I am the last round of interviews for a SSA position in WWPS. I have been reading about the abysmal WLB and the immediately PIPs that come flying at you fairly soon after you join. I’ve seen more feedback from developers than architects. Can any current AWS SAs comment on their experiences? #amazon #AWS #solutions#architect
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I'm an SSA in the commercial org (and based in Europe). PIP culture seems nonexistent...I don't know anyone that's been pipped. WLB for an SA can be bad, but it's entirely up to you. As others have said, you have to learn to balance time and priorities, and how to say no. If you can do that you'll be fine. You'd have to be completely incapable of basic time management to worry about PIP.
That’s Europe. US SA org has 6-8% URA target and the role is very competitive. You can get pretty busy depending on the customer and if you want to stay for 4 years or get promoted. It’s team dependent but WLB can be bad if your customers or Account Managers are aggressive. You need to set boundaries and be very good at time management.
PIP is real. If you are not the type to step over others to climb on top or have the bandwidth to do a crazy amount of work so you are not on the bottom it can be difficult I think. If you join take it as the opportunity to learn as much as you can but keep the door open for other opportunities... just in case.
Never heard of an SA getting pipped
We have a URA quota like any other org and SAs do get piped, it was about 6% last year. I see people leaving and changing teams a lot in my org because of lack of WLB. It’s team/customer dependent but sometimes it feels like in a treadmill, either run faster or fail, so it’s easy to find yourself busy here. Learn to say no, pace yourself and set boundaries. Good luck!
Having researched the role quite a bit and talked to some in it, the responsibilities and boundaries are quite fluid. If customer or partner engagements aren't keeping you 100% busy, you have a range of things that you could be doing such as writing papers, presenting material,...etc. Your ultra competitive peers will be taking crazy goals like passing all AWS certifications in a year. I am sure horror stories get amplified but this role is what you make of it and AWS will give you enough rope to hang yourself and your entire family if you're not careful setting limits. If it is any consolation, azure gcp Salesforce and others will be good candidates afterwards. Your relationship with your manager is key to whether you'll be a sacrificial lamb or not.
Through the interviews SAs have said “you have to learn to say no”. I have not really heard anything about PIPs in relation to SAs to be honest (more so on the dev side). Can anyone elaborate?