Amazon to Walmart Labs
Hi blind fam! Currently an L5 SDE with 11 YoE. Completed 4 yrs at amazon in Nov 23. Was laid off in Jan 2023 and was lucky enough to get an offer from another team. Survived 1 yr in the team. Now this team looks unstable. Not customer facing or cash flow generating, so a team that burns resources. Team got downsized in August 2023. In Dec 2023 my skip and his manager who is an L7 left. We have no roadmap yet. Last year was extremely stressful so decided to take the Walmart Global Tech offer in Bentonville for a Principal role. I was lucky that the hiring team considered me for a Principal role. The interviews were tougher than I thought but still got the offer today. I did my interviews very well. Had been preparing for interviews since Jan 2023. Failed a few. Got into Salesforce but the team went on a hiring freeze last month. Walmart TC - 168K + 100K RSUs every year (vests 33% per year) + 25% bonus. Getting 20K in sign on. From the third year my TC will be 300K+ in Bentonville. This is pretty much my TC at amazon now. First year is ~240, second is ~270. I am happy with the new TC. I don’t mind taking a cut as I need some stress free life. The oncalls/operations load at amazon was crazy and destroyed my mental/physical health. My priority is to bring back some level of sanity in life. Question- Some of friends said Walmart Labs is a huge downgrade from amazon and I will not get calls from other good companies. The new team’s product isn’t bad at all. Scale wise they are much bigger than my current work. Tech stack is similar to amazon. Workwise much better than amazon. Java + azure instead of aws + Postgres + GraphQL. I am really confused because I want to take this offer and stay there for 2-3 years until the market gets back on its feet. IMO what work one does is more important and I don’t think Walmart brand is as bad as portrayed (definitely not as amazon I agree). Can someone (recruiter/sr folks etc) advise and help me in making a decision.
Hi congrats on your offer! Would you mind sharing your prep for coding and sys. design? Were most of your coding questions medium difficulty? Thank you in advance
Coding was standard. I mean regular leetcode except for one round they went deep on design patterns. I was informed that design patterns will be included. 2 System design rounds. One was normal like design a specific part of ecommerce app. The other one was microservice design patterns. I was informed about the type of interviews for every round. Btw they were not on the same day. It was spread across 3 days. First day - 2 coding and in the same round they asked design patterns..I mean a small problem that was badly written and I was asked to refactor it, second day - sys design, third - sys design and managerial
Congratulations. Take it.
Take it. While no company is safe, yet there is no point chasing a few thousand dollars of extra cash for mental stress. Unless it’s few hundred thousand difference, choose life over shit culture. You can always build skills on the side
It's old news that Walmart labs (it's Walmart global tech now) is a huge downgrade from Amazon. Look at their 2024 results, their ecommerce revenue has crossed 100B. With that pay in Bentonville you will have a king's life , as someone else mentioned already. Walmart is also much more stable than Amazon. Take the offer, you won't regret it.
Its not as cheap as one thinks tbh. It was really cheap a few years ago may be. Looks like there is a massive construction boom. I was looking at redfin data. New home/apartment complexes have almost quadrupled in the last 4-5 years. Population doubled in Bentonville in the same period (mostly Indians and Asians migrating from different parts of the country). New schools and office spaces (all of them Walmart though). Rents have gone up by more than 50% since 2019.
Wow, thanks for the info, wasn't aware of that! Still I will say 300K is Bentonville/ Fayetteville area at 300K is seriously good.
Take the offer. My friend then moved from Walmart to google
2022 or 2024?
Btw are you making a move from Seattle? How would you like Bentonville compared to big city like Seattle
Go to Walmart!
FYI: with new pay structure, bonus will be 20%
Come to Walmart, you won't regret it... Bentonville is a nice place for a family.
I moved from Amazon to Walmart Labs 4 years back allbeit in India and not a single day have had to repent my decision. I was an L6 IC in Amazon and not single chime message to L7 was responded to where as at Walmart my VP and other distinguished architects are just a slack away to receive a prompt response. I am a principal engineer too. I have been to Bentonville and believe you can live a kings life with this pay.
And I have had recruiters reach out for Google SF, Meta London and other unicorns in Europe for relocation in the heydays of 2021-22. Shouldn't be much of an issue with the right skillset to get calls. All the best
Thank you frt54t! Can I DM you ?