Amazon Policy - Open source, conferences..
Is it allowed at Amazon to contribute to things like talks, open source projects...etc freely? Is it crazy like Apple? It’s tricky while working at Apple. TC: 180K YOE: 6
Amazon is pretty bad too. You have to go through some huge, difficult training to give talks at conferences and the talk is heavily scrutinized beforehand. Open source is only with approval. They had set up a team to give approvals easier than it used to be but I don’t know how much that improved the process.
Oh and even with the training, talks at conferences will probably not be approved
At Apple it feels like it’s Taboo to do that..
I do not know how tricky is at Apple but I would say it is tricky. Contributing to open source will depend on how critical is the project to Amazon. If it is a web site for your old school you just need to “fill a form”. If it is a project owned by Amazon it is generally easy. Projects that Amazon builds on (for example ElasticSearch - before the fork-) might require extremely convoluted approvals. Presenting at conferences does not require VP approval but it does requires that you take several trainings and a review by a committee.
Could you describe why it's crazy at Apple? I'm considering applying there for ML.
It’s pretty much forbidden. You have to go through a lengthy process and a VP approval and even then...
Eeesh, didn't know that! That does not sound encouraging for a young researcher like myself. Are you allowed to publish?