It's alarming how consistent HN comments are regarding working at Amazon: management is dysfunctional.
Might Amazon secretly be one of the worst famous large tech companies to work for?
Might Amazon secretly be one of the worst famous large tech companies to work for?
If you are wondering how Amazon can attract any talent at all, the answer is that 70% staff is college hires that were promised significant stock. The caveat is that it doesn't even start getting vested until after 3rd year. Most of the hires leaves in about 2 year (attrition rate is being rumored as much as 70%). So their secret is feeding the growth engine on huge swaths of college hires that can be lured for stock options in distant futures with expectation that they will just leave before vesting starts.
Well, I do love Amazon. One thing they have got absolutely right is obsessing about customers. Everything starts with customers, period.
The pass wait list is, what 9 months now? You'll probably be in a new building by the time you get it.
The way you think now is "I dont use it, so it should be paid."
Maybe you should pay for bicycle parking as well?
I don't really understand what you're actually saying. Is it an accusation? A counterargument? Merely an observation? I do think people should have the option to receive cash in lieu of benefits where practical.
I say that as a college hire to Amazon. I would have accepted damn near anything, and their offer was more than generous enough.
Also, my stocks started vesting after a single year. My total compensation at hire time: a $10k signing bonus with my first paycheck, another $10k after 1 year, and $45k in stock that vests over 4 years, with 5% at 1 year, 15% at 2, and then another 20% every 6 months. I could have literally received none of that and still jumped at the opportunity. Most college students don't have any idea what they can reasonably get in their field.
As for poor management, this is heavily dependent on where you are in the company. I know people in some areas that love it, and people in others that echo the terrible management claims. My manager is great, and I've never felt like management above him was a problem. I've also worked alongside other teams who were very obviously grossly mismanaged all the way up. Amazon seems to really lack a unified culture, so making blanket claims like that are about as useful and valid as making claims about all companies in Milwaukee.
So a lot depends on the niche. Big awesome service, performance, security, frontend, startup, tools... Cost center or profit center. Secret consumer project or retail.
But hey - Amazon has probably one of the ugliest and most unreadable website from all cloud providers imo...
That is not a good sign.