Data Engineer on-call

Amazon
markon

Go to company page Amazon

markon
Jan 19 13 Comments

Do data engineers generally do on-calls (looking for answers from DEs at amazon)?

My manager is asking me to come work on on-call rotations and I am not sure if I want to say no without data points, especially with the pay amazon has for DEs

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TOP 13 Comments
  • Amazon / Eng
    liftedtruc

    Go to company page Amazon Eng

    liftedtruc
    Do you really have a choice?
    Jan 19 2
    • Amazon
      hQwen70

      Go to company page Amazon

      hQwen70
      Many data teams (Amazon teams in general really) like to create arbitrary hardship for whatever reason. To feel like they’re doing “real” engineering? If the team is worth an ounce of a shit, pushback on bad ideas is encouraged
      Jan 19
    • Amazon
      markon

      Go to company page Amazon

      markon
      OP
      It will be, if I make it. I’m not going to do oncalls with half the pay of sde AND do 90% of the work that an sde does in the team
      Jan 19
  • SAS
    mes10bar

    Go to company page SAS

    mes10bar
    How much does Amazon pay for DEs ?
    Jan 19 1
    • New
      shanky316

      New

      shanky316
      300k L6 and 250k for L5
      Jan 19
  • Amazon
    hQwen70

    Go to company page Amazon

    hQwen70
    Does your team handle sev-2’s? If so, yeah makes sense to have on-call during off hours (nights, weekends). If your team doesn’t support sev-2’s, then it makes no sense to burn your team out for that little pay.

    Some people will argue that on-call is necessary to ensure that weekend jobs run for WBR. There’s a flaw there in assuming shit is so brittle that there MUST be eyes over the weekend to ensure jobs are walked through where needed. If you build resiliency into your systems (needed to work around the internal ETL tool at Amazon) and your data infra is stable, this isn’t needed.

    Now, all that is easier said than done at Amazon, where people can’t help but develop duct-taped processes and accidentally DoS platforms because of zero workload management constraints and/or hyper inefficient processes.
    Jan 19 4
    • Amazon
      markon

      Go to company page Amazon

      markon
      OP
      Im already in the team for a while now. They only want me to be part of oncall starting now, adding to the other SDEs. I’m the sole DE yes but comfortable with the warehouse and ETL systems. But that’s not the point, I wanted to know if DEs are generally part of on-calls at amazon and if that typically is included in their job duties?
      Jan 19
    • Amazon
      hQwen70

      Go to company page Amazon

      hQwen70
      You can be put on the SDE on call rotation, but obviously that sucks. Might be a survival mechanism though if your team is bleeding out. You IMO should leave to begin with given your situation
      Jan 20
  • Amazon
    cobolf

    Go to company page Amazon

    cobolf
    Same boat man.

    Team is bleeding and SDM is pushing me into oncall

    I am basically doing same work as SDE and getting 60% of sde pay that’s horrible imo
    Jan 26 0
  • Quicken Loans / Data
    awslife

    Go to company page Quicken Loans Data

    awslife
    Yes DEs are part of on calls at Amazon but not all teams!
    Jan 19 0