This is certainly not the first time I've heard of Amazon being a shitty place to work at, and I don't see much reason to doubt the story of a vindictive boss doing everything they can to make an employee miserable after learning that the employee submitted bad feedback against them.
The two lessons I can extract from this post for myself are.
1. Never submit negative feedback via "anonymous" or "confidential" feedback processes at work, especially against a particular person, especially your boss.
It's been covered on HN before how these things are never really anonymous and confidential, and it should be kind of obvious to figure out if you think about it.
2. If you are at your job as part of your Visa process, you are essentially a slave with a slave's rights to match, and you are better off not rocking the boat if you want to complete the process.
Though I don't know how we can change it to prevent that.
Don't let these people make you afraid to use your power as a citizen and as a valuable employee.
Also, if you're writing your Representative about some kind of abuse or malfeasance, you could always use and assumed name (and say you're doing so to avoid retaliation).
The existence of such a list, the details of its construction, and the possible Social Justice implications of this would attract so many eyeballs and so much advertising revenue, that it would be hard for any online news publication to resist reporting evidence of it.
The problem at present is the west has convoluted and arcane immigration rules (https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/award-winning-aussie-bar... for example of westerner in another western country) and two dramatically different buckets - limbo/slave to employer or full, no questions asked rights. There needs to be a less dichotomous, more gradual attainment of citizenship, and a set of intermediary steps, where the potential citizen has some of the rights of a citizen, but not all, and they increase over time towards full citizenship.
This is why it is critical for people with citizenship to advocate for their coworkers with visas, both within the context of their workplace and outside. Pressure your congressional representatives to pursue comprehensive immigration reform. Have a conversation with HR about visa-blind recruitment and retention policies.
Canada too have similar system called LMIA based Temporary closed work permit for skilled professionals. But the employee's permanent residency is not at the mercy of the employer in this case and it's fast too, in some cases within 4 months !
I have some experience with how LMIA is not perfect, but I was excited when the administration was openly considering copying it ~18 months ago, because it's hard to imagine anything between H1B and LMIA which is worse than H1B (whether from the perspective of a protectionist, a progressive, or a common liberal).
However an lmia supported work permit it's the employee's and not employer's, meaning that if you get fired you can still stay in the country and find another job. You do need to apply for the Visa again for the next job but being in Canada already makes it much simpler. Essentially you aren't at your employer mercy.
Also if you work for one year you usually already have enough points for PR, once you apply for a pr you gain the right for a BOWP visa, which is essentially an open work permit that allows you to work for any employer until a final decision in your PR is made.
IANAL but went through all of above and am now a pr
In Quebec there are no BOWP. So if you lost your job, you have to move out of Quebec province and get another LMIA work permit. Getting a permanent residency while working and residing in Quebec is not easy as Quebec's immigration system and policies are archaic and downright broken with more importance given to French language than any other employable skills. Recently 18,000 Quebec applications were downright rejected by Quebec in the name of bringing in a new skill based immigration system.
I would suggest anyone looking to move to Quebec in a skilled work permit or applying for residency while residing in Quebec to refrain from it as it will take at least 4 years (CSQ - 2 years + Federal - 2 years ) instead of 6 months in comparison with the rest of Canada. This applies to foreign students who come to study in Quebec too.
Permanent Residency Processing time:
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...
Quebec skilled worker applicants face uncertain future in light of immigration overhaul:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-immigration-a...
Hiring in the province of Quebec:
https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/servi...
LMIA on the other hand, has advertisement requirements like LCA and a transition plan as well. They are particularly strict on the transition plan including one of which is assisting the worker for permanent residence !
https://meurrensonimmigration.com/service-canada-transition-...
The way I see it, if you're in a bad situation at work, you have two options: try to change it, or leave. If you're going to leave anyway, why not at least try to improve your situation first so you give yourself the best chance of success? And that way, the company has the opportunity to remove or remediate a bad manager.
Basically, my reaction to your #1 is that it helps you avoid getting hurt by the worst possible scenario. But personally, I think it's a better strategy to maximize your chance at a good scenario.
Generally speaking, the best thing to do is to smile, appear to do reasonably decent work, and begin looking elsewhere.
Easiest way to improve your situation in software engineering is to just get a better job and move laterally or up.
Those that happen to enjoy IT unions can get some help there.
However don't expect the work environment to actually improve afterwards, unless the bad pieces are gone by then, as winning is only half the battle.
Maybe I've gotten lucky, but patience has worked well for me. If only I could have told my younger self...
Believing you can change it will virtually never yield any positive results to yourself. Even if you don't get fired, you will be labeled as the one who complains.
If I'm being honest^Wcynical, all you should care about at work is how great people think you are. It helps if you are at least half as good as people think, but it's sadly not a requirement.
By letting them fail. The only way people learn lessons is through failures and disasters.
Let the bad systems fail, that's the best way you can help them.
No, you are not.
That's taking the premise way too far. Slaves were owned as property. You are not property of a corporation just because your job is connected to a visa. You don't have slaves rights (almost entirely non-existent human rights, specifically). You chose to immigrate, there is a system involved in that, you knew that ahead of time, you chose to go forward regardless. You did not become a slave in the process, you did not sign on for 'slaves rights' in the process, you did not abdicate your freedom. Your employer may not dispose of your life as it sees fit. You are free to leave and go back to where you came from if you do not like the system, just as you were free to never sign on in the first place. You are not a slave at all in any manner. That's not an argument in favor of the backwards US immigration system, it's an argument that very, very clearly you are not a slave just because your job and visa are bound together. Immigration to N country is not a human right, it's a privilege (which is why I - and a billion other people - can't freely immigrate to Norway tomorrow and begin enjoying the associated perks).
Source: was an H1B (and L1 before that).
I've been on H1B. It's not a perfect system, but making 6 digit salaries in Silicon Valley was infinitely better than picking cotton in Mississippi in 1840 where you could be murdered by your boss/owner at a whim.
Try to control your self pity, people!
You're comparing a broken system with an older and even more broken system that we already fixed and trying to find merit in current broken system by that comparison. Of course it's better to be alive than being squashed by a dinosaur. But how's that relevant?
Or plainly: Someone said that H1B was the same as slavery. I called it bullshit.
One is always free in a literal sense to choose between available options (e.g. a slave may choose to escape, an employee to quit). However, ability of a second party to attach consequences to those options (e.g. corporal punishment or death, deportation away from one's family, removal of healthcare from sick loved ones, etc.) amounts to restricting the freedom of the individual.
I don't accept that legal freedom equates to practical freedom, e.g. you have the legal right to quit your job therefore in a practical sense you are completely "free" to quit your job. If your employer can attach extremely negative consequences to quitting, then your freedom has been severely limited.
I also have trouble with arguments that the choice to immigrate was made of free will, therefore all consequences are one's own responsibility. It's not legal nor ethical to allow people to "freely choose" to sign themselves into slavery.
Anyway, this is obviously a contentious and charged issue, but I hope this helps communicate a different perspective.
Don't say "boss made me work late and I want to quit". Say "management is overextending the team and it's eroding morale and will likely cause retention issues".
Never give feedback at work, unless positive. This includes things like code review.
The dirty little secret of human relationships is every one wants to be made to feel special, error less and look good. Only thing any kind of feed back, correction or criticism leads to is rivalry/enmity, and it won't end well. The question is not if some thing like that happens, but to what degree.
There are stories going back to the time of Abraham Lincoln, where he refuses to even criticize big mistakes made by generals during the civil war. If that is what some one in the position of Abe Lincoln, in a matter as serious as Civil war did, your code review feedback can wait. Nothing productive ever comes out of these processes.
If you absolutely have to display allegiance to political cartels at work. Wait until a clear leadership superiority is established, Meanwhile use silence and smile as a strategic activity to avoid getting shafted.
There can be no friends at work. In stack ranked systems, with subjective evaluation. You need to follow the Kissinger doctrine. No permanent friends or enemies only allies based on interest that serves you.
Seen too much of this to realize to leave people/systems on their own.
Stealing the Corner office by Brendan Reid
Assorted works of Niccolo Machiavelli and Balatazar Gracian.
It will be hard to impossible to make transition even after reading these books, but at least you can detect and avoid problems at work. Or at best set up a firewall around you.
Lastly expecting goodness from people is wrong. The fact of the matter is people are bad and do what is good in their interests even if it hurts the whole world, be prepared, be ready and have means to take care of yourself.
People disagree on priorities and not everyone's incentives are the same but I've never felt that by default people are bad. I'm no scientist (or sage) and just an average human. So, this is just how I see things and not based on expert scientific inquiry. Make of it what you will.
