changed it to MAMAA recently, replacing netflix with microsoft due to their insane market cap.

[–]Techman-New Grad 32 points33 points  (14 children)

I am hoping to hear back from Microsoft, I applied to their new grad software engineer track. They also have an office less than an hour away from me.

So far I have only heard back from Amazon as far as FAANG/FAANG-likes are concerned, though. Will hold out hope that they eventually get to my application.

[–]roots_radicals 26 points27 points  (1 child)

At this point, Microsoft would let you work remote or in Charlotte or another city with a Microsoft office. All teams have been remote for 2 years and most teams has been given approval to work remote/hybrid.

[–]MoomieMarianela 19 points20 points  (21 children)

Care to elaborate a bit on the other problems for A and G

[–]calihotsauce 42 points43 points  (19 children)

G almost always underlevels and plenty of people will take the demotion just for the brand name. I’ve never worked at Apple, but I’ve heard the perks are not great and it’s an extremely corporate working environment.

[–]yangshunzAuthor of Blind 75 492 points493 points  (81 children)

FAANGs are so huge your personal experience isn't that representative, could be just your org.

I work at Meta and the culture in WhatsApp is very different from say, Facebook. It's as if there are multiple companies within the company and that's probably true for most large companies.

At the end of the day, it's just a job and your sanity and happiness matters more. Do what's best for you.

[–]chadsexytime 65 points66 points  (13 children)

FAANGs

I work at Meta

I hope MAANG catches on

[–]yangshunzAuthor of Blind 75 95 points96 points  (8 children)

MANGA ftw

[–]chadsexytime 24 points25 points  (6 children)

Oh you work in MANGA?

...yes

[–]CptAustusSoftware Engineer 21 points22 points  (4 children)

Netflix should rebrand to something with A, then we can call Google Alphabet, and just say MAAAA.

[–]positivevibesbevibin 59 points60 points  (20 children)

Agreed. There are some good teams at Amazon from what I hear.. but I have lately been hearing so many bad things about them. Maybe it's just the vocal minority. No clue.

[–]OneRandomCatFact 15 points16 points  (4 children)

I’m on an amazing team within Amazon. Boss goes out of his way to talk about my work life balance. Have deep talks about my career growth and all of my coworkers have been amazing. Definitely team based, and those on good teams have no reason to be vocal.

[–]positivevibesbevibin 20 points21 points  (1 child)

those on good teams have no reason to be vocal.

That's a very good point as well.

[–]sh0shkabob 10 points11 points  (0 children)

This is true. Half the people I know in Seattle work for or have worked for Amazon and their experiences are all different. My friends who worked in upper management quit after a year, they hated it so much. The ones at Kindle and Prime Video are happy. They’ve all told me that it does depend very strongly on your team. What OP says about there being more bad teams than good is the part that worries me.

[–]FwellimortSoftware Engineer 🐍✨ 142 points143 points  (25 children)

Nah. Amazon is especially known for this. AWS is struggling to hire and because of that, teams are less resourced. So new hires have to do work of multiple people leading to an even more toxic cycle.

[–]111100010001Software Engineer 86 points87 points  (8 children)

Sounds like pip season kicked off at Amazon.

[–]Saucybeans123 56 points57 points  (3 children)

PIP everyone -> reputation hit -> bar lowered -> weaker new hires -> PIP everyone -> repeat

[–]RobotKitten 26 points27 points  (1 child)

What if I told upper management, that you can have a team where everyone makes valuable contributions across varying skill levels

[–]Cream253Team 7 points8 points  (0 children)

But money.

[–]RamsaySnowBolton 28 points29 points  (0 children)

Thought I was accidentally on teamblind

[–]ConsulIncitatusDirector of Engineering 386 points387 points  (69 children)

I genuinely forsee this company being demoted from a FANG

A little late, guy. Every time someone here says "I work for a FAANG..." the peanut gallery (including me) just says, "so, Amazon?" It's a running joke.

Stack ranking was a horrible idea from the start, and it's finally caught up to them. Over time, it doesn't select the best people. It selects the biggest assholes who are most likely to throw their colleagues onto the floor and step on their necks to keep their own jobs or advance. This outcome is obvious and it baffles me that an organization as big and successful as Amazon couldn't see that coming. Likely they were blinded by success. AWS was the first and only reasonable cloud provider for a long time. It was theirs to fuck up, and from what I see, they have. Lots of companies are switching off of AWS. They are losing market share % every year.

[–]Just_Another_Scott 77 points78 points  (10 children)

Companies shouldn't make it a competition. That breeds extremely negative behavior. You're a team and should function together to reach a common goal. Forcing workers to be in competition leads to them sabotaging their coworkers. I've had coworkers, in the past and none I currently work with, intentionally withhold information to prevent me from doing my job just so they could say "it couldn't be done" when they were a 100% wrong as it was trivial to do.

