What's it like to design at Amazon? Have heard a lot about the engineering and product culture but not so much about design. Referring to UI/UX/Product Design.
Opposite of slow. Outside of security, it's a marathon to the end
Aren't marathons pretty show?
I personally think that is good and becoming highly appreciated. As always with Amazon it depends on team and manager, but there are a bunch of resources for designers and some very smart people to learn from. Team mobility is also good. I often check the design openings and pretty much all the interesting teams have design openings. Work life balance is pretty decent for designers but some orgs might be more hectic than others.
If you like writing narratives about the idea of thinking about maybe designing something... Design at Amazon is for you!
Basically like that. Also unless you really play loads of politics or you are level 6-7 there are high chances you'll get pushed back and your design scrapped.
Does make me wonder, what does a typical VP/director level design interview look like?
Why design anything now a days. Everything is designed, not sure if the architect role is needed or not.
With Amazon, it always depends on the team and probably the broader organization. In my experience, designers are highly valued and respected...if you’re at the senior level and above. There are centralized design teams, and then plenty of orgs with either lone-wolf designers or a small group of designers. Haven’t had any experience with the centralized design teams personally, but I’ve mostly enjoyed my role within a larger org inside AWS. Coming from an agency and consulting background, Amazon definitely moves more slowly. But we also have tons of dependencies and organizational complexity to navigate. It can get political but...usually it’s not that bad. If you’re looking at specific req’s right now, message me and I can share candid insights. Overall I recommend Amazon, though.
Which teams would you recommend. I left Amazon after 3 years after jumping to 4 different design teams. In 3 years, I saw 2 minor features actually get developed and launched and left Amazon with a pile of PRFAQ docs it took months to write.
Were you a PM at Amazon? Just curious—some Amazon UXers make great PMs, too. What teams were you on? I’m on a large AWS team and have been able to get a couple of things launched, one small but highly useful, the other much more involved. The scope and scale in AWS affords some pretty awesome opportunities *if* you enjoy that sort of stuff. Many people find it dull, and I understand that, but I like it and am able to make consistent progress. My experience in retail was almost comical. Took about 2 months to design both the mobile and desktop versions of something that had been lingering in PRFAQ-land for 2 years, and it took another 18 months for it to get to private beta. Absurd. I’m not saying Amazon is inherently the best, but we do get into a lot of stuff, which makes for a wide variety of things to do...potentially. I hear great things about Facebook design, but are they launching lots of net-new products? Or is it constantly making small iterations on a few features?
The experience definitely depends on the team you are on but so far the experience with mine is that it moves really fast, lots of ownership, but good work life balance. Have seen designers from other teams that are really really bad though.
Are the bad designers GA graduates?
Unless they have relevant backgrounds/experience prior to completing GA, my guess is yes.
Definitely depends on the team and location. Resources are often scant and a lot of "hurry up and wait" moments - mostly manager driven attempts to get ahead of the impending wave of work. So months of work gets wasted if the PM/ Sr. Managers drop the project.
Know anything about the teams at Ring, Studios, or Ads in LA? I’m looking to join one of them but have had a hard time finding specifics about those teams
Sloooooooooooooöw, but buuuuuuuuuuuuüsy. Months of debate and review for changes that should take a day. It’s a great place if you love working hard and accomplishing nothing.