Oh for goodness sake! This is just silliness. Either you have watched too many gangster movies or you are a sociopath
You need to understand how department wide politics work. There are fixed budgets when it comes to giving raises, bonuses and RSUs. The person who negotiates and deals better wins. That means lesser for everyone. Note how even without wanting to harm you, they actually have. Then come the second rounds of power play. One way to negotiate is to prove they are better, second way to prove it is you are not. Setting team mates up for failure happens all the time, even without one realizing it. Plenty of other things happen. Actively building a bad case for other people. It might not be overt, but leave a bad CR comment or two, keep doing it actively. Make it a point to drop a bad comment or feedback for the person you might want to harm. Then over a time you tend to build a case against them mentally in the mind of your manager. These tactics are super common. Wrong people get promoted, and right people get shafted all the time.
In almost every company- promotions, raises and RSUs require building a case(like a promotion packet), which is basically a pile of documentation. That can only be done over time, its chiseling away at a rock wanting to make it into a statue. Part of that is also making sure other people's statue isn't as good as yours. As a part of building that documentation, you need your name plastered to important things in a positive way. Appreciation emails, feed backs, positive CR text walls etc. This is why so much ceremony goes in most companies when it comes to rewards and promotions. Basically quotas are fixed, and you manager needs to build a case for you. Building that requires negotiating and dealing with them to build you a better promotion packet. Almost anybody can be made to look good or bad, regardless of their efforts. Given stack ranked systems, somebody always has to take the fall for the person who negotiates better.
These things are not even new. The world of Politics(regardless of the system(Democracy/Monarchy/Republic)) has had this for 1000s of years now.
Nope, people are not bad. People are neutral, equally capable of good or evil. Just don't assume anyone except your mother loves you unconditionally and you should be fine :)
You're correct he was reluctant to overtly criticize, but the lesson to take away isn't to just not criticize. It's to be diplomatic and patient when trying to effect change. Being a natural leader, brilliant, and with great strategic intuition also helps :-)
I'm only suggesting you shield yourself from problems, not create the problems yourself.
Getting yourself immunity isn't exactly wrong.
This rule is creating problems. It actively makes relationships and work itself worst. It creates leads to passive aggressive environment where everyone is insecure and in doubt and problems wont get solved.
> There can be no friends at work.
Same here.
> No permanent friends or enemies only allies based on interest that serves you.
Same here too. I am glad I worked in mutually cooperative environment where people took my interests into account and did not based all their actions on their own interest.
Then the errors get merged and I'm liable.
But other wise, unless some one is doing 'rm -rf /', there is no real reason to go criticize some one's work on a company wide visible text wall.
"criticize some one's work on a company wide visible text wall" is a depressing way to look at it. Try "collectively learning about better approaches on a company-wide visible text wall". You'll need to convince people that it's one and not the other.
But in these days of stack ranking and subjective evaluations. You giving a lot of feedback can be considered of lack of ability to write good code on the part of that person(after-all if they could write good code, why would it get so much criticism?). Then the next thing that happens- Which is that your CR comments being used as a proof to downrank them in the stack. Your colleague will and right so think you are actively criticizing them to ensure you get promoted over them.
Enmity and rivalry begins from there. Then they could raid your CR wall and do the same to you. Then all kinds of backstabbing and self-promotion activities start.
Before you know it you would have made a few enemies within the team.
Then you have a management problem, not a cr problem. Don't miss the forest for the trees... It's on management to communicate that cr is constructive, doesn't contribute to reviews, and isn't a game.
> There can be no friends at work.
I think that's a bad advice. I'm sad that this is an experience someone can take from a job and that there are jobs where this applies. Unless you can't lose a job, do disagree on technical reasons and do make friends with good people.
Not every place is so restrictive and full of backstabbers. And if it is, maybe it's worth discovering that and leaving.
This really is the equivalent of marking a giant X on your back and walking in to an arena full of ace snipers.
I have literally seen people being labelled as non-team players and eliminated for arguing against bad technical decisions. In most departments projects are started to gain visibility of high impact work- on which they will later ride to get to rewards and promotions. Disagreeing means telling them they have to eliminate you for their project to happen.
They will get their project eventually. Congratulations, you have now been marked as some that needs to eliminated for them have a good career. And they will deal with you appropriately.
This happens in all people structures. People are the same everywhere, in all times. Don't be in the delusion that some companies are special enough that it won't happen there.
If some one is in a position of power. Any debate, disagreement or criticism is a bad move to make against them.
After returning home, he rejected my expenses because of variance of costs of the taxis, despite me pointing out that I was using the stipulated vendor and the difference in cost was between me leaving the office at rush hour and me leaving the office around 9-10pm.
Not only did he reject the taxi expenses, but the hotel, the flights, the food, etc. The guy was obviously a class act in his 50s, rejecting the expenses of a fairly underpaid 25 year old employee living in Scotland.
Super illegal but ultimatly I quit, because life is too short to work for horrible people.
Anyway, nothing beats that one German bank that told all employees of a branch on Friday that on Monday they are working at a location 80 miles away and are required to be there as usually.
EDIT: Europe generally has stronger labor laws than the US, so if something wouldn't pass muster in the US, it almost certainly wouldn't pass muster in the EU.
What else would you expect from a society that worships profit above all other gods?
As an individual, it's great you let it slide, and I think forgiveness is really important mental hygiene, it's something you do for yourself more than for someone else, IMO... but as a member of a society that ideally would be somewhat just and decent, we shouldn't forgive something that hasn't even been repented of and is still ongoing. Disarm, explain, forgive, that'd be my preferred approach. Not fail to disarm, fall on deaf ears, forgive.
Forgiveness can't be dispensed automatically; it has to be deserved/earned by real actions/intentions. I think because mainstream culture was "meek", it allowed sociopaths to hack it and pervert it, pushing victims to always forgive while laughing at them and making their lives more and more miserable. I think in middle ages required penance was quite brutal by our contemporary soft standards.
Not only was their offer $30,000 below my current income, their deal was I front cash for expenses and submit claims monthly.
Is this standard in the software world?
Because from my perspective there’s only one possible answer to paying expenses out of pocket and having to claim them back: No.
Edit: As an addition, the expense isn't paid by the employee. Costs over $2000 need justification above your boss, but your immediate boss can approve up to $2000 no issues.
Approximately one week a month on-site at client(s) location. So, flights, food, accommodation.
I expected company payment card. If everything turns to shit one month the employee, in this sort of situation, could be left holding a fairly hefty bag.
Side note: if you're in a situation where you're loading up a credit card with business expenses that are later reimbursed, you may consider looking into a credit card that offers rewards like airline miles. It's essentially a "free reward no fee ATM." I always volunteer to grab the company lunch tab for this reason.
The thing I would press is to get paid fairly, and bi-weekly. I’ve never had a salaried job that was paid monthly.
A huge benefit of fronting the costs is getting points on the spend, it adds up quickly
Interesting. I'm Dutch and I've never heard of a permanent job that was not paid monthly. If someone told me they were not paid monthly, I would assume they are a temp with variable hours.
This is standard in every world. Corporate credit cards are usually reserved for senior executives or people who travel/entertain a lot (e.g. sales reps). Cash advances aren't a thing outside of small companies.
Google is the exception here, IMO. Every other employer I have had has generally required the employee to front the cash for expenses, and used something like Expensify to get reimbursed. There are some exceptions, such as hotels or airfare, which I've booked through corporate booking systems; these only let you see "approved" flights/hotels, and once booked, is charged direct to the company.
The exception tends to be law and accounting firms, which issue cards to their employees for business use. The employee "pays" up front using the cards, but the card is connected to the employer's expensing system and the funds are deposited to the employee's account the payday following his submission of the expense report.
You would rack up your tab, submit your expense report and then they would issue you a check with which it was your responsibility to pay the tab.
One guy racked up like $50,000 on his card, got the check and then quit and never paid off the card...
Dont know what ever happened to him.
It may prevent the employee from holding the bag if the company goes bust. But some "corporate cards" are issued by banks in a way that makes the cardholder jointly liable.
[0] https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/software-engineer-salary-...
Sure, the lone "web developer" at a small nonprofit might make $80k, but at a FAANG? Please.
I'm not sure that's true, but I will admit that most of my friends work at FAANGs (outside the bay area). So let me add that I know at least one senior engineer at a non-FAANG tech company that left a $300k job for a "significant pay bump".
Frankly, no large tech company could survive if it didn't pay competitively with other large tech companies.
I fully agree that pay is less in small, non-tech companies in rural areas, but I would be surprised if such businesses hire the majority of developers. Big tech hires a LOT of engineers.
Alphabet - 98,000 (2018) Facebook - 35,000 (2018) Apple - 123,000 (2018) Netflix - 5,500 (2017) Amazon - 647,500 (2018)
Total - ~909,000
That is total number of employees worldwide. so lets conservatively take off a third. Also Reasonably only a third of those employees (probably a lot less at amazon) are actually developers. That gives us ~200,000. The Bureau of Labor statics says there are 1,200,000 software developers in the US in 2016.
FAANG does make up a lot more software development jobs than I thought, I would have to say a significant portion. Very interesting.
I do have two debit cards, one Visa and one MasterCard, for redundancy.
I see what you are saying and it makes sense. I’m just ideologically opposed to the use of consumer credit for regular / recurring / general living expenses.