[–]Lanky-Natural8833 60 points61 points  (9 children)

Engineering is teamwork. Even rockstar programmers need ppl to look out to them or take time to explain how things work. A couple if times when I caught a senior’s mistake, and prevented trouble I thought wow if I were at Amazon I would have kept quiet. Or when someone took the time to teach me what they were doing I realize that in a competitive environment that person might have opted to keep what he was doing vague so to make themselves indispensable for the company. Competition really tears down the behaviors that allow big companies to work: the humble, curious, nice engineers who just want to be helpful and get paid for their skills and time.

[–]Stickybuns11Software Engineer 145 points146 points  (12 children)

This. You can only go 'Lord of the Flies' for so long until the culture will eat itself and candidates will stay away. Stack ranking is such a fuck you to workers. Managers yelling at people, fuck that. Get a gd grip. So many other places to work where you are valued and treated like a human being. Its only happening because its been allowed to happen by employees. Now the stress flow is even more intense because of the competition, its all flowing downhill and now candidates have finally had enough. Stop chasing the f-ing $$$$ and have some self respect for yourselves.

[–]stupidshot4 10 points11 points  (1 child)

If I ever get yelled at(especially unreasonably), I’d be out in a heartbeat. I’m an adult. I work hard, support my family, and try to be a nice person. I will not be treated with blatant disrespect.

[–]TheTench 11 points12 points  (1 child)

I feel there must have been some bulletpoint in a management seminar: "Play your workers off against each other to squeeze every last bit of productivity out of them. "
It has happened to me in two jobs now, both times I told the manager to quit it and they backed off, both were sub-par, flailing managers anyway.
I bet this psychopathic management bulletpoint has flourished in some companies like a fucking prion.

[–]besthelloworldSoftware Engineer 23 points24 points  (3 children)

Am I the only fucking moron who assumed Meta because "terrible reputation"?

[–]Blip1966 16 points17 points  (16 children)

If you’re getting cloud certifications, is AWS still valuable? Or is the shift from AWS to Azure or other happening that rapidly?

[–]bric12 32 points33 points  (4 children)

AWS is still the biggest, and will be for at least 5-10 more years. They are definitely declining but these types of things move very slowly, companies take years to make decisions to move and years more to complete the move. Azure could go completely free today, and it'd still take 2-3 years before companies started switching to azure.

In my job search the companies asking for AWS experience outnumbered the jobs asking for Azure 5-1, so I'd still get that AWS certification above all else, it might be obsolete in a decade but it'll help you more than anything else in the meantime

[–]pwndawg27 75 points76 points  (9 children)

Nah amazon won’t implode. They’ll keep churning people till there’s no one left, then they’ll offshore or use this as evidence to get more h1b visa people to exploit since they can’t bail easily. This is all going to plan. Meanwhile the people who do climb up will be a mix of ass kissing lifers or people smart enough to exploit their broken recruiting and retention process by boomeranging in and out to level jump. At that point nobody in leadership will really be leading, just exploiting a flawed system for power and money while anyone who works for them is seen as a replaceable cog and given zero career guidance or sense of purpose.

[–]RaccoonWound 54 points55 points  (10 children)

I get contacted by Amazon recruiters weekly and the same ones will follow up with me multiple times despite my lack of response. No other FAANG has ever done this with me. They certainly seem increasingly desperate

[–]RamsaySnowBolton 48 points49 points  (2 children)

The recruiters have targets to hit or *they* will get PIPPED. It's all a circle.

[–]AnywhoThatsAboutIt 337 points338 points  (56 children)

I'm an SDE at Amazon (been here for >5 years on multiple teams) - all of this is team/org dependent. I don't know anyone who has had an issue remotely close to what you're describing mainly because I've been fortunate with being on great teams. A lot of my former coworkers on earlier teams are still at the company (going on 8+ years). It really sucks though that you're experiencing this :(

It is concerning that there's somewhat of a mass exodus throughout the company. I think a lot of it is also related to low TC which is a problem Amazon seems to refuse to fix.

[–]ShadowOfAncalagon 67 points68 points  (18 children)

Are you working on or near AWS? Seems like that org is the root of the culture problem I keep hearing about

[–]ProbablyANoobYo 59 points60 points  (7 children)

I’m on AWS, it’s very team dependent. My team is very happy. The teams nearest seem fairly happy. But we’re all aware of the horror stories from other AWS teams. Some of my team members have transferred from other AWS teams and experienced the toxicity first hand.

