Amazon Bashing - Why?

Visa
Zghfe523

Go to company page Visa

PRE
Amazon
Zghfe523
Dec 2, 2021 26 Comments

Hey folks,

This must be a millionth post of this type asking why Blinders bash amazon a lot.
If the work culture is so bad, how do they have such great engineers? How come they came up with AWS, Dynamo, S3, ELB etc on which so many companies depend?
How is the company doing so well?
I've seen a lot of posts like "Don't join Amazon", "understand what you are getting into", "you'll be pipped" etc but don't really get the basis.
If employee mental health was such a problem, won't the majority of employees have left by now?
I understand that they don't have free food and laundry benefits like Google but they compensate their employees well, especially in 2021.

Can current or ex Amazon employees explain why so much hate and trolling?

blind tax: 138k, 4 YOE, Bay area

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TOP 26 Comments
  • Amazon / Mgmt
    fahrenheit

    Go to company page Amazon Mgmt

    BIO
    it's getting hot in here 🌡🔥
    fahrenheit
    we don't have "such great engineers" except for a tiny minority. great engineers rarely thrive in amazon these days, now it's mostly politicians.

    the people who came up with AWS, Dynamo, S3, ELB etc are almost all gone from the company many years ago. and if you could see how they implemented much of it, you would hardly call them great engineers. they built houses of cards to win at time to market by creating decades' worth of technical debt and sacrificing the ability of their products to evolve, stay lean, and adjust to changing conditions in the long term. that may be effective business sense, but it's contrary to engineering values. our job is to push the business away from tarpits and those engineers either didn't try or failed.

    the company is not doing so well compared to how it could be doing. we're struggling extremely hard to hire, we're hemorrhaging tenured talent, we're innovating much less than ever, our stock is underperforming compared to similar industry players (though this is VERY hard to evaluate because we're tied to market sways, supply chain and pandemic madness), and we're leaving money on the table because we're slow and bloated.

    the majority of employees have left by now, actually, but they get replaced regularly. the median tenure of amazon corporate employees (which doesn't include FCs, logistics, etc) is 1y3m.
    Dec 2, 2021 3
    • Amazon / Eng
      chill out

      Go to company page Amazon Eng

      chill out
      💯!!!!
      Dec 2, 2021
    • Amazon / Eng
      wawY45

      Go to company page Amazon Eng

      PRE
      Apple
      BIO
      I'm a no-man.
      wawY45
      Do you know where the 1year 3month figure comes from? Is it adjusted for growth?

      There's a saying that the average tenure of Amazon employees only being 1year is because of massive growth (so many new people joining who don't have tenure yet), not because of retention issues.
      Dec 2, 2021
  • Amazon
    polar_bay

    Go to company page Amazon

    polar_bay
    It’s just a meme now
    Dec 2, 2021 2
  • Amazon / Eng
    wawY45

    Go to company page Amazon Eng

    PRE
    Apple
    BIO
    I'm a no-man.
    wawY45
    Amazon has 1M employees.

    Per company policy as a result of stack ranking:

    300k employees are in fear of PIP each year.

    120k employees are in Focus each year (whether they know it or not).

    60k employees are URA'ed each year.

    Make your own conclusions!
    Dec 2, 2021 1
  • Google / Eng
    ABC-CEO

    Go to company page Google Eng

    ABC-CEO
    Before joining: Is Amazon that bad?
    After joining: Is this PIP or just pre-PIP?
    Dec 2, 2021 0
  • Amazon
    localtalk

    Go to company page Amazon

    localtalk
    Please join. You will get the answer. The trauma Amazon creates by it's cut throat and toxic environment cant be simply listed. You need to experience it to comprehend. Before joining I thought okay how bad this gonna be. O boy. Worked for many teams. Same shit everywhere.
    Dec 2, 2021 1