I bet I’m not alone.
Getting credit card points while you know your employer is almost certainly going to reimburse you is a nice benefit, but the industry should definitely seek to improve by making this optional. Especially for prohibitively large large expenses (flights, lodging) default to paying these upfront.
Thank you for your thoughtful response.
I was doing on call support for a bunch of Linux machines. Literally it was him and me left because the moment I started the other two engineers bailed. One went to work packing salad because it was a better job (big warning!) and the other one had a breakdown.
So didn't get paid properly, argued mileage down to the mile, the clients and him constantly gave me verbal abuse over and over and I ended up working until 10pm some nights with my 9 month pregant wife at home on her own and virtually immobile due to a back problem.
So I get home one night after a tirade of abuse for the day and sent him an email saying "Fuck you I quit". Get a call about an hour later and he's drunk shouting abuse down the phone. This suddenly turns into undying love and care for me after the abuse wasn't working and he realised I couldn't be brow beat into coming back again. Then there's a thud which I assume was him falling off his chair. Never spoke to him again but the company folded about a year later.
So I sit down and I'm about £2000 down then on salary and expenses that were missing. I had £250 in the bank, £400 rent due a week later, wife about to have a baby and an empty fridge. So fuck it. I sold all the stock I still had of the company on ebay (back when you had to take photos and get them developed and scanned and futz with cheques which was hard work), broke even and scraped a first pay cheque at a job just before my credit card melted into a puddle.
It took 10 years to get out of the hole and back to normality. NEVER put up with this for a second. If anyone treats you like this RUIN THEM before they ruin you, your life, your relationships and everyone else they go near. I don't usually advocate this attitude but the damage and destruction that type of person leaves is immense.
Because sometimes the situation is bad for your boss too, the company is in financial straits, miscommunication, {insert other extenuating circumstances}.
... but sometimes your boss really is just an asshole, liar, alcoholic, and/or a sociopath.
Never assume the later off the bat, but never completely discount the possibility either. Because it'll probably happen at least once in an average career.
So the difference doesn't really matter. You have a bad boss; take care of yourself first and don't let them push you around.
So? That's the boss's problem to deal with. You owe the company absolutely nothing beyond your contracted hours in exchange for your contracted salary.
I say this as an employer.
If your boss happens to be a cog in a broken machine, treating them like it's their fault isn't fair to them or you.
Of course, you can always quit (and usually should). But failing to determine root cause and mis-blaming your boss is about as useful as screaming at the gate attendant when your flight gets a weather delay.
And someone who by choice decides to be (or remains) a cog in the broken machine, specifically at the point where it requires being nasty to someone, is fully responsible for that action and its consequences.
(Labor advocacy programs help balance the scales a little, if only because your advocate is predisposed to believe you and help you navigate the options available to you. But they're fairly thin on the ground in the UK and the US.)
Didn't have the cash or energy to start it off and after 5 years I didn't want to go back to that bit of my life and kick it all off again. Plus he folded the company after a bit so chance I'd get anything were near zero.
It is one of the reasons I am so very suspicious of folks who diminish the value of labor protections. Most of us end up downrange of some shady stuff at least once.
In case it's not clear, I have not had helpful experiences with HR.
Just sounds like a penny wise pound foolish story to me.
Where did I suggest that anyone "take on" the company?
So people go to extreme lengths and managers can get away with anything.
I’m super grateful for Microsoft to help me with my green card. However my life there was miserable and my manager frequently asked us to work weekends. Pagerduty was hell and I once came home at 5am from work.
F that.
I’m glad I wasn’t born in India. My Indian x-colleagues didn’t have that freedom simply due to where they were born.
I imagine Amazon is a worse slaveshop.
I've seen this many many times in all company sizes over last 15 yrs. I would steer clear of teams where most ppl are h1b indians.
1. Was working on a project without issues. Ex manager forced me to go back to India 3 times over a 9 month period. Every time my ex manager tells me to go back, I get ready packing and then he tells me stay for 3 more months. On the 3rd time, I said I am resigning. Now my manager doesn't want me to go to India. I got another job and went to resign. Manager indirectly threatens me that I won't get service letter (which is required for green card). I was afraid and ended up staying. It turns out my manager was lying to the customer also. Everytime, he will tell me to get ready to go back and then tell the customer that I have to go back due to visa issues. Customer had still some work for me, so they ask for 3 more months and this repeated 2 times. Each time, I would be under incredible stress. It was like telling someone waiting in jail for their death sentence that they will be hung 2 weeks from now, then a few days later tell them it was extended.
2. Came to India for my marriage. Forced me to cancel my honeymoon and work from India for 1 month for another customer while lying to the original customer that I extended my vacation. I spend one whole day in my room sad and angry. I still want to beat up the manager who made me do this even though this happened over 2 years ago.
3. Asked me to work for a temporary customer in another state. I didn't want to, but agreed since I was afraid and worked for around 5-7 weeks while staying in hotel. This was before marriage. After marriage, again asked me to work for this customer for 1 month. My wife is completely dependent on me because she cannot drive in US. I said I cannot go because my wife is alone. Lead told me to ask my wife to stay in hotel for 1 month with me. I didn't want to because she already spend 3 weeks in a hotel with me instead of honeymoon. Thankfully manager agreed and sent someone else.
4. Forced me to relocate to another state. I didn't want to. After a lot of pressure, I sort of agreed and asked to at least adjust my salary for the rent increase. The customer was paying $20+ per hour more if I was working from the new state, so I expected at least a little bit of raise. Manager lied to me saying he will take care of it. I didn't trust him because there were many stories from my ex colleagues of being treated like a donkey with a carrot tied to their front. Sent him an email asking him to reply. He didn't. At one point, he said "I will snip you". He had said a similar line once before - "I will cut you". At that time, I didn't even understand he was threatening me, I was wondering why is he talking about circumcising me. This time I understood it was a threat. Got everything ready for move and told him I am ready for the move, and as expected he said HR didn't approve the raise which is a lie.
5. Moving expenses was about $3500. Getting that refunded was another big battle. Thankfully, my manager helped me in this and got the money after about 1.5 months.
6. Got RFE for visa extension. Employer waited till the last moment to submit the response to USCIS. I couldn't drive because license duration is tied to visa. Asked my manager and immigration team multiple times to speed up. No. They submitted the response only 5 days before the last day. So couldn't drive for 3 months. Since I was in a new state, I had no friends to help me either. Employer did pay for my Uber for these 3 months, but still I hated every moment of it, especially because of a few bad experiences with Uber drivers. Thankfully, I had sent my wife back to India before all this happened, otherwise I don't know how I would have managed.
Even though my visa got extended for another 3 years, I threw away everything and came back to India.
Now you, the complainant, are the problem. And oh boy you have some special life circumstances - yikes, you are like a loaded bomb dropped in the lap of HR. They are not in any position of power, they can’t set the policy for your department (rightfully - they are not in the know), so your boss holds all the cards. HR won’t dig to the bottom of anything, and a manager is more important that a developer. At best it’s he-said-she-said and ignored, at worst you are shown the door after some minimal make nice by the company to avoid future liability.
I think it takes a strong top-down initiative to avoid cultural issues like this at an organization. At some place as large as Amazon there are bound to be isolated incidents but to all indications this behavior is, if not encouraged (in some cases it appears to be), not actively discouraged and is hence tacitly approved of at Amazon. I’ve seen what it takes to get a bad manager moved or fired by their subordinates - it requires an outright coup. Rarely does such a thing happen and it’s not guaranteed to succeed. Whereas, a conscientious and capable manager can walk in and straighten something like this out in fairly short order, with minimal drama.
This. Which is why I do my best to avoid working for (or doing business with) large corporations. They're simply toxic.
This has not been my personal experience at all. I've worked for huge companies and tiny ones, and the only real difference I've seen is that the working conditions tend to be far superior in the tiny ones.
Compensation between the two tends to be comparable as well (ignoring startups -- I'm not talking about them here, as they're a unique beast). I don't think that large companies have an edge on that score (actually, I think the opposite is true, but not by a enough to matter much). As an example, I left a megacorporation to work at my current job, a truly tiny company. My total compensation at my current job is about $5,000/yr less than at the megacorp -- not nearly enough of a difference to matter.
Realistically if you have a bad manager your only 100% safe option is to switch companies. Switching teams internally can work depending on the place, but it does carry risk, especially if you're on a visa
This is a common refrain, especially on HN. But it is a bit misplaced:
Small companies are just as bad and often worse.
All you have to do is look around at the average small company where nepotism is the default (doesn't matter how good you are, the owner's son will be the next CEO) and where many owners see staff as personal servants.
Some of the things I've seen in the past year with friends & acquaintances who work at small companies:
- An office admin being told to arrange the owner's wedding (without pay).
- A nail salon worker being told to go pick up the owner's dry cleaning since there weren't any customers in at the moment.
- The owner of a small hotel telling staff they were all working on Saturday to cater a party at her house. (If you say no, you are fired.)
