Is working at AWS hellish? Or once you get in it's just a normal job?
I get its heavily dependent on the team, just wondering from your perspective.
I get its heavily dependent on the team, just wondering from your perspective.
Some teams have operational and funding issues, so your experience there may be hellish. You could think of it another way and realize that you have your work cut out for you. I previously worked on an AWS team like this and left because I got tired of the grind.
On the other hand, a lot of teams are great places to work. Before I left AWS, I worked on a really good team with intelligent co-workers and interesting engineering challenges. It was like night and day - the team was over-funded and had very few operational issues.
Often online all you hear are the extremes at both ends. I hear that you're basically put on PIP as soon as you join, any truth to this?
Generally, new hires are given a few months to ramp up and become contributing team members. People are usually placed on the dev list if they don't meet expectations, and placed on a PIP if their performance does not improve. I'm guessing it reflects poorly on managers if they devlist someone shortly after hiring them.
During my time at Amazon, I know only one person who was placed on a PIP and he was kind of a bad engineer. But I have heard stories of managers abusing the dev list to meet org-level dev list quotas.
It doesn't say what "dev" stands for though.
Overall, I spent my time there working with ambitious and smart people. And money-wise, I feel like you can't work at a safer place in the tech industry then at a FAANG company, particularly Amazon.
Thanks though man you insight is invaluable.
oh god which service/team/
Amazon team's culture vary widely depending on the teams budget, management style and deadlines. Overall I enjoyed my time at Amazon
I'm curious about how individual teams within Amazon have funding problems.
Amazon overall seems to have plenty of money and they seem like the sort of place that wouldn't have a problem dissolving a team that isn't meeting their goals (I'm assuming they'd dissolve the team and then move people they want to keep to other teams, etc - they seem like they'd be very data driven about what teams to keep, not malicious).
Can anyone shed light on how a team might develop funding / budget issues at a place like Amazon?
In general, if the underlying business is profitable or if the product is experimental Amazon will allocate a larger budget to the team
- Retail has narrow profits and is fairly well established -> Lower budgets
- AWS is very profitable -> High budget
- Alexa (while I was there) was growing very fast and was trying crazy initiatives -> High budget
I read the infamous "stay the fk away from Amazon" (https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/3ce0s8/dear_amazon...) before I was hired and the author's experience is completely misaligned with mine.
Why is that bad? The purpose of an interview is to see if you're fit for the role, not quiz you on the skills on your resume.