> Well, I'm not sure I'd come back, actually
I’m at Amazon right now (Ads) and honestly this makes me really sad. It feels like I’m not allowed to be proud of where I work.
I’m at Amazon right now (Ads) and honestly this makes me really sad. It feels like I’m not allowed to be proud of where I work.
Personally speaking, I've had Amazon try to pull me a few times and I just stopped responding to their emails. It's a large company and I can agree that there's leagues of separation between, say, AWS and warehouse operations... but I also just don't care, I can't co-sign the kind of stuff that you hear about (and has been verified by people coming forward).
The tech industry is large enough that if you're good enough to work at Amazon, you probably have options.
My 2 cents, I guess.
> I've been rejected at Google and Facebook
These two statements are not contradicting each other...
Money is a tool. Once basic material needs are met, tying personal self-worth to a numeric value is not a recipe for happiness, and chasing other people's expectations of what you should be earning is even worse.
I would say you probably do have options, if you choose to go for them.
And certainly not a recipe for morality
Opioid manufacturers bribing doctors to prescribe more opioids so people get addicted and will buy more opioids.
To see my point all you need to do is imagine either a bad person or an ignorant person having money. If you think either of those situations is plausible, then you can surely imagine such a person paying for something which has a bad effect on the world. For most ideas of morality, doing things which can reasonably be expected to have bad effects on the world is considered immoral (this is very loosely stated, but hopefully you can see my point).
Just because someone is willing to pay for it, doesn’t mean it’s good for society or the world.
have you looked at how most of the smartphones, clothes or even food are made ?
I can't even say if your comment is supposed to be satire
Some people will pay for all kinds of things that are extremely harmful. Your comment seems rather disingenuous. Why are you trying to twist my words to reflect badly on me? Guilt about the products you buy? (See what I did there? Same thing you were doing :D)
I am not ignorant. Of course i see, that with my buying decisions, i kind of maintain all these side effects, that come from working off this planet. I want the best product that can be created with as little resources as possible. That would be of big value for me.
But who am i to judge someone else's decision to buy something, that they value. I might not like it. It might not a good decision in the long term. I would prefer that certain decisions were not made. Personally i can only try to make things better. I will not become a dealer, who has to provide a good product to my clients.
In any way, i was just curious. No bad intentions.
(and to the other commenter, i dont know what to answer.)
Cheers!
My apologies, then!
Hi,
I don't want to dunk on you, but I would truly encourage you to gain some perspective on just how myopic a view this is.
(I couldn't reply to your comment below where you said this)
There's any number of reasons why that number might not be myopic.
I enjoy what I work on..I just wish I was treated more like all of my friends and former coworkers.
You're not myopic but you just follow a niche group of people.
Hell, you don’t even need to be rich to go to nice places. My uncle is a great example of someone who optimises for happiness: he earns very little but does a job he loves, he brutally cuts out expenses from his life for things he doesn’t care about and loves quite cheap, but instead he spends the money he does have to go on an island holiday once a year and to visit his family (especially his grandchildren) multiple times a year. It’s all about perspective on what’s important to you. Money shouldn’t be it outside of enabling you. (Obviously you need enough to pay your bills, take care of your health etc)
I had a co-op who used to be chill, laid back, and wasn't strong from engineering perspective (a wee bit lack of passion too). All he did was leetcode and he got MSFT -> Google.
Bit scary to know that yet say it. There's many ways to scale the same mountain, perhaps going the packed out tourist route isn't the best for most? Might take a bit longer.
build a startup and pray to get acquired
join a startup and pray to get acquired (there's still a post acquisition interview though)
contribute to OSS and pray G/F noticed and maybe ask to hire you (still have to go through some interview)
This ain't the old Silicon Valley anymore. Majority of the companies in SF applies Leetcode as filters.
Good for you, but some people have to take whatever opportunity they can get.
Tech interviewing is so fickle that just because you pass an Amazon interview doesn’t necessarily mean anywhere else would take you.
We shouldn’t criticise anyone for taking a job to support themselves and put food on their family table.
Like I said, I think it was a really valuable 6 years. I'm glad I was there, I learned a ton, met awesome engineers.
I have worked in ads for over 15 years. I certainly don't believe it's any more "against your consent" than stores coloring their walls to modify behavior or placing goods in a more visible location to sell more, or that fluffy animals are perceived as cute. The work is good and I have never been happier than when I work in adtech.
It's the difference between having some vapid happy tunes playing in the super market and them analyzing your profile and previous purchases to bombard you with customized messages to make you feel bad because you'll buy more. The level of invasiveness is very different, and you need thorough tracking and denial of privacy for one but not the other.
I'd rather be like them than be considered a "blue collar engineer" as I currently am considered by my peers.
I might be completely wrong about this, but I feel you have low-self esteem and you are tying your sense of self-worth to where you work.
Whenever I have heard something negative about Amazon is that they overwork people and there is no work life balance. But almost all of them have said it was worth it in terms of growing and learning.
If you feel that what you are working on has enough impact, and you are learning a lot. Put your head down, fuck what others think of Amazon, and grow as an engineer. After that a lot more opportunities might open for you.
Generally they'll be quite small and niche but they do exist.
Money is not going to make you happy or proud, comparing yourself to others is a zero-sum game, and living to work comes at a cost.
Seriously, find and talk with a professional. How you are feeling now is probably not going to change even if you achieved everything you want.