- A company owner taking $40,000 out of the company bank account to pay for his family vacation to Croatia and then missing payroll that month. It ended up being two weeks late.
Many small business owners treat their business (and by extension their staff) as their personal fief and property.
Plus, the people who own and run small businesses aren't going to listen to ideas for feedback and improvement any more than big company managers. They always fall back on -- well, I've succeeded so far doing it my way.
Put more simply: "My way or the highway".
I wonder if there are probing questions you can subtly ask to ferret out these kinds of managers/workplaces so you can avoid during interviews or early on the job?
At any big company, your management chain is the #1 influence on the quality of your culture. My experience at Amazon has been extremely positive, but then my org head is a great guy, so it's all been in line with my expectations. I've also left critical feedback through the Amazon Connect survey for my immediate manager and not suffered for it. That manager, as far as I can tell, made no effort to deanonymize the feedback, and addressed the issue fairly in a team meeting.
So, YMMV, but I would certainly encourage skilled devs, artists and designers to come help us make great games. :-)
While it is great you are happy and defend your company, your experience might not match others.
I don't want to claim that anyone's experience isn't valid, just that it doesn't match mine.
Remember, your boss is ultimately not your friend, certainly not in a professional setting. An individual contributor/manager relationship fundamentally must be adversarial, because one side holds all the power, and even if the manager breaks trust the worst thing that will happen is the IC's replacement will be less productive for a few months.
When managers have this much power over their reports and there's no way for someone to fight back against their manager, it's no wonder that shitty managers are so common. It's a situation ripe for abuse.
Its hard to know: Is everyone indoctrinated? Are they addicted to the paychecks? Is the sense that there are bad things happening but its being handled properly?
By design, Amazon is an aggregator of many small "startups" with different budgets, different issues, different approaches to solving problems.
The connecting tissues are the leadership principles, the infrastructure, the resources, the mobility and the top-down strategic guidance on how and when to tackle different opportunites.
This is also probably the reason why many Amazon acquisitions like Twitch thrive under them. They get integrated into the Amazon ecosystem and get all the efficiencies from the larger machine but they don't get consumed into a strategic vacuum. They're left to figure out all the potential synergies and paths to move forward themselves. They don't need high C-level leadership to help them figure and execute on all the internal collaboration opportunities and increased efficiency. They just do it because the system allows them to do it.
All the data and mechanisms are there. Most impactful innitiatives start with a six-pager that almost anybody can write, and they exist mostly just to unlock budgets. That's basically what Amazon leaderships does: "Someone is saying that we should throw money and resources into this? Should we? Will this make the company stronger? Will this generate more synergies and opportunities?... Yes or no? ...Move on"
So it's not that people don't care. It simply feels too foreign, too abstracted from your own personal reality and day to day. It's almost feels like if those claims were coming from a completey different company that happens to have the same name.
For reference: https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles
Bezos has corporate principles that led to his success. Many people respect that. I personally do no -- I lose respect for any man who cheats on his wife, no matter the reason, but I digress that what he does do in the business world has worked with immeasurable success.
(My final random point -- I find it kind of ironic that a man who stresses so much that his leadership team have skilled writing and memos instead of powerpoints let his security team autogenerate a security bulletin about a serious docker CVE. I mean it's very obvious to me that this was written by a bot https://aws.amazon.com/security/security-bulletins/AWS-2019-... -- I think it's a tad tacky to be using a bot to generate your security bulletins)
I totally agree that being disciplined and challenging oneself to grow is really important. Still, I wouldn’t want suggest someone to stay in a bad place if it’s actually a detriment to their health or quality of life. It’s really hard to find a balance for me personally, and I don’t feel I can give concrete advice on the matter to others.
That's some sanctimonious bullshit.
There is zero public information indicating any cheating. We know that there was a trial separation. We don't know what agreements there were. We do know that the divorce is being presented as being amiable.
My attitude is that if his soon to be ex wife is not upset, then random strangers like yourself have zero business being upset on her behalf. You aren't part of or privy to his relationships or agreements. It is none of your business.
Unless you have non-public information indicating that he violated any agreement with MacKezie, the best information available to you is information in places like https://www.tmz.com/2019/01/09/jeff-bezos-lauren-sanchez-div... - which indicates that the relationship began after both couples separated, and was known by both ex partners.
Which would indicate that this isn't cheating. No matter how much it offends your sensibilities.
(He certainly implicitly admits that he is in a relationship with Ms Sanchez. But, at least in my book, that's only cheating if it happened before his "trial separation" with his wife, and I don't see that he's admitted that it did.)
Edit: Also don't forget that Amazon is a fucking huge company; they literally have more employees than the population of Wyoming. We aren't surprised when someone in Wyoming has a crappy job experience, so we really shouldn't be surprised when someone in Amazon has one either.
It’s just not in the corporate DNA to care. The fish rots from the head.
The second reason is that people tend to write about negative experiences more often. You see this all the time in Internet forums where people complain about products they bought. There could be millions of happy customers of a product, but the few thousand that got a defective one or had a bad experience with customer support will loudly and vocally scream about it on the Internet, which at first glance, seeing hundreds or thousands of reports of a terrible product, might seem bad, but the millions of people who used the product and had no problems with it are not going to write about it.
Disclaimer: I've worked at Amazon for a few years now, and I've had 3 decent managers and one terrible one. The good thing about Amazon is that it is relatively frictionless to switch teams.
I didn’t want to paint an unrepresentive picture for people that might prevent them from pursuing legitimately good opportunities. Ultimately, this rubs some people the wrong way because they feel it’s the same as covering up issues. I definitely saw a lot of incredulity that I, and others could even have a good experience.
If it’s my truthful experience at Amazon that it was generally a good job and I didn’t see much of any of this stuff personally, what would you have me do?
Really the poisonous thing that stands out for me is the Visa experience. Amazon (now) has a pretty liberal internal transfer system that I have seen work really well for a lot of people. But a truly vindictive and sufficiently interpersonally skilled manager can still pin down an employee with what happened to the OP. In such a case, a citizen can walk away and find another company that's a better fit for them. But when they're in H1B land, it is so much harder. It would be so much better for the industry if the system were much more flexible.
Import Caveat to your last point: If you make games for Amazon, you give up your ability to make them in your spare time. Amazon has pretty aggressive game development policies around side projects.
I know that you direct management and peers can be one of the greatest influences for good or bad for the broader team. A person like the Manager in this situation is a clearly going to create more problems for other team members in the future.
Amazon, more than any other company that I know of, has a ton of ex employees whose opinion either amounts to "Amazon was horrible" or "I thought Amazon was great for a long time, then it went south and in retrospect can't believe I put up with it for so long." So despite your current positive opinion, there is a good chance that you will some day be singing a very different song.
I am personally glad I worked there, because it was a fascinating experience. But I wouldn't want to work there again, nor would I recommend it to a friend.
BUT, and I truly believe this in the depths of my soul, everyone is as evil as their most sociopathic executive.
Everyone is contributing to the same bottom line, some people just sell out for less.
Whose more evil, the hitman that won’t kill for under 1 million or the hitman that will do it for minimum wage?
We are lucky as developers to have a fairly easy way of life but I still follow my Grandpa's advice from years working in the shipyards of Glasgow:
* Never be loyal to a company unless its your own
* When things are good, think about leaving
* Keep your mouth shut and don't gossip
This tool is pitched to employees as an anonymous way to provide feedback about their team via daily questions. The reality is anything but.
* Responses are not anonymous, they are viewable by anyone on the Connections team, and individual responses are shared with managers in many cases. The Connections team will deny this because it is technically against their policy, but I have seen Connections case managers share information with managers many times.
* Feedback results are not viewable by employees, only managers (this is in contrast to the yearly tech survey, which anyone can view). This leads to data being conveniently left out, or entire orgs simply not reviewing the data.
* The questions are incredibly poorly constructed and there have been multiple internal tickets about propaganda and insensitive questions. A few examples off the top of my head are "Did you know that Amazon was voted the best company to work for 5 years in a row by xyz organization? (Yes/No)" and something to the effect of "How do you feel working with foreigners?" (The wording was significantly more sensitive, but this was the undertone and caused a massive uproar internally.)
These issues have been brought up repeatedly internally and in almost two years, nothing has been done. The Connections team has essentially disabled all feedback channels surrounding the tool. If anything comes of this, I hope a serious look is taken at how the Amazon Connections program is implemented.
One manager I had was pretty candid about it, he said he couldn't find another job and was looking to retire so he was going to give me a bad performance review despite actually being the top performer so he wouldn't be affected. He was otherwise very apologetic that his hand was forced.
Otherwise we're all complicit in allowing bad actors to get away with their behaviour.
The point is to take things public.
The court of public opinion is a hugely effective weapon, if you have the documented evidence to back it up.
And if they threaten you about wiretapping laws or whatever, well that just makes the company look even worse in the court of public opinion.
If you will notice, nobody at Uber was stupid enough to threaten Susan Fowler for documenting the stuff that happened to her.
