Amazon pledges $700M to teach its workers to code | Hacker News Reader

Amazon pledges $700M to teach its workers to code

wired.com

15 pointsjddj7 comments

This seems like a big deal to me. Amazon is one of the top paying companies for software developers to go work. That they've put money on that they can train people from 0 (or near 0) on software skills indicates that:

1) Training isn't so difficult - companies just don't do it because they don't want to shoulder the cost and not have the employee

2) The demand from Amazon is going to remain more than the supply can handle for a while. They've made the calculation that it is a better investment to train new programmers than wait for them to be generated by the rest of the workplace

Eventually, having a system that allows for a mass onboarding and training of decent devs is a big downregulating force on wages for the whole system, especially if they learn Amazon-quality engineering practices.

Another cynical way or looking at it is Amazon kills two birds with one stone. More employee built to exactly fit an Amazon need while having mostly been trained on non-standard tooling and process that make it difficult to transfer companies.

Because of this, and preconceptions of what a good salary is mixed with talking about comp being a bit of a no-no in the US, Amazon could get away with paying these developers a lot lower than market rate.

From my personal experience my first ever eng job was at 50k/year. I had no idea that was messed up before telling a co-worker/manager that's what I made and had them laugh thinking I was joking which followed into awkward silence followed by "you need a raise".

Something else to worry about is "internal trained" vs "external trained" devs might stratify.

My first dev salary was about the same. But I had no experience at the time. I don't think its a bad thing - I'm fine with first-year devs with no experience making a low amount. BUT, if you want to keep people past a year or two you have to start paying them near market rate. Its too easy to get a job elsewhere.

> From my personal experience my first ever eng job was at 50k/year.

You think that's messed up? In 1992, I got my first dev job at 19 years old. Prior to that, I had worked as a cashier at Osco, being paid minimum wage ($4.25/hr back then, IIRC).

When I got the dev job, my hourly salary was bumped to...$7.50/hr! WooHoo! Rolling in money! Seriously, I thought it was great, almost doubling what I made before.

However, I never wanted to be a software engineer - in fact, at the time, I didn't even know it was a "job" (I honestly don't know why - but that's what I thought at the time). I just kinda fell into it. I didn't know what such a job paid, I certainly didn't know what junior devs were paid at that time - but today, knowing better - I'm pretty sure I got conned on that deal.

Sadly, I think it has colored my earnings (lifetime) to an extent ever since. I'm not at the top of my earning potential here where I live - but I believe I am doing well enough, considering my smaller employer; in order to get at or near the top for this area - which is not SV levels by any means - but COL is nothing like that, either - I would need to work for a much larger employer, and I can't stand the politics of such a workplace. So I "trade" a bit of my salary for piece of mind and working with a smaller company closer to home.

So while my lifetime earnings may be smaller due to what happened at that first employer and my ignorance, I also bear some of that blame due to my own choices. So I can't complain too much.

This is shameless pandering by Amazon and I consider it insulting to their employees who are software developers. The idea that people working menial warehouse jobs just need a little extra help to become software developers is ridiculous. Imagine if instead of "software developers" you replaced it with "doctors", that would seem pretty ridiculous wouldn't it?

The barriers to entry for becoming a software developer are already extremely low, you just need a computer and internet connection and that's all I had when I started learning. The reality is that it is a job most people simply are not cut out for much in the same way as other intellectually rigorous jobs.

If Amazon was serious about helping these people they would figure a realistic step up to train these people for and not some publicity stunt that realistically very few of these workers would be able to benefit from.

The idea here is to appear to give employees who do the warehouse jobs some kind of aspirational future event 'if I take the job I could end up learning how to program'. So it's basically a job benefit. Not even that important if they actually either are able to code for Amazon (long shot) or anyone else.

This is really no different than what traditional companies have done for years and have over a typical very small business.

So you start working for Panera Bread and you think you can then become district manager and regional manager and so on. Of course only a small percentage of people get to that point. But the idea that with hard work you can makes the job that more enticing than doing the same job (as at Panera) at a small sandwich shop.

It also is a way to save on wages (independent of what they would offer). If you ever have a small business you will see very generally that you have to pay an employee more for the same job they would do at a much larger company (because of both real and perceived benefits).

At $700mm though? If its purely aspirational, no need to spend very much at all. If its a way to save on wages, then okay sure, but those people can go move companies too.

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