Hacker News Reader

Comment by atopuzov | Hacker News Reader

I'll tell you mine, L7. Seen and experienced personally things the author describes.

Like I said, I don't doubt that they happen, but given that you've also left the company and seem to have hit one of these areas of toxicity yourself, I'm not surprised you'd think so. Who was your last manager? I'm curious if it's anybody I know?

This went from "weird, defensive throwaway" to "possible Amazon HR agent" in 5 seconds.

I think asking for the name of someone's former manager on a public forum without giving any details in return is pretty suspect.

For those who aren't already aware, Amazon has a history of covertly paying its employees to "represent" the company in social media: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26636021

> It sucks that this author had this experience, and I wish they had said which team that was, so that I could use what social cachet I have to steer people clear of it from inside. Nobody should have that experience.

"I have soft power". Suspicious indeed.

No, far from it; I'm not HR, nowhere close, but I am senior enough that people sometimes listen to me. I'd like to make things better for people if I can, and part of that is "knowing where the problems are". Believe me or don't, it's no skin off my ass, but that's the opposite of my goal.

> seem to have hit one of these areas of toxicity yourself

Have you considered that the original poster's experience is actually the norm and that your experience is the one that is the anomaly? I was 1 for 2 in organizations with shitty leadership, and the organization that was run properly had zero open headcount. Everywhere people are hiring into is not one of the "good ones".

Check out the old-fart tool, 85% of the company has been at Amazon for 3 years or less. Do you think that if the normal/average organization/team was a great place to be, that there would be so much attrition?

I have considered it. I don't see the pattern widely, and I'm watching for it. I've seen teams implode because of it, and other toxic patterns, so it's not that they're not there... they just seem to be in the minority. There are teams I won't send friends to work for, for sure.

I've been doing software development for nearly a decade now and I've seen 0 teams implode. Nothing I would call a "toxic pattern" springs to mind either. If you've seen multiple occurrences of both at Amazon and think it's an ok place to work then I think you've just normalized the dysfunction.

Have you visited teamblind.com?

But hasn't Amazon expanded massively in the last 3 years? I'm not sure how meaningful those numbers are unless the employee count is relatively static.

Not gonna dox other people, you can easy figure out my name and reach out with a "real name".

> Who was your last manager? I'm curious if it's anybody I know?

Would you truly ask that? And have someone's personal name be searchable forever? What is the impetus?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com