Here it is:
You seem obsessed with laws, as if they possess value and worth in and of themselves, when really they are a very high latency sidechannel of society and power.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6033481
It's probably a bit too sharp a response to your comment, but it certainly get's the point across.
How would he be affected by giving you a well-deserved good performance review? I don't understand.
I must be dense because I don't understand this. Your manager couldn't find another job, was instead looking to retire, and gave you a bad performance review?
Pretty normal stuff at a certain level with insecure managers. Not exactly the same, but Steve Jobs wrote about how they relocated him into an empty building at Apple to make him quit. I was relocated too in fact.
The red flags I look for now:
- clearly not as smart as their peers in their own or other depts, they're likely struggling and will act irrationally
- very ambitious, but risk averse
- tells people what their title is whether they asked or not
- been at the company their whole career and just went along with the flow
There's likely some others, but I'm careful around those folks, they're just trouble.
I fought it via HR. The HR rep couldn't care less about it, but I kept persisting, and I had my coworkers vouch for me that what our manager said was false. He ended up rescinding the entire performance review, and I changed teams and left the company shortly afterwards.
But I was lucky. I was well-liked by my peers because they knew I worked hard, and they were willing to go to bat for me against our manager. And my manager was utterly stupid because he wrote lies that could be refuted by my teammates. It was basically the perfect conditions in my favor. Had I not had those favorable conditions, I'm pretty sure HR would have done nothing to help me, and I would have gotten fired. Even if managers write lies about you, it's very very difficult to fight back.
It didn't really work out though. New team was better but my past followed me and I let the whole experience get me down.
You realize that any retribution would be a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, right? You can't sign away your right to protest, unless you work for the government as a critical employee (read: firefighters, police).
I used to think so myself, and mentioned that to various people including friends and acquaintances who worked for Amazon. All of them told me that they really liked it there and don't know why I had this perception. I haven't met a single person, friend or not, who would validate my view.
I still don't know how prevalent bad working conditions at Amazon are, but the data points I gathered point against the blanket statement you made.
I'm not going to take sides since all we have is a story told by an ex-employee who has every reason to be spiteful toward his former employer. The other side of this story is one we'll likely never hear.
I do want to comment on the visa aspect of this (sounds like he's on an EB3). I have worked with and managed visa-holding engineers who've been passed over for promotions or otherwise discriminated against because of their visa status (not at Amazon). Certain kinds of promotions can run the risk of a visa holder getting their visa rejected. Many things a company might do to improve the circumstances of a regular employee runs the risk of triggering a visa re-evaluation. More often than not the company will play it safe so the employee doesn't run the risk of getting deported. That can involve denying them promotions or "unofficially" giving it to them (all the responsibility but no title). It's systemic discrimination, and the worst part is it has the "best interests" of the visa holder at heart.
Personally, I tried to counter this kind of discrimination by making the employee aware of the situation and the risk, then asking what they would like me to do. Usually, though, my influence is limited and I get blocked by HR and legal.
If this story didn't happen to a visa holder, it would be a simple story of "just go somewhere else," but I can understand how helpless these people must feel.
I'm not saying it's easy, but why bang your head against the wall. Go somewhere else, and, if you really want, come back another time, through a different company or on different terms.
Also, many just think of the US as home despite not being a citizen. Many who worked for me went to college here on a study visa. This is the only home they’ve known their adult life. They wouldn’t know the first thing about how to live if they went back to their native country.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/v...
American citizenship is an extremely valuable commodity in the developing world.
My speculation on this is two fold. The first is that putting things in those surveys is a "permanent record" or at least "yearly review" issue for your manager. So you are (justly or not) harming them, and they will tend to respond to being harmed. The other is that, if you think about it... if your manager is not a person who you can talk to about a problem in a non-anonymous way... doing it anonymously is not likely to help, it's probably better to just quietly leave.
Rather than fight to change or improve this system, you gloat about knowing how to survive in it. So strange.
When a prospective employee trash-talks their former employer, they'll do it to you, too.
No hire.
Of course, there's a scale. "I don't like their tech decisions"--yeah, that's an eyebrow raise, unless there's some real meat there. But I'm never going to judge somebody poorly for saying plainly that they felt disrespected or mistreated at a job, because it's happened to me too.
It's not just me. You will often talk yourself out of getting hired and many will not pursue a relationship with you if you indulge in it. There is nothing to gain by engaging in it.
Even better, game the system and give them glowing reviews.
For example I had noticed the feedback "anonymous" surveys they were sending had a location field as in employee's country, city, town, etc. Well, in a distributed team it's pretty clear who is who based on that location. So I just gave them glowing and happy reviews.
Same when leaving a company. Nice and happy feedback like "I'd love to work here more, but the tech landscape is so exciting and varied and I'd like to gain experience in other areas..."
My "favorite" was a CTO that I worked for in NYC.. horrible human being with few ex wives and an eye for girls that barely turned 18. My favorite line was: "if you have family, don't work here" when I was complaining that he really didn't need me at the office on Sunday 9pm to "monitor" system I could remotely connect in case all the way from home.
He also did the same to me - everyone came at 10, he wanted me at 7. Everyone left 5pm, he wanted me to work on extra project at 7pm. Those projects never came and I was just sitting there bored. Of course I questioned his reasoning few times but he just said "you're the most important person in the company you need to be here earlier and leave the last in case". At the same time I was making the lowest salary in the corp... on time asked him about raise he told me: "remember you are on McDonald sales guy salary here.. you are not an exec".
Fun times looking back at 15 years ago when I was young and naive...
I'd have come back with
>yeah but I'm the most important person here so either my time changes or money
Any large company is going to have abusive individuals in it. I think the real issue this story illustrates is that when people are brought over on work visas they have no leverage with their employer.
As an American citizen software engineer my boss knows that if I'm unhappy I will just leave. But the boss of someone on a work visa knows they can do pretty much whatever they want to them and the employee is just stuck.
So we need to change the work visa system so those employees aren't in such a vulnerable position. How exactly? I don't know..
That, and Amazon's processes to prevent engineers from this abuse from their managers.
No, the author lists a whole bunch of names from HR. That's not just an abusive boss, that's an abusive boss protected by HR, which makes it a story about Amazon.
I worked at Amazon and never had any issues like that. In fact, my experience was completely opposite and I had several wonderful bosses, great co-workers, awesome environment and fun things to work on.
I'm certain there are many stories like mine. That doesn't matter at all, as long as there's one case like Oleg's.
If anyone in the Seattle-area values an engineer who will voice such opinions on ethics and morality above their own career-oriented self-interest, perhaps extend an invitation to an interview. Because surely there is no safeguard in place that will save this man and his family from being fired and then deported.
Churyumov v. Amazon Corporate LLC (2:19-cv-00136) District Court, W.D. Washington
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14528071/churyumov-v-am...
>Self-Represented Plaintiff Oleg Churyumov.
This won't end well for the guy.
I've been downvoted here before for "victim blaming", but I'm going to say this anyway because someone has to.
It's your responsibility to be in control of your life. There is no grand order of things that will take care of you. There will always be things working against you. Entropy, competition, environmental hazards, psychopaths, etc, are everpresent.
You need to have the confidence to walk away from situations that aren't in line with what you want, and not just throw up your hands and say - I guess this is my life now.
To misattribute the failings of a broken system to a lack of personal responsibility is to fundamentally misunderstand the full entirety of the situation. For your own sake, please try to think through this situation a little bit more carefully. Remember, in America, we once used to have a system of indentured servitude that we looked back on with shame. A very large amount of Americans could find it to be a similar kind of shame if we were to re-implement a modern version of it without knowing that it was happening.
Stories like this can serve to shine a light on it. Truth be told, I don't know what happened in this particular case. However, what cannot be argued is that the incentives are ripe for abuse. It is a false equivalence to say that psychopaths are there just as entropy, competition and environmental hazards. Some of those are arguably beneficial. But I will say, at this juncture point and at this particular point in time, people seem to be increasingly unhappy with tolerating openly psychopathic behavior. Sadly, if this employee had a better handle on how American PR, optics and law operates, there's a good chance he could have dropped a nightmare of a PR bomb and be walking away with a settlement right now...
And if he did that, he'd be doing that opposite of what you're suggesting. He'd be standing up, and fighting, which is a thing you can do in this country. It's why I think you're wrong, in this case.
These must be memorized for any manager at Amazon and are part of the interview process.
http://whartonmagazine.com/blogs/learn-from-amazons-leadersh...
Choice quotes.
"Leaders are right a lot."
"Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly."
"Leaders are right a lot" isn't indoctrination to trust your manager implicitly because they are right. It's "Be a leader. Have good judgement. Work to improve it. As a result be right a lot"
Backbone one is also misunderstood: "Don't succumb to do the easy thing. Push back when you know when it's the right thing to do even if it's harder. BUT if you are overruled, and the group decision goes against it, don't try to fight it and undermine the decision, commit to the path."
It does somewhat establish a baseline capability of being able to put people through emotionally not nice things.
