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Comment by slt2021 | Hacker News Reader

slt2021

How it started - https://i.imgur.com/7Cyia1U.jpeg

How it is going - https://archive.fo/pdYHy#selection-525.105-525.423

The second post in your second link is shocking too:

> One night, when I was a dev manager at Amazon, another dev manager in Seattle sent me a 20-page design document at 11:30 pm and told me that he wanted me to get him feedback by 5:30 am the next day.

How fucking rude is that? It’s indicative of an absolutely staggering level of toxicity.

Honestly, what a waste. Imagine how much better Amazon could be if they didn’t treat their staff like cattle.

I expected some timezone difference was here but no - this is a just a toxic person.

it’s also worrying this person was checking his email at 1130pm.

They didn't even say they read it at 11:30, they said it was sent at 11:30.

fair. just to clarify though - i find the expectation to be always online / checking work email at all hours also a sign of a toxic workplace. definitely could have phrased my original comment better.

That’s when you CC (don’t BCC, you want them to know) yours and theirs managers on the email that says that says plainly, “If you expected this to be done by 5:30 am, you should have sent two days before. Perhaps this can help you be more efficient with your time.” and include a link to a YouTube — or better yet, an internal training video — on effective time management or setting deadlines.

Seriously. You publicly stick the knife in for this shit.

And I wouldn't be surprised if that Seattle dev manager got pressured from above themselves. But at some point, someone has to set boundaries. If that manager then got pissy about it not being finished, there's a few lines to be used. One is "I was asleep". Another is "Night shifts and overtime are not in my contract", or "I do not get paid enough to do night shifts".

And another one, "A lack of planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine".

But here's what I think is going on: Amazon's higher-ups (the level(s) above these people) are intentionally making these managers put pressure on each other to keep them overworked and sedate. I feel like this is the case for a LOT of US work culture across a lot of areas. It applies to low wage jobs with a high chance of being fired as well. Keep people stressed about the short term and they won't have the headspace to worry about things outside of their sphere of influence. This allows the rich to get richer and the politicians to become more powerful (and incompetent).

It’s not so deep. Possibly the manager needed that feedback and forgot until the last moment and doesn’t care how the employee can fulfill it.

Honestly, in some orgs in my company "I was asleep" would be the only acceptable answer. All the others would put you on a path of getting fired. If the whole org operates like this, no one cares about your witty remarks.

If you really don't want to work like this (and I don't), have a 1:1 with the manager, discuss boundaries, and if you can't come to an agreement, change teams or jobs.

And better yet, ask these during the interview! One question I often asked:

"In my current job, I typically leave my laptop at work when I leave at 5-6pm (unless there's a genuine ongoing emergency). Would that work in this role?"

Maybe said manager used to be a banker? Would certainly explain the casual attitude towards dropping docs at 1130PM, and demanding feedback 6 hours later.

Why not just ignoring the email -- you're not supposed to be awake at 11:30pm at all.

So at 9am the next morning, you send a reply that you were sleeping?

We get paid to do a job. And sometimes that requires odd things like helping out with urgent problems at odd times. At that point it really is too-"fucking"-late (too borrow your crassness) to complain about project planning, politeness and schedules because everyone involved already knows those failed.

If it was me asking for feedback, I wouldn't have sent it if I wasn't in a pickle that I probably had no control over. Okay, so you didn't read the mail and you only get to it the next day at 8 when your working hours started, cool leave it at that.

Better for who? Probably not the shareholders.

That first post, is that the acceptance speech for a Nobel prize?

I would like to thank my cat, Mr. Freckles, for being there for meow.

I'm also curious about that. I'm just starting out in industry and am confused if most people are expected to do that. Do future recruiters go through your old linkedin posts for stuff like this? Or is it just a general update for their personal circle - basically the corporate version of instagram stories.

Recruiters won't even read my programming languages. I have gone to so many interviews where they didn't even check that the skills they wanted were on my resume.

It's just people being happy about something that's happened for them. Given how capricious a company like Amazon is, though, the professional speech is probably to avoid giving Amazon a different reason to complain.

It's gonna be a different situation for someone taking their first programming job out of college, and someone who's been doing it for long enough that they don't care (and would probably fire a company like Amazon before being fired themselves).

The latter, and about as worthwhile.

Are you not on Linkedin? This self-aggrandizing cringe is 95% of the content in the feed, I'm always amazed people can write this with a straight face.

After grinding leetcode for months, and going through 4 interviews, you feel like you’ve “finally made it” which is why people post cringey posts like that.

The people that don’t grind leetcode like that don’t feel the need to make posts either.

Because they've finally transformed themselves into the husk of a human and are now ready for their new soul crushing dev role at Amazon? More seriously most linkedin posts I see are recruiters feeling sorry for themselves despite their bad behavior and looking for social support because of their plight.