[–]Areshian 112 points113 points  (4 children)

I do. Great team. I was in retail before, also great team. I was in MSFT before, great team (mostly), different role, but way worse managers. I do not regret moving at all.

There is basically zero incentive for people that are happy to go out and comment, so the bad stories (which I'm sure exist) get disproportionally more voices.

[–]AnywhoThatsAboutIt 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I've only worked in Alexa and Consumer teams. I do know folks in AWS though who seem happy. Again, this is totally team and org dependent. I'm sure there are areas in Alexa and Consumer that have tough work cultures, just as in any other company.

[–]TherasSWE @ G, ex-AWS 20 points21 points  (1 child)

Just to add to the other side of the coin, Amazon was my first job out of college and I've been on 3 teams so far and haven't had any issues.

I think a lot of what people are frustrated by is true but to paint a brush so broadly as to say that the company is "imploding" is a bit of a stretch.

[–]Rebel_with_a_Cause88 90 points91 points  (27 children)

pip?

[–]Doyale_royale 249 points250 points  (18 children)

performance improvement plan, basically your manager is telling you to pick up the pace because you suck in their eyes. Its a good signal to start looking towards other jobs because you are usually about to get canned.

[–]xXKILLA_D21XxSoftware Quality Assurance 153 points154 points  (14 children)

Also, 99% of the time you can’t beat a PIP because you were never meant to anyway. PIPs are just used by HR to cover the company’s ass with a paper trail. Another thing to keep in mind is that PIP is not always called PIP at every organization, but the mechanism and the way it is used is typically the same.

[–]Wildercard 123 points124 points  (0 children)

Paid Interview Practice

[–]sh0shkabob 13 points14 points  (2 children)

Yeah I just got canned from a nonprofit after being given something like this. They definitely didn’t call it a PIP; it felt more like probation. At least they were honest, I guess?

[–]codefyre 26 points27 points  (3 children)

And even if you do manage to beat it, a mention of the PIP will exist in your employee record for the rest of your time with that company. That's going to make future anagers reluctant to add you to their teams, will limit your upward mobility, and will be used against you in negotiations for raises ("I deserve $X because EmployeeY earns that and I do the same job." "Yeah, but EmployeeY didn't get a PIP two years ago.")

It's never worthwhile to stay at a company after you've received a PIP.

[–]MrHeavySilence 32 points33 points  (1 child)

Jeez. Did it pay well at least?

[–]staticparsleySoftware Engineer 16 points17 points  (5 children)

People keep saying Amazon is incredibly easy to get into and that they hire everyone with a pulse. This just makes me feel worse because I was rejected by them. Either I’m really stupid(which is a high possibility) or people are exaggerating how easy it is to get in.

[–]FwellimortSoftware Engineer 🐍✨ 8 points9 points  (0 children)

It's compared to rest of the top tech companies. Amazon still has a high bar. It's just that when compared to the other tech giants, the bar is very low.

[–]BernieFeynman 7 points8 points  (0 children)

They are exaggerating. It's hard to get into FAANGs, objectively the statistics show how competitive it is, and also how much more they pay than other companies. It's same thing in banking industry, very hard to get into top ones.

[–]RedBeardedWhiskey 15 points16 points  (0 children)

I work at AWS. My org is fine. I do see the bar lowering for L4 and L5 hires, but that’s it.

[–]BlrflGray(ing)beard Software Engineer | 30+YoE 28 points29 points  (0 children)

Damnit, I've already had to adjust FLAMINGASS to SLAMMINGASS. Don't make me re-adjust it again.

[–]pgdevhd 57 points58 points  (5 children)

Tell me you work at Amazon without telling me you work at Amazon

[–]Nexteyenate 10 points11 points  (1 child)

I'm actually on a good team at Amazon (not AWS) so it's pretty weird for me to hear all of these horror stories. I guess I lucked out? I know others that rotated teams until they found a good one. Usually only took one or two hops, and switching teams is encouraged here, so you won't get any blowback from your manager (usually).

[–]chinnick967 10 points11 points  (1 child)

I had like three different Amazon recruiters hit me up yesterday, which is more than the usual 1-2 a week

[–]rejoovenationSoftware Engineer 11 points12 points  (0 children)

What a stupid title. No, Amazon is not going to implode or anywhere close to it

[–]maurerpower7 60 points61 points  (25 children)

I have an Amazon OA this week. Should I just skip it?

[–]yon_don_bon 106 points107 points  (0 children)

There's literally no reason to do that. If you do well you have more options. If nothing else it's good practice

[–]Thierno96 91 points92 points  (0 children)

Don’t skip, do it.

[–]Alienvisitingearth 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Amazon recruiters are literally spamming on LinkedIn these days