I suppose that any manager whether they are malignant or they are really just ordinary, well intentioned people have to at some point not of their own volition do exactly that because of legitimate business reasons outside of their control. So when push comes to shove if they can prove they are capable of handling those responsibilities then I guess that sends a useful signal???
Abusing it out of some childish sense of revenge is just unfortunate beyond belief.
I've worked on several AWS services, and I'm very proud of being a part of them and of AWS in general. I bet there are very few other places where I would find problems this interesting or of this scale.
If you have some experience, you probably know better than just look for a job at company X - you probably choose specific role in a particular team or product. And Amazon sure does have a lot of great products with very interesting positions.
Holyshit. This sounds like modern day slavery. Isn’t this bordering on crime against humanity?
No such thing. They are being paid by someone.
[1] https://laborpains.org/2018/06/04/union-president-pay-watch-...
Also, union leaders aren't bureaucrats.
Also, bureaucrats serve a useful function.
There's actually not a big difference, after one factors out the remarkable level of spin you've worked into your characterizations.
How is a union able to pay that much to their leader on the one hand, yet completely unable to help defend this Amazon employee against an abusive manager?
If journalists focused on developer unions for even a fraction of the time they spend criticizing Amazon, I'd bet we'd have some blogs that sound just as damning as the one the author has written.
Are you saying the Amazon has a developer union that could have helped defend this employee? Citation needed. AFAIK, developer unions have been advocated for, but don't actually exist (in a functional form, in the US at least).
If you object that people in large-organization senior management roles can make that much, you won't believe what many corporate CEOs make. It'll blow your mind!
> LaborPains is a joint blog of the Center for Union Facts and the Enterprise Freedom Action Committee.
> We expose the truth about labor unions and the pain they impose upon free enterprise.
So, basically garbage anti-union propaganda. You might as well have just linked this video https://youtu.be/ONKkoiszVSs?t=17.
Having a union represent you at work is like having a lawyer represent you at court. Sure some rugged individualists choose to represent themselves pro se, but we all know how smart that is.
I'd rather pay attention and vote with my feet.
there's other opportunities for organizing labor that don't include old-school unions. screen actors' guild is one example that, e.g., mandates various "newer" members get roles on films and seems to be really well regarded. a guild could serve techies as well.
read up on some of michael o church's old blog about his ideas about organized labor in tech, but be careful espousing the same views as it very well might get you into irredeemable trouble.
"worst system but best we've had" and all that - at least labor would have a fighting chance
Unions are almost invariably democratic; where seniority rules are adopted by a union (and this is far from universal), they tend to be adopted democratically,and not to replace democratic control of the union, so these are not opposed concepts.
But does the profession of acting strive to be meritocratic as much as software development? It appears that fame (which is probably correlated with how good of an actor someone is, but probably only weakly) has a much bigger effect in acting.
Not necessarily. You can have union representation and maintain a meritocracy at the same time.
But I also observe that the industry is not nearly as much of a meritocracy as we like to pretend anyway.
Nowhere is a perfect meritocracy but a union that did not actively work against meritocracy would not be working in the interest of its average member.
So does management. The difference is, you can vote shitty union reps off the island.
There are laws against workplace harassment and it needs lawyers to enforce them. In this specific company, complaints of such harassment would go only to dead ears and further lead to retaliation.
If there are enough cases (and I bet there are), it would mean a class action against such practices. Get some lawyer friends and have a few beers with them.
Once again, I hear you.
Addendum: If you wish to put your SDE skills to good use, develop a social shaming browser plugin with anecdotal evidence tying to a person's professional profile, say, LinkedIn. That will ensure that bad managers are automatically flagged when people visit their profile.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62085.Corporate_Confiden...
But Washington State is indeed named after George Washington.
* Toledo Blade - Google News Archive Search || https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=hw4VAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2AIE...
But, just to be clear, Edgar Martinez Drive was named after Edgar Martinez. (=
As with everything, context matters. Just like how we would consider homo sapiens as a whole "recent" in the scale of the geological time scale.
Not discounting this, but someone that thinks comparing to Jeff Bezos to Adolf Hitler is either legitimate or merits public attribution is bringing their own issues to the table, and is likely not telling us the whole story.
Disconnected sentences. Run ons. This is more than a case of someone who's a bad writer or a non-native English speaker. I've written in non-native languages before -- organization, paragraphs, and spacing transcend language.
To not mince words, this blog post seems 50% in the format of one of those crazy political ranters that show up in your inbox, or Timecube ( http://timecube.2enp.com/ ).
Inference-wise, is there a good (>20%) chance this guy's story is legit and he's really just a very, very, jumbled writer. Yes. But is there also a good (>20%) chance this guy is kinda off his rockers? Also yes.
This is not meant as an ad-hom itself. It's merely statistical inference (like inferring someone writing about Python but mispelling it as "Pyton" all the time is probably not that proficient at Python)
The thing that hurts this post the most is the writing, a brief filed by a lawyer would likely make the case much better.
Here is the complaint: https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.269265...
Note that this is filed "pro se" (he is acting as his own lawyer), which is universally a bad idea.
Having read that complaint, I think he is extremely likely to have a case (though I am not a lawyer). I think he's extremely unlikely to manage to get results through the court unless he gets a lawyer.
I have heard pretty horrible stories from x-amazonians as well.
(Amazon's latest 10-K: "We employed approximately 647,500 full-time and part-time employees as of December 31, 2018.")
While I didn't have a bad manager there (my managers were actually nice people), it is Amazon's corporate culture that turns the place into a 'dog eat dog', arse-hole driven, development. Managers have to run around and cover their arse, as in the first or second misstep, they are out. This pressure filters down to employees who are often thrown against very tight deadlines without much corporate support (ie. basic training on new tech, or even clear coding review standards, and more). Code reviews usually turned into: "Who screams the loudest wins".
Amazon tends to be notoriously 'cheap/frugal', to the point of lacking basic things that most work places take for granted. (I am not talking about cheap coffee and lack of perks, but not even throwing a Christmas party, even though the Kindle was a huge success and sold more than then even the more optimistic prediction). The company will not show/give a basic token of appreciation, even though the team is performing well. Hence, employee morale was not high, but people saw it just as a job. If you are 'young' and still learning and want to grow as a person, you will hate an environment like that.
But the worst abuse was done to H-1B folks like me.
1. Amazon abuses on people that are on H-1B and need their greencard application going to stay in the country. They delay your application at every step, to the point that you realize that something that should take 1 year, it will take 3-4 years at the given pace, or maybe not even done ever. They dragged their feet, and played with your life as a simple leverage tool. (even after talking to the VP of HR, and while getting: 'Yes, it will be done', nothing got done, and things got dragged out anyway).
2. Amazon abuses on people that need some flexibility (due to family reasons). I remember really as at some point I had to pick up the project of co-worker as she had a mental break-down at work. (crying and all). Reason? She needed some time off due to children/family reason and she couldn't get it as 'we were on a tight deadline'.
My first week at work there, there was a 'goodbye' party at my team, where one of the managers/lead engineers was leaving. The reason: Burnout. (I learned that part later).
3. Their back dated options, (i.e. you get most of your stock compensation only on your 4th year), are done in purpose, as they know you probably will not put up with it until then, and leave the money on the table by leaving. Most people stay 1-2 years and move on.
So, yeah, I think Amazon is a bad actor/employee to even software engineers (who tend to have options). I can't imagine their warehouse and lower level employees.
When the NYTimes article came out, I thought it pictured a very accurate portrait of the company. Perhaps things have changed, perhaps they are still the same, but I usually do not recommend friends to work there. They fully deserve their bad rap, and I am glad NYC didn't subsidize their abuse.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-...
I applied day one after joining (my manager knew that I joined with that expectation so he approved right away) and they started working on it immediately. I had some delays with the lawyers but in general it went pretty smoothly.
There is long standing evidence that Amazon actively manipulates social media to try to paint working in the warehouses as a great job.
HN tends to have an outsized representation of prospective H1B candidates.
Added up, it's really hard to take any of the positive comments from "Amazon Employees" seriously in this post.
[1] https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/HowToFileLinkCodeSections.htm
This is true of _any_ company, _especially_ if you happen to be a straight white male (i.e. not a minority in any way).
Go to HR only if you're 200% sure you can make the company suffer if they don't listen to your complaint. I'm talking _documented, corroborated_ sexual harassment, or _very heavily documented_, strictly illegal discrimination of other types. It is best to also take a medical leave if you're being hazed like this, that way you will have what passes for evidence should they try to sweep things under the rug, which they almost certainly will (and truth be told, after the abuse described in the article, I'd probably need to take a leave for real).
And of course do not under any circumstances go to HR if you're an H1B without first rounding up another job in a 100% guaranteed fashion. If you don't, it becomes very easy for them to get rid of the problem by simply firing you. By law, you have to leave the country in 2 weeks. They know this.
While people working on visas don’t have as much freedom as people who don’t need sponsorship, I don’t think this problem is present in every company that has lot of immigrants. Part of the problem is Amazon’s culture and I think this problem is trickled top down.
