Tech IndustryOct 11, 2019
Qualcommsashimi30

Going from a company with unlimited PTO to Amazon. Can employees take extra (unpaid) days off?

I don't take much vacation, but if for example I have a year where there's family emergencies and my friends want to go on trips, does Amazon allow for unpaid extra days off?

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Tim's Cook Oct 11, 2019

No, ball and chain

McAfee JohnMcPee Oct 11, 2019

Hahahahaha, almost spit my Mexican Coke out

Roku RokuRoku Oct 11, 2019

Don’t do it

Qualcomm sashimi30 OP Oct 11, 2019

Don't do what? Go to Amazon?

Roku RokuRoku Oct 11, 2019

Yes

Amazon 🍑 booty Oct 11, 2019

Not really.. first year is really rough, only 10 days of PTO. Maybe you can negotiate to start it at 15, which happens on year 2. I think we only give like 6-7 holidays too, most companies do 10 at least.

Qualcomm sashimi30 OP Oct 11, 2019

Speaking of negotiation, I have a friend at Amazon who takes 30-40 days off a year PTO. He makes up for it working overtime and coordinating with his manager. I guess expectation management is key.

Amazon Chad🕶 Oct 11, 2019

Depending on your manager, there can definitely be leeway in this. But in addition to vacation days, there's also sick days and personal days. I'm not sure the exact amount of each, i feel like they've changed within the last year to give us more of those. But like 6 or 7 personal days and 3 sick days, in addition to the 10 vacation days you accrue your first year.. but they're all paid days off

Zillow Group sofaking Oct 11, 2019

I mean, with on-call you can’t even take off hours off.

Oracle albumiafu Oct 11, 2019

Going from unlimited PTO to unlimited PTSD. Nice choice.

Amazon tacoface Oct 11, 2019

😂

Qualcomm sashimi30 OP Oct 11, 2019

The TC I'm being offered is too high to pass up lol.

Apple jsh46asdf Oct 11, 2019

Like others said it depends heavily on your manager early on (and possibly later). My manager(s) the first couple years didn’t make us track it but I didn’t take much time off anyways. A later manager gave half a shit. He’d ask us to fill it out but wasn’t really tracking it much. So I would log any trips I would take but not random days. Once you really become a valuable asset to the team it really doesn’t matter. Even with tracking my time (including rollover because I didn’t log much the first couple years) I took off probably about 90 days my last year and a half plus had ~100 hours left that they paid out.

Qualcomm sashimi30 OP Oct 11, 2019

You took 90 days off in 1.5 years?? How were you able to do that?

Apple jsh46asdf Oct 12, 2019

I started it with 160 hours saved up vacation plus I think another like 60 hours of saved up sick+personal. So that put me at 220 hours. Accumulated 180 hours of more vacation and another probably 90 of sick/personal. There’s 490 hours, or ~62 days. Plus another 15 or so days I just took off without reporting it (fair to do when you have to work oncall some weekends). So that’s 78 days. I guess it’s over 90 if you include weekends while I was actually out of town on vacation.

Google topCon Oct 11, 2019

Microsoft australig Oct 11, 2019

Amazon has unlimited PIP

Oracle albumiafu Oct 12, 2019

Missing an M

Microsoft msft->аws Oct 12, 2019

I want to encourage more people to bring up this topic with their HR. 2 weeks of vacation for new hires is a joke. If more people speak up, we can change it.

Google topCon Oct 12, 2019

Or get PIP-ed

Microsoft australig Oct 12, 2019

Amazon has 300k employees worldwide, most of which are fulfillment center workers. Amazon won't increase annual PTO officially for so many folks. If you're in engineering, work it out with your manager. Many of my friends work there never even submit PTO's.

Qualcomm sashimi30 OP Oct 12, 2019

Great advice. I hope to have a manager that chill haha.