Yeah. Its called quiet quitting. The difference is that legally a quiet quitter is still an employee and gets paid to do job search.
140 karma · joined July 9, 2021
Its more like 1. They don't care 2. Those who care, don't have time to work on problems of Non-Citizens when the citizens are suffering too
India is a country of almost 1.4 Billion people. That is 1 Europe + 1 North America + around 200 Million people more (figures from google search, may not be accurate)
Indian law enforcement is archaic, understaffed, and riddled with corruption. They prefer to sit on their asses all day and collect paychecks rather than working. For the select few that actually work, they have all the local issues to deal with that comes with a population of that size. They simply do not have the time to work on things that are affecting someone on the other side of the planet.
And tbh I don't blame them for putting citizen's problems over non-citizens. Thats literally what every country would do.
I regret my 3 years at Amazon, and wish I had left sooner. When I left for G, ~15 people called/emailed to tell me how I was going to a much better company, including my own manager.
People love to say that its manager dependent, but IMO the default at amazon is the horrible, employee-exploiting culture. So a good team/manager is the exception, and thing will eventually turn to shit.
Didn't Bezos say something like if anecdotes and data disagrees, its the anecdotes that are usually right?
Just because people are from the same part of India doesn't mean they have the same caste.
The difference is still almost ~$300k. Almost 1 extra year's income.
> But! There's no reason that the $120k cash just has to stay cash forever.
This is obviously a very simple scenario. There is obviously an assumption here that neither A nor B does any extra investing on the side and just hold onto whatever Amazon has paid them.
Individual investment into the stock market is a whole different can of worms. B could just invest that $120k cash in one of the r/wallstreetbets and lose it all. On the other hand, A could cash out all AMZN vests and invest that in TSLA.
The scenarios become endlessly complicated if we consider side investments in individual stocks.
I think, despite being grossly simplistic, this calculation may provide an interesting insight into why AMZN prefers to delay significant stock vesting for its employees, especially when other similar companies don't. Especially given the fact that avg. tenure at AWS (as per linkedin) seems to be 1.6 years. So a large number of AWS employees may not be receiving 80% of their stocks.
In my experience, sugar high is temporary, and the longer you persist with a sugary diet, the more adverse effects will show. I felt the same way with caffeine too.
Of course everyone is different, and what you are doing may just be right for your body.
Lets assume two employees A and B, their numbers are as follows: A - $150k Salary + $150k RSU -> TOTAL = $300k B - $150k Salary + $30k RSU + $120k cash bonus -> TOTAL = $300k
Also lets assume the year is 2017, specifically around Oct 2017 when AMZN price was ~$1000 ($1002 on Oct 13 2017)
With a price of $1000, A gets 150 RSU Units and B gets 30 RSU Units
Price of A's RSU on Nov 3 2021 - $3384 * 150 = $507,600 Price of B's RSU on Nov 3 2021 - $3384 * 30 = $101,520
Difference (A - B) = $406,080
You can say that share prices can go down, and then B's 120k cash bonus looks good. But that hasn't really been the case with Amazon. In fact, Amazon is so sure of their stock price going up that they by default include a 15% yoy increase when doing year end compensation reviews.
Furthering this hypothetical calculation, if B had also had an offer from Google with the following numbers:
$150k Salary + $100k RSU + $0 Bonus = Total $250k [Obviously B took Amazon's offer over Google's because of 50k difference]
As per GOOG price on Oct 13 2017, B would have received $100,000 / $989 = ~101 RSU
On Nov 3 2021, B's RSUs are worth = $2,935.80 * 101 = ~$296,515
Even after taking an offer that is $50,000 less, the cash bonus would still have been insufficient.
There are also other policies at Amazon which would have affected B's total compensation. For example,
- Amazon's 401k match policy is 50% match on the first 4% of base salary and Match vests only after 3 years. Amazon's base salary in Seattle is also capped at $160k. So max 401k match is $3200. Given the vesting schedule, Total 401k match received after 3 years = $9600
- Google on the other hand matches 50% of your contributions up to the IRS limit per calendar year. That is $9750. There is no 401k vesting at Google, so Total 401k match received after 3 years = $29250
All this is of course very simplistic calculations and a job has 100 other factors that are important (scope, team etc) but I would not call this "not an issue" like you said in your comments.
Please correct me if the calculations are wrong, but it looks like (4 years ago) taking a lower offer at Google seems like a better idea than Amazon.
Signing bonus is not unique to Amazon. You can get a signing bonus anywhere in the industry, along with a sane vesting schedule of 25% each year or a front loaded schedule to prevent 4 year cliffs.
> Vesting is inherently lumpy, and makes managing cash flow a bit more tricky.
It doesn't have to be lumpy. Google stocks vest monthly here in US. Also, how is it tricky to manage?
There were posts on the blind app regarding how amazon has been having trouble hiring experienced folks. I am also seeing increased linkedin posts from Amazon SDMs in my network, all advertising positions they have open on their team.
> maybe their plan is to hire more people fresh out of college and bring them up internally
In addition to new grads, amazon also depends on L1 visa imports from India and other countries. And maybe H1 hires here. Its not easy to switch jobs on visa besides you need to stay at a company for 2-3 years to get green card, so it works out in Amazon's favor. My guess is they are feeling the pinch now because Covid is bad in India, and India to US travel is stopped, So visa pipeline has dried out significantly.
Just look at the stock vesting schedule, its 5, 15, 40, 40. First two years you barely get any stock, and I believe the average time someone stays at amazon is around 1.5 years (I don't have latest data so maybe this is wrong)
On top of that, you have the pathetic 401k match (50% upto 2% of paycheck). Amazon's contribution to 401k vests after 3 years in the job, so you leave within the first 2 and you don't get anything. Not to mention the base salary cap of $160k.
Add to that the horrible WLB, I knew teams who'd get 40 high severity tickets in a week (And there are teams with much worse WLB). You are constantly waking up at 2-3AM in the night, and fixing fires for no extra pay.
Many times, Upper Management would dictate a timeline for your project, doesn't matter if it takes 4 months, we need it in 2 so get it done. This obviously leads to bad code. But there is no incentive within the company to fix/improve codebase, every thing is taped together, and On Call is there to tape things up some more so that they stay fixed. Even if you take the time and fix some of the tech debt, the company is not going to care and its not going to reward you.
Speaking of rewards, if the company stock grows (which it has for the past several years), and because of this growth you stand to make more than your Amazon decided Target Compensation, then you won't get any base salary increase even if you were the best employee Amazon has ever seen. You might get additional stocks, but those will vest 2 year later. So basically, you did great work for the company in 2021, as a result the company stock grows enough that you are not out of range for your role's compensation, so they don't increase your salary, and they give you stocks that vest in 2024, 3 years after the you did the work.
More often than not, I felt that most amazon employees (current and past) hate amazon. I have never seen a company being hated by its own workers with such fervor.
I found out about 'focus' or my 'performance issues' when I resigned from Amazon.