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Comment by rejectedandsad | Hacker News Reader

> It this unique to Amazon, why?

I think it's because despite it working really well at Amazon, working at Amazon isn't considered impressive (the engineers are considered less intelligent, inherently less impressive etc). Nobody from Stanford or CMU goes to work at Amazon after college, while like a third of the class goes to Google. Because of that, the culture and people filter don't filter into Bay Area startups (which Amazonians usually can't get interviews at).

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> Nobody from Stanford or CMU goes to work at Amazon after college, while like a third of the class goes to Google. > Because of that, the culture and people filter don't filter into Bay Area startups (which Amazonians usually can't get interviews at).

This is so blatantly wrong. A ton of my peers went to Amazon after graduating, very few went to Google, and certainly nowhere near a third of the class. I can confirm this from my linkedin connections/groups, but I can't even believe you're making this claim. It's also ridiculous to state Bay Area startups wouldn't give interviews to Amazonians - in my experience they would kill for a solid engineer from Amazon. Do you have any evidence this is the case?

> . A ton of my peers went to Amazon after graduating, very few went to Google,

For CMU at least: https://www.cmu.edu/career/documents/2017_one_pagers/scs/BS_...

Only 8 to Amazon + 1 to Twitch, 18 to Facebook + 1 CZ Initiative + 2 to WhatsApp , 32 to Google + 1 to DeepMind.

Considering Stanford is even more elite, and presumably has more discerning undergrads, I doubt it's much different there (and most likely even fewer Amazon folks).

> Do you have any evidence this is the case?

I can't get interviews at Airbnb, Stripe, Coinbase, Lyft, etc as an L4 or as an L5.

This might have been true a 15 years ago, but is certainly not true in the days of AWS. Amazon is solving some of the world's toughest technology problems at scale.

> Amazon is solving some of the world's toughest technology problems at scale.

This reads like an ad straight out of the recruiting material.

Let’s be clear, all of AWS’s products are impressive because of the scale and self service model. They absolutely are not “the world’s toughest technology problems” though.

EC2 is virtualization, which has been a solved problem for 15+ years. The other products are also scaled up solutions that have existed for a long time.

The world’s toughest technology problems are being worked on in academia and dedicated research labs with results that have no apparent business viability right now. Working on those types of hard problems that suck lots of money with no obvious upside is absolutely not in Amazon’s culture.

Scale is its own problem. Engineering anything at 10x the size or 10x the reliability, which Amazon does, is incredibly more challenging than the original problem.

I didn’t say scaling wasn’t a hard problem. I said that they aren’t doing the hardest problems at scale.

I've got multiple coworkers from CMU at both Amazon and Twitch. Not that that's a good school, and their football team is a joke :) Go Bears.

Also went to CMU; Amazon has been the biggest recruiter for a while now. They took something like 25% of the graduating class one of the years I was there.

This is objectively false though - https://www.cmu.edu/career/documents/2017_one_pagers/scs/BS_...

CMU has a lot of programs outside of CS.

Ok, but CS is the most prestigious one. And I’m sure Google and FB hire a bunch out of the ECE and Tepper IT programs too!

Amazon is still a top 1% SWE employer.

Note: I do not work for Amazon, and never plan to. I was considering it prior to making it into FANG.

Unless they offered me a bunch of money, I guess. Like a million dollars year.

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