Former Amazon engineer quits after stressful job
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
But then I realized it’s not illegal to manage my own stress and set my own work-life balance, and keep my salary. The company could fire me, if it’s not enough for them, but so far they haven’t.
I think this is often overlooked. People set artificial expectations on themselves and say it’s the culture. Maybe at Amazon it is. In my experience it wasn’t.
* people are all different
* managers are different
* roles are different
* teams are different
...which goes to say, everyone's experience is likely to be close to unique, and what works for one person is actually unlikely to work for another.
Is work-life balance that much better somewhere else though. Pay is much less for sure but all jobs come with their own constraints and difficulties.
> But then I realized it’s not illegal to manage my own stress and set my own work-life balance, and keep my salary. The company could fire me, if it’s not enough for them, but so far they haven’t.
Exactly. I think if I was at the point of burnout, I would try to stick to 9-5, do my best and see what happens. However, this is easier said than done. For me, the main cause of stress is fear of underperforming, not deadlines. My colleagues are skilled and work hard. It really doesn't feel good to be outpaced. I don't want to be fired for performance reason (suffering from imposter syndrome already).
In any case, I think resilience and stress management should be things we work on, just like any other skills we need at work.
If that's possible, maybe the key is to refuse promotion and stay at a level where you can manage the expectations.
We're talking about a company where management is always looking for excuses to fire you because they have mandatory firing quotas they have to meet no matter what. Your experience at better companies is not representative of Amazon.
But at Amazon it’s super critical and luck to start off in a team that’s supportive, isn’t in critical path and isn’t struggling with operational/oncall load. There are teams I had seen which would chew out new hires within 6 months.
But the mental mind game that the individual brings is just as important.
I joined a moonshot factory once, the boss had rampant ADHD, I switched projects 6 times in 6 months until I pulled the plug. Got my friend hired just before that, and he’s been there for 3 years now.
It's enough to tell them to sod off when they reached out to me.
Who would be thrown into the volcano now?
My first job was in a body shop consulting firm that I quit after one year, very stressful in my opinion. But a colleague - who was onboarded with me - loved the job and is now leading the team.
I think it's all about recognizing your limits and boundaries and find a job that fits it, no need to complain about everything. What is bad for you might be good for others and the other way around.