I moved to Seattle to work with Amazon one year ago as a L4 SDET. At the time my husband was finishing his Masters and working with Lockheed Martin in Dallas. The plan was that he would graduate this December and transfer to a position his company has in Seattle. Unfortunately, he's graduating now but the position has closed. So we have several options: 1. I transfer to Dallas. But finding an Amazon L4 SDET position in Dallas is apparently impossible. 2. He finds a new job in Seattle. 3. I find a new job in Dallas. 4. We keep doing the long distance thing until we can have our cake and eat it too. (i.e. I get to work at Amazon or some other FAANG company and we get to live together). Considering cost of living, I'd much rather be in Dallas. I'd like to have a child and buy a house sometime soon, but that will cost significantly more in Seattle. But I'm worried that working at Amazon is good for my career and leaving it would be a mistake. Yearly raise evaluations, and structured promotion opportunities are not things I had when I worked in Dallas. On the other hand, I've never really like the SDET position. I can't find transfer opportunities and recruiters on LinkedIn only contact me for testing opportunities. I have a potential offer in Dallas that would be an SDE position, so I'm wondering if it would be worth it to leave Amazon, work at a less prestigious company in a Lower cost of living area in exchange for being an SDE and not having to pay rent on two apartments.
It looks like Dallas is better suited for the future you want, but given the apparent lack of urgency, take time to make sure you’re finding the best possible work opportunity in Dallas. It’s okay if this takes a few months.
So you can easily move between Seattle and Bay area so I would have him find a position in either place. There lots of sdet positions at lab126.
Funny, I had the exact opposite situation. My GF worked in Texas but eventually held out until she got her job at Amazon in Seattle. Keep pushing for internal recommendations.
Move to bay area
Should have pushed Amazon to build HQ2 in Dallas, which is one of the only markets that made sense. Turns out the vetting process was all for show and to manufacture competition and better handouts in DC.
Dallas truly would have been perfect
Why not go to Austin?
Try to change your role to SDE and then move to a Dallas team
Switch to SDE. SDET doesn’t have much future in a cloud first world. Microsoft actually switched all SDETs a few years ago and it worked out pretty well.
I estimate that that would take two years at least and I'm impatient. I could leave for an SDE role with another company in Dallas, then apply to Amazon in Dallas. :D
You transfer to Amazon Austin and your husband apply there! Best of both world
How’s your wlb in Seattle at Amazon? Will you be able to see your husband more in Dallas or in Seattle? I think Dallas is probably the better choice for that, 1 year at Amazon is enough to get all the benefits of working at a FANG, you don’t need to consider that.