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Comment by sharkweek | Hacker News Reader

I live in Seattle and am friends with a lot of Amazon folks. Most work very hard and complain from time to time, but I only know one who left for another job because most who are there now actually really like their jobs.

One friend put it best after he transitioned from a small department in the ecommerce side of the business to one of AWS's early-ish hires, that most young departments have the thrill of working at a startup but with some very supportive corporate backing (as long as things are growing).

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I know a lot of people who have left Amazon, and are very bitter about how it was to work there. I know some who are waiting out their signing bonus. I also know a lot who've left Microsoft, but they definitely have a lower average bitterness about the company.

I know a ton of people like this. 70% of the people I know didn't stay at Amazon past 4 years.

I don't rub shoulders with BigCo devs, but of all the SmallCo devs I know, the only ones that reach 4 years tenure are the ones that own the company.

If you don't work at Amazon, there's a pretty big sampling bias in your data. (You are wildly more likely to work with someone who has left Amazon than someone who has happily stayed there, and in casual interactions, you're more likely to hear from the strongly disgruntled than the happy. In the same way, current Amazon workers are likely to know a higher than average percentage of long-tenured and happy Amazon employees than is reality in overall population.)

Is it unreasonable to want to try something new after 4 years? I don't really imagine staying with any company for more that 4-5 years.

I didn't bother waiting for my signing bonus. I paid them to get out of there.

I was done after a year and a half.

Owed them for moving expenses, etc. but I really didn't care.

I spent 6 months doing nothing before I even considered getting another job.

Easily the worst experience in my life and completely colored my entire impression of the tech industry negatively. I went from loving what I did to just doing this as a job for a paycheck (even at another company now that is leaps and bounds "better") with an ever-present need to get out of the industry entirely (but no real plan to do so).

Which office was this?

Based in Seattle (well, probably a fairly obvious point there). I shifted offices once while I was there, but spent the most time in Varzea (where everyone was packed like Sardines).

I'll echo that from personal experience. I left AWS to start my current company. I had a regret-prevention imperative to do so, but it was still the toughest call.

Amazon's culture is highly polarising. The emergent properties of which are all the truths and lies you ever read about the place.

Can you confirm any truths or deny any lies?

My views don't represent that of my employer yada yada yada.

Anything in the NYTimes piece that wasn't a personal story was grounded in truth, but spun as bullshit. It was a hit piece. There are bad teams, but at a company of this size, there will always be bad teams, and I am sorry for the poor experiences that people seem to have had, but I would hardly call them widespread. The entire article has really become a bit of an internal joke. That is how ridiculous many people find their claims.

You could probably find enough dirt in any Fortune 500 company, style it up, and put out an article similar to the Amazon one.

Especially if you were being paid to do it.

I also live in Seattle and worked at Amazon. When I was interviewing, a conversation I had often went something like this.. "Oh, I see that you were at Amazon; we've interviewed many people from there. I'd ask you why you left but I think I already know."

I think it really just depends on your team though. Most of the people I worked with didn't particularly like Amazon (or working in general) but it was a job and paid (relatively) well. They don't pay as well as Google/FB but they still pay much better than most companies in Seattle and as far as I can tell it's easier to get into Amazon.

They don't pay as well as most companies in Seattle, unless you're only looking at tiny companies or something.

Maybe the new hire offer is market rate, but at 1+ years you are definitely going to be paid more anywhere else.

Amazon's job levels are also structured to have higher requirements and lower pay than equivalent positions elsewhere.

Amazon's job levels outpace others fairly quickly I've found. If I were to ask for my salary at Google or FB, I'd probably get laughed out the door. You start lower, but if you work at it, you'll surpass what you'd be paid elsewhere. Benefits however is another story...

You are literally the only person I have ever heard say they make more money at Amazon than elsewhere, and this is counter to my experience working at Amazon.

You might be surprised if you were to actually have that conversation with a competitor.

What other big companies are hiring in Seattle besides Amazon, FB, and Google? The only ones I know of are Zillow and Expedia.

I just assumed they paid relatively well because there was a salary spreadsheet on here a few weeks ago and doing a ctrl F for Seattle, the salaries seemed lower.

For me amazon just seems like a bad deal compensation wise compared to other BigCos like facebook, google, apple, msft . Back loaded stock grants, lower pay, etc. Then add a high pressure big-company culture on top of that. I'll be pleasantly surprised if I'm wrong!

The thing that I like about working at Amazon is that they don't push the "Kool-Aid" culture that I sense from Facebook, Google, and Apple. I come to work, I feel proud of what I've done, I go home. That is it. That is what I want out of a job. I don't want to be a "Googler," or be told that I'm "changing the world" as I deploy a new sticker pack of poop emojis to Messenger. I want a job, not a cult.

From interviewing and having friends that currently and have worked in facebook, google, apple and amazon, it's not like that at all.

Employees of other companies are not a cult, though this perception is common internally to Amazon. It discourages you from quitting, and stigmatizes people who leave.

Think about this next time you have a conversation where everyone quotes the leadership principles.

The funny thing about your statement is that you are drinking your own version of koolaid at Amazon.

FWIW, there is definitely koolaid mentality at Google and Facebook (source: worked at, and have lots of friends at both), but it's not the same way as you think. People are proud of what the company has accomplished as a whole in changing the world, but they aren't as blind to think that the feature that they added to a product is world changing in itself.

>very supportive corporate backing (as long as things are growing).

I tend to feel like this would be most corporations that aren't shooting themselves in the foot. Not that there aren't plenty of those out there.

You next year: "all my friends are leaving Amazon!" And the cycle repeats.

I left AWS after 7 months full time and 3-4 months internship. Almost everyone I worked with (~30 people) either stayed put, or left the team but stayed within Amazon.

Last year folks were leaving Amazon in droves.

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