I am curious to hear how you guys feel about the culture at big companies. Do you feel like your leaders and co-workers have empathy? Do you take a interest in thier personal life and vice versa? Do you offer help if they are un-well or going through some issues at home/work? I am new to working at a FANG company and I am finding the culture to be lacking empathy. I am not talking about having workplace parties or team bonding exercises, but general human things like wishing someone to get better or asking them to take rest if they are un-well. It seems that most people just come in do thier job and leave. Is this a common thing? Or is this more common among SDEs? Or more team dependent? Yes we are working on technology, computers, robots and AI. But we are human first, we don't have to be robots to make them! How are things in your team? Do you celebrate each other? Does your manager care about your overall well being?
Not FANG rn. I was super empathetic at first after high school..maybe too much and got taken advantage of. As time went on I started seeing through corporate trash and a lot of people just seemed fake to me. Small talk usually leads to nothing, and most* other people don’t truly care about you. They just care about themselves. So now I just do my work and leave. Actually the older I get the less emotion I seem to feel, sad because 3 years ago had so much energy.
Definitely agree! ✊🏾
Have a energy for you, your goals, your aspirations not for others... never shut the light down on yourself because soon others will shut it down on you. Find a fulfilling place that will revive your energy buddy
(From Amazon) Yes some coworkers have truly become friends and we all show empathy to each other when we see burnout or overworking (at least in my department). We encourage each other to get the well-deserved rest after a big project or a long day. We don’t go too deep into personal life, some opted out of discussing them. But for those who did, like the people that are taking paternity/maternity breaks we celebrate with a gift, card signed by all co-workers and some nice donuts. Amazonians in my teams truly care about each other’s well being. We celebrate each other. In fact we have a new internal tool called “Accolades” where we send each other publicly announced complements based on LPs. Pretty cute and much appreciated. You can get a bad manager and some manager won’t care. But when you get a good one that genuinely cares about your personal development, you hit the jackpot and you are on a better track to promotion as your manager fights harder for you.
Sounds like you have a great team! I am at Amazon too. So looks like it is team dependent. I think small things go a long way, like wishing someone happy birthday or welcoming a new member to the team with a hand written note. You are lucky! I wonder what I can do to break the ice, I am not a manager just an SDE.
I’m an SDE too. We just buy so many food/donuts/snacks, go on company paid team lunches, and celebrate each other however we can. For birthdays we always have cakes and that is coming from a wider group of teams working with my team. You get a card signed by all the people who knows you with well wishes. And a grand celebration even for leaving the company. For new starters Amazon doesn’t give swag or hype it up like FB/Google so that’s certainly lacking. What we do instead is take new starters out to team lunches, bond together, give introduction shoutouts in TownHall meetings. Make them feel welcomed and appreciated.
Whether or not empathy is present, be kind to people, always.
Agreed!
Most personalities I've interacted with in this industry seem to fall into the "robot" bucket, i.e. dead stares, not displaying any emotion/enthusiasm/interest/hell, even anger/annoyance, etc; poor communication skills (especially written). I try to avoid these teams now as I've come to realize that working with people who are capable of displaying emotions is important to me. The next largest bucket I'd say is very toxic personalities. People who'll throw you under the bus as soon as they've made the decision that they don't like you for whatever reason. Most people I've dealt with in this category don't exactly have the mindset of questioning why they feel this way or if it's warranted. Been burned enough times in my career by thinking I can try to improve relations with people like this. Maybe my personal experiences make me an outlier but these experiences have motivated me to build up a nest egg/reach FI so that I don't have to work at tech companies and deal with this behavior.
Your team hiring?
I'm leaving my team because of the above reasons...
Tbh I feel like the shitty management at Amazon tends to make the engineers more tight knit. It's a bit like being in the trenches together lol
Stockholm Syndrome? Sorry to hear your SDMs aren’t treating your teams well. It’s literally a lottery when you join Amazon for the good managers. But there are great fantastic managers.
@OIAI28 lol interested in switching teams and possibly locations to an org with less shitty managers?
I’ve been with my manager for more tha 5 years now. Best one I’ve ever had. He’s patient, supportive, and helpful. Coworkers are professional. No blame games. Smart programmers, decent humans.
Well anyone would be happy working with Craig Federighi
I’m in Eddys org.
Nope. Most places don't. You might find a few good people who do but majority don't. Also in bigger companies people don't want to be friends with coworkers because they see them as competition and usually end up backstabbing each other.
Some people care but In the end it’s business. We are all in the rat race together and humans can be treacherous when it comes to survival (keeping their job or taking yours). I have met some that genuinely do express empathy but I definitely do not expect it.