It seems like people at the top management of amazon work hard and there is probably better than linear returns for their extra efforts. But it seems like they push that even on the lower rungs where it seems like it is not justified.
I had a really bad manager whose name was Maulik Patel. He had the worst attributes you could ask for in a manager. Unsupportive, jaded, and emotionally draining. He kept threatening to fire me but never would...for something like 4 months until I said fuck it and quit. His main reasons were that I wasn't fast enough despite finishing the tickets in my sprints pretty much all the time. He had a vendetta against me for being hired to do the job he couldn't. He had flat files of libraries like jQuery and KnockoutJS and d3 committed into our repo. He used the synchronous ajax call flag to download language files...freezing every page for a quarter of a second. There was no way to upgrade all our libraries or fork them properly without undoing all of his mess.
I put us on Bower for web packages and rerolled everything. He was pissed about that. Pissed I fixed his mistakes. He would say things like I am level 4 so I need to pull tickets from the next sprint when I am done with the current sprint. Fundamentally he did not understand what role management had in planning and how to do it properly without antagonizing individual contributors.. Maulik attacked team members including me with qualitatives like slow and fast. He would spread his hands like he was showing a quantity and say you are here but need to here [moves hand higher.]
It was his first time as a manager. When I took the job Jeff Grote was actually signed on to be my manager..but Jeff pulled a bait and switch early into my start..sticking Maulik as a middle manager under himself. Coulda all been avoided if Jeff did me proper.
When I left I sent an email to the team explaining my grievances which I felt they deserved but which is for sure unprofessional. I probably shoulda went to HR but I had heard bad things about HR at large companies. Couldnt have been worse than not getting severence or unemployment. Live and learn... Care to share any similar stories? Would probably make me feel better to hear how someone else dealt with a bad manager scenario. If not its fine.
Here's an email I had sent to Jeff (his manager):
Jeff, I'm coming to you about Maulik's behavior. Literally, it's so bad that even when I come home, or I'm off on weekends, I'm thinking about how to deal with the guy. It's totally unsuitable for job satisfaction. My job satisfaction isn't even reflecting the tickets I do anymore, it's literally tarnished, shit on, by the passive-agressive comments Maulik makes on the regular, he usually sticks a smiley face at the end of his insults as if that makes them less offensive.
When I came onboard, the javascript and front-end workflow and ui, and code, were absolute chaos. I am not one to cry over spilled milk. I fixed 90% of it and did not insult Maulik, because I understand that it isnt productive to do so.
However, I don't know why Maulik feels the need to stomp on me for what amounts to the smallest kind of things. If you look at my ticket resolving rate, I'm like a speed demon, Ashley can vouch for this. So I'm getting my job done.
But either Maulik has a personality or managerial deficit, he is somewhat envious that I am doing a category of task right (front-end) that he only was shoddily able to do. Or he has no idea, is oblivious, and thinks his unelegant and critical behavior is conducive to being a good manager. And it isn't, I can tell you, based on my satisfaction and willingness to do good work. He's going against that with his continued vitriol.
For example, this timezone issue. He has 100 other issues to deal with. And he chooses to spend 20 minutes researching and finding a library (Which he may not have found...20 minutes could end up empty handed..) Just so he can trump me.
And it's a habit with Maulik. He ended up saying "This kind of reserach is what is expected from an Amazon engineer."
All too common for me to talk to him, and then he ends up using corporate culture rhetoric to crap on me. "Andrew, most people don't last long here. A lot of people get fired. Amazon culture, you need to learn it" Intimidation tactics, dismissal of my concerns, and basically abusing the idea of Amazon culture to avoid taking personal responsibility.
I really need you to step in here and deal with Maulik. He's a new manager and is showing it. A good manager is supposed to improve the teams efficiency, correct? He's actually making me not want to work, because of the amount of vitriol I get for performing well. It's anti-correlated. It's negative reinforcement.
I’m very saddened it ended up this way. I don’t know the full story so I can’t judge. But if even half of what he says is true, everyone involved should be fired.
Having that said, I work for AWS and pretty happy but I’m very concerned I keep hearing cases like this in the media. Maybe when the dust is settled I’ll try to take apply to his team and this will give me an excuse to see their culture from first hand. So far all employees I personally know didn’t have similar issues, but maybe I’m just lucky.
Protesting against amazon and still working there means nothing, because you're still doing job for them, which means you accept the state of things, despite not tolerating it at the same time.
I couldn't be the only one who found some irony in this statement.
The author of this article seems very junior / immature, and honestly feels like he's got some mental health issues going on. Airing this much dirty laundry is not likely to get you what you want, and is likely going to make it hard for him to get hired by the next company.
Always talk to your boss 1:1, face to face. Never give shitty feedback over an online system. If you can't work out your issues, or you don't get along well with your manager, best to just move on and look for a new job.
Also, I'm not sure if he ever learned this, but his manager doesn't control whether he can transfer or not. All he needed was a hiring manager to say s/he wanted him on the team and he could've just left.
Mgrs treat engs like puppets and engs are okay with it cause the pay rise and sometimes even the job is at stake through this dreadful OLR process. Folks who readily sacrifice their work life harmony are the ones that get the plaudits. This is unsustainable long term, but Amazon doesn't care abt your long term, ironically. It isn't uncommon for "top tier" and "least effective" talent to work for their mgrs on weekends, late nights, be involved in important meetings in different timezones. On several occasions, I've seen engs work on vacations because there was an emergent issue, or because they were due a promotion and couldn't say no.
Mgrs have their favourites and shower them with best possible work, best possible compensation, best perks (like overseas travel to attend conferences, attend re:invent, fly for recruitment drives). In one instance, I saw the pay gap was 3x between equally tenured folks at the same job level. You'd usually find these "top tier" engs defending their mgrs, the work culture, the processes, the policies to death.
The HR department is the worst and complicit in all of this. The new peer feedback system is a hog wash and isn't even considered for OLRs. The promotion process is now less bureaucratic but puts too much power in the hands of the mgrs who decide who should get good enough work and just enough responsibilities to get promoted. OLR process and promotion alike is basically 'how to lie with statistics (only when your mgr allows it)' if you get what I mean. Mgrs can lie or argue either way depending whether they like you or not. I've seen mgrs reject negative feedbacks for engs they are looking to promote. The reason usually is a terse 'Inappropraite' with no further explanation. The mgrs are known to seek negative and positive feedback depending on how they want to build a case for or against you from their "yes men" who are usually the "top tier" engs.
God help if you've got personal or health issues. At least on one occasion, one of my friends was told by his mgr to be worried abt their performance since they've got mortgage to pay. And on several occasions, employees asked to leave because they broke some Amazon code of conduct or policy, but the actual reason to put them to sword in the first place could have been anything, ranging from personal prejudice to revengeful mindset to "let me show you who's the boss"
Multiple mgrs doing 'amazon things' can mean only one thing: It isn't because of a few bad apples... The whole basket is rotten.
Despite all of this, it's amazing so many good engs I know work there. But I also know that they'd give up that job at Amazon for Googles of this world in a heartbeat.
> I am sure in the future Mr Bezos will be placed in one line with Adolf Hitler as an example of genocide.
> There are 2 most difficult parts in the rally:
> - to get courage to start
> - to make a banner
> Courage is easier. Few YouTube videos about Martin Luther King, AC/DC song "Thunderstruck" and I am ready to fight.
> To be honest, in the morning fear of public shame almost caused symptoms of bed wetting.
> But Deadpool told me how to manage this fear. [embedded youtube video from the deadpool movie here]
> They can argue citing last words: Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly. Why didn't I commit? I ask: decision taken by whom? If my manager and his managers all the way till Bezos support oppression, should I respect their opinion?
> Then the only authority here is God. I say: Once a decision is determined BY GOD, I commit wholly. But God didn't ask me to stop protesting yet.
> Thus, most of NYT Amazon examples are really cruel and inhuman. Employees are punished because their parents are dying, their children are disabled etc. I hear shaking Hitler in his coffin. These are not single examples of "bad" managers. This is a company culture. Official company policies support the CULTURE worse than genocide. During the genocide, Jews were not treated in that way.
> If I don't find printer today, tomorrow nobody will know about horrors of Mr Bezos.
> How can I do leafleting without printer?
> Where are all these librarians?!!!!!!
> Btw - got to library. The one near of UW was open even during the "storm"... How can you call this nice Christmas snow a "storm"? I thought the storm is when Dorothy flies in her house through the sky... In Russia we have such storm 9 months a year with a temperature of -22 F.
> Anyway I printed almost 300 sheets of dirt about Amazon. Tomorrow 300 Amazonians will know the True. Jeff, I am coming.
> I was thinking I am afraid of people. But then I realized: in fact people are afraid of me. Now I feel I am more powerful and more free than anybody else. Amazon employees are restricted in their freedoms: they are forced to spend most time of their lives to do the work they hate. They are restricted to speak.