It’s normalized on the platform because that’s how people higher up the food chain speak like. Eg when a VP switches companies. Most of the time these things are written by a PR person to be as grateful and inoffensive as possible. But then it caught on because everyone loves to humblebrag.

True. Reminds me of the time stackoverflow had hired someone for "developer relations". I think the title was "VP", and the recruit was described as "a veteran story-teller". Now having a VP send emails to developers is already a bit of stretch, and why you'd need someone at the level of Hans Christian Andersen to do so is anybody's guess, but the press release started: "We're beyond excited to ...". Was the CEO really yapping around the office, drooling from the mouth, barely controlling his bladder out of joy over this new hire? So yes, hyperbole just seems not to cut it any longer, and the answer is going into overdrive.

Exaggeration, trying too hard to sound smart, and ugly euphemism are all hallmarks of business language. That's why it's so gross when it leaks into real life.

I guess linkedin has a different vibe over here. I've seen some self-congratulatory and groveling posts, but nowhere near this level of influencer-style humblebragging.

His post 5 months after joining was a repost of someone criticizing Amazon. And then he ended up getting PIPed recently. His linked profile is all over the place too with work experience, he never held a job longer than 4 months.

Dunno if I would automatically side with his story from that.

I would expect him to not have worked anywhere longer than 4 months considering he just graduated and those were internships

The Full stack developer and ML engineer seem like full positions, considering he listed internships specifically in his prior experience as explicit internships.

Also he has a background in bio, and managed to land a full stack and ML engineer positions, implying he is self taught, and therefore should be already fairly intelligent...but he decided to go get his MS in CS, without even doing any research project and just opting for the GTA instead of GRA route.

None of us can really know for sure, Im just saying it smells a little fishy. If his resume came across my desk, Id have some specific questions about his experience. If you are that smart to have a background in bio, and land the jobs that he did, your career would look very different.

> If you are that smart to have a background in bio, and land the jobs that he did, your career would look very different.

Is that really so impressive? Bio people do a lot of coding, and good dev practices can be learned on the job. ML is probably also something he played with during his studies. Full stack + some ML experience is probably enough for a junior ML engineer.

Sure but then having those jobs for 3 months at a time still looks shady

During his studies and very early career? That's completely normal and I don't understand why more people don't do it.

Studies don't give you any idea of what a job is actually like. They also don't give you a reliable indication that you'll like a field. Choosing bio out of high school, then moving to CS for any reason, then trying a few jobs using these skills is a normal and healthy way of searching for a job he really likes.

> he decided to go get his MS in CS, without even doing any research project and just opting for the GTA instead of GRA route.

Could you elaborate more on this? I'm assuming this is a detail of the US education system of which I don't know anything :)

I'm assuming GTA = graduate teaching assistant, GRA = graduate research assistant, i.e. project track vs research track Masters degree.

I don't have an MSc (just something similar) but I have no idea what GTA and GRA means in this context. Also none of my CS BSc+MSc friends ever mentioned a research project (or do you mean the thesis?) Also I haven't seen where the person in the original post was studying, but this might be kinda different per country?

I'm assuming GTA = graduate teaching assistant, GRA = graduate research assistant, i.e. project track vs research track Masters degree.

> but he decided to go get his MS in CS, without even doing any research project and just opting for the GTA instead of GRA route.

This is pettiness taken to the max.

Most research people do in grad school will not have applicable use to employers. And for an MS, people will simply learn more by going the coursework route. Going the research route is good only for PhD admissions.

And finally, many universities in the US do not even offer a research route for the CS MS. They tell you to apply straight for a PhD.

If you're going to ask tough questions, at least know your domain!

The ML engineer job was a summer in the middle of his degree. The identified internships were over 5 years ago in a different field.

A CS degree opens doors. And you don't know what he planned when he started his degree.

Asking about someone's experience when interviewing them is reasonable. Calling short jobs during university fishy isn't.

"Why do you hire dead wood? Or why do you hire live wood and kill it?"

At best you're arguing that Amazon is dysfunctional in a slightly different way than the rest of this thread thinks.

Is there an alternative link for the second? `archive.fo` doesn't resolve on some networks[1]...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828317

Edit: I think it's https://www.linkedin.com/posts/hire-jiawei-wang_hi-linkedin-...

> if I submited 51k lines of code in January and my whole team submitted 68k, do not call me a "Least Effective".

Hmm, I think I've known this type of fuckabout whose massive submissions totally screw any hope of team cohesiveness and trust. Ok, slugger you can write shitloads of lines of code. Is it any good? Why would I want that much code when a factor of 10 less is more manageable?

> Being oncall every 4 weeks for a team that lost 50%

Ugh this hits too close to home.

He's still just a youngin' with plenty of time to figure out what he did wrong. Everybody's gotta learn sometime.

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