> I am free to speak and Jeff Bezos with all his billions can't close my mouth and can't prevent me from walking on the street with my banner.
> I like that. Like a student who lost virginity. I mean, well, you know.
> But today it will be incredible day. I am going to Whole foods store at Denny way. If Spheres s a heart of Amazon, Whole foods is its stomach. This store is always full of people and engineers. God bless me.
Before the outrage machine gets going, probably worth reading that and asking how reliable of a narrator this is.
- "Amazon Connect." The program is called Connections. Every employee gets a multiple choice question every day. You never submit specific comments about a manager. It's truly high level stuff. "Does your manager help clear obstacles for you?" "How many teams do you need to work with to get something done?" "Are you achieving your career goals" "Are you accruing tech debt?". Responses are anonymous and the results are not shown once the population gets below 4 or 5 total responses.
Maybe some rogue Connections employee is sharing data--they should be fired if they are. But it's wildly against policy and the idea that a manager would care enough to go find out what an individual employees response is seems off. Who has time and the individual data points don't matter that much.
It's just good macro level data. It's great to have a pulse on what's working in a team and what isn't. It's actually a great way to find where teams aren't happy with their manager. Call it a bad manager locating device. That Connections is the triggering point seems improbable.
- His manager asked HR how to prevent them from receiving immigration benefits. Seems very off. Individual managers do very little w/ respect to immigration. Employees interact directly with the company's immigration department and lawyers. Managers approve green card sponsorship and work with employees where they have immigration challenges like renewals or home country returns. His manager didn't ask HR how to do this unless he was seeking his own performance problem.
- Transfers. With few exceptions, Amazon has one of the most liberal transfer programs you can find. Don't like your job on your first day, you can apply to a new one. You cannot link transferring to any conditions involving spouses or other external factors. You can be blocked from transferring if your current manager has flagged you as having an active performance problem, and you can appeal that block itself. You cannot be prevented from transferring for any other reason than performance. If the author was blocked from transferring to another role, it's only due to performance.
- Working from home. Amazon's a pretty in-person culture, but people work from home. Some teams have different norms. A manager might discourage an employee who was struggling performance-wise from working from home, if, for example, they had done so previously with limited results. It's not a rule, but people use common sense when people are scuffling, particularly if them being around others will help them avoid getting stuck.
- Pivot is a process where people who have been identified as having performance problems can appeal this determination. If you lose the Pivot appeal, you then go through the usual performance improvement plan dance that most companies use. An employee's case is heard by three peers (people in the same job role) or a manager who manages people in that job role. Which appeal choice is up to the employee. Most people choose peers and more people win their appeal than lose. Three independent peers agreed with his manager that he had performance problems. That's the only way you lose a Pivot appeal.
Bottom line, it seems likely the person in question was not performing at the level needed. They don't see that and don't agree. Most people who aren't performing don't agree. They began having the expected performance management interactions with their manager and it sounds like many wires were crossed along the way. Did they have a demon manager? Maybe. Some level of Dunning-Kruger seems like a more likely cause. It's a big company with lots of great jobs and people who enjoy them, ymmv.
"My 3 yo daughter has a development delay and I need to bring her to therapy. For that, I asked Khan for work from home once a week like everybody else in our team. Khan prohibited me to work from home. Moreover, he asked me to come to office at 7 am and sit there alone. All the other team members came to office at 11 am and worked from home without restrictions. And their children were not disabled."
Holy crap is all I can say, honestly.
Basically.
"Perhaps I can find new ways to motivate them."
It sounds bad, but I'd reserve judgement until I heard the other side. There's always the other side, and I for one am tired of the recent rushes to judgement we see in the media recently.
Source: Ex-Amazon employee.
as long as you love monopolies and anti-competitive behavior.
The guy may have a case somewhere in there, but this kind of hyperbole isn't doing it any favors.
Stripping out the fluff, the concrete concerns seem to be:
- Denied permission to transfer
- Denied permission to WFH
- Placed on PIP and eventually fired
The author's hypothesis is "manager is evil and this is all retaliation", but this is not easily distinguished from "author did not perform well", and the only evidence of performance we have is one "nice" performance review.
- Required to work on weekends.
- Denied some form of immigration benefits behind his back.
- Told that his wife having a job has anything whatsoever with him being able to transfer.
- The above being a lie.
- Required to show up 4 hours before everyone else.
- Punished for using sick days.
I don't think any of the concrete concerns I listed above are subject to the authors interpretation. Short of the author lying they appear to be valid complaints.
Washington is an "at will" employment state. You can be treated poorly and fired for any reason unless it is for a protected class(race, sex etc). Amazon and his manager could have fired him because they put a bunch of names on a dart board and his was the one hit.
I do think the treatment was incredibly unfair and unjust. Unfortunately, in "at will" employment states in the US, this appears to be perfectly legal behavior. As shameful as that may be.
Most US states are at will; and people still win lawsuits against their employers quite often for just run of the mill toxic behavior, and not just for things as cut and dry as bigotry (although, being a visa holder, he may have a case for, especially since it was a part of these discussions - national origin and immigration status are protected classes).
> Retaliation is defined as any action taken against an employee for daring to file a discrimination or harassment claim
And then for harassment: https://hkm.com/seattle/hostile-work-environment/
> Harassment in the workplace is a form of employment discrimination. Unlawful harassment is a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and as such is illegal. Unfortunately harassment can come in many forms, both verbal and physical and can be based on any of the following forms of discrimination:
> Race, Color, Religion, Sex, Sexual orientation, Age, Disability (mental or physical), Retaliation
See above about "Retaliation"
Is there something I'm missing in there? Because that again appears to only protect one from a protected class. It does not mean if your boss is being mean or insulting to you for things outside of those protected classes. But again, am I missing something in there that is different? Do you have an example of a civil or criminal case won by a plaintiff for "toxic behavior"?
I'd be very interested in that, as that would mean the advice I've recieved from two diffent legal counsels I've contracted for advice. If you are correct, it appears I may have a civil claim against those attorneys.
But also disability discrimination with regards to his kid.
Anyways, here's the brief he filed (unfortunately pro se) https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.269265...
The only thing you should have done was tell your boss to fuck himself and get another job. That’s it. No need for a 2000 word blog post. No need for a “protest”.
Well, which was it? Was he taking his daughter to therapy or working from home? If his daughter requires additional care, he needs to care for his daughter, but that can't interfere with work. If your kids are not disabled, they may not be interfering with your work, and therefore, when you are working from home - you are, in fact, "working" from home.
Why is this person entitled to being paid to "work at home" when he's not actually "working" while at home, he's actually caring for his daughter?
People are confused. Working from home still means "working". It doesn't mean, be at home and do what I want but get paid, or not work as hard.
Maybe he thinks it should mean: I'll get the work done on my own time. But, if the work needs to be done that day, he still needs to be WORKING from home - and not doing something else.
(With that said, it could still be a good-faith usage here -- like, he legitimately does work from home, and the therapy is relevant here because all the back-and-forth pickups would otherwise eat up much of the day.)
[1] Yes, I know -- never again.
Working from home often means that your (equivalent of) lunch break is a time you can spend elsewhere, e.g. take your child to therapy. You don't waste time commuting from your office if the doctor's office is nearby.
You can also spend more time for off-work activities in the middle of the day, but work until a later hour, again because you're not commuting back from the office.
As long as you get done what you planned to, and participate in whatever communications you planned to participate (video calls work well these days), I don't see why working from home would be a materially inferior way of working, at least if practiced in moderation.
Taking a day off is a different matter.
So, for example: If your commute takes twenty minutes and therapy is twenty minutes from your home taking someone to therapy who is at home takes 40 minutes if you do home office or between 60 and 80 minutes of you have to be at work.
Nowhere does it say that he wanted to do home office to take care of someone. That’s nonsensical and a nonsensical interpretation of what was said. The most straightforward interpretation is that this is a simple case of simplifying logistics.
does that help why this makes sense?
No need to jump to nefarious meaning. Also further he mentions how others in the team were working from home anyways once a week and he was ordered to come and sit at 7am.
I understand the need and curiousity to dissect each and every line but please don't let this 'one potentially, open to clarification' statement take everything else from the author.
I apologize if you didn't mean to, but since this is the top child of current top comment, I felt the need to. Let's not lose the forest for the trees.
> I need to bring her to therapy
imply that he doesn't have to be there all the time? And if therapy is only of short duration, nonetheless he could "set up shop" somewhere nearby and start working from remote, if he were allowed to do so.
And why get hung up on the term "from home" when it really means "from remote"? After all, his remote access won't be geo-fenced.
Dunno if you have kids but until a certain age, they don't "pack themselves". You can easily add 30 min. for a two year old, e.g.. Driving his daughter could easily take away 1hr in each direction.
If his colleagues don't show up until 11, instead of making him show up at the office at 7, he could easily manage working from remote and driving around his daughter.
Normally I'm the free market guy in those situations, but I have a really hard time in this case to not see Uwais Khan as a complete ahole.