Is Amazon really that bad? Would you recommend as a next step?
I am a recent graduate and I currently work at Capital One. The work/life balance is phenomenal but that is also a huge downside. I am doing absolutely no development at all on my current team and have not wrote a single line of code since I’ve joined my current team. Since I am part of the rotational program, I am forced to stay on this team for another year. And the HR/the people in charge of the rotational program considers manual prod support as software engineering. What an absolute fucking joke. I do not want this to end up as a rant so I will get to the main point. Since I am no longer a new grad and can’t apply for new grad roles but also do not have enough experience to for roles that require 3+ years of experience, there are VERY little job opportunities for me. I know that Amazon hires all year long and for all experience levels so I am starting to consider them even from all the horror stories that I hear. I do have a health condition that does not make it very suitable for horrible work/life balance which is part of the reason why I haven’t considered Amazon at all in the past. I’m not too worried about the technical interview as I have done over 500 Leetcode and could do mediums in my sleep. Is Amazon really that bad and would y’all recommend Amazon as a next step? Capital One is really starting to piss me off. TC: 120k
If you join Amazon with the mindset that: 1. You will save your sign on bonus / comp as an emergency fund, enough so that if anything happened to your career you could live off it for a couple of months. So if you don’t really have anything to fear with PIP. 2. You want to learn a lot and learn things fast 3. You can push back on extra work outside office hours. 4. You know someone at Amazon who can look at the ticket queue for the team you’re considering, and see if the ops load is heavy or not. 5. You dont want to grind for a promo because internal comp boosts are terrible here, promos take forever and expectations are higher. Switching companies for a promo is much easier 6. Stock growth will likely slow down relative to other tech companies
Amazon some orgs have good WLB. Others have pretty awful WLB. It’s easy to transfer though. Either way, at amazon your career trajectory will for sure improve and you’ll learn a lot. Just might come at the cost of some nights and weekends depending on team. My manager doesn’t expect me to work nights and weekends, but sometimes he makes promises that are impossible to keep unless I do. Usually he will let me take a day off here and there if I worked more than 40 hours though. Culturally to me, the managers at amazon have been really nice. I think they have to be because there is so much competition for engineers. The shitty culture in my experience comes from the other engineers. People are very competitive and outside of your immediate team it seems unfortunately that engineers will happily throw you under the bus to get ahead. I don’t feel unity in my org, I only feel unity within my immediate 6 person team. YMMV. For me, I don’t really like it overall culturally, but my WLB is fine for the most part, my TC is higher than a lot of doctors and lawyers, and I’m learning a lot. I’m planning to put in a year or two total for the resume stamp and going somewhere with a kinder more human oriented culture.
Yeah, +1 on other engineers. Engineers outside your team fucking hate you and you hate them. Everyone is stressed due to fake deadlines and so they get upset when you don’t pause everything for their “super critical D TEAM GOAL PROJECT” that every Jane and John are working on and nobody can be bothered to read documentation before paging you
dayOne, can you please share your TC and YoE? I'm planning to apply soon
I would suggest get the offer first then decide. No point over thinking if you not getting an offer. To answer your question, some teams are good WLB while others are bad. On my team I rarely work more then 30 hours. But Amazon is not a rest and vest place, you are expected to work, can’t sit around and do nothing.
Very good point, yeah no point in pondering before an offer. Good to hear that there are some good teams tho at Amazon
If you can do LC mediums in your sleep why not apply to other FANGs? You might get lucky with only medium questions and get through
No other FAANGs hire non new grads with less than 3-4 YOE. Also it’s really hard to get past the resume screen at the other FAANGs and I’m pretty sure Google and Facebook ask lots of Leetcode hard, which I’m not super comfortable yet. For Amazon they pass almost everyone for the resume screen and the technical interview is much easier. I’m honesty more worried about the Behavorial stuff.
Don’t get overconfident, you still need to study for amazon interviews. If SDE, you should be comfortable with LC mediums and you should be able to do system design. Behavioral too as you said, are easy to fail on.
Thanks everyone for the reply! This has been very helpful to read
There are lots of engs in Amazon that primarily do support work. I think you could get other interviews with 2yoe though if you want to wait it out.
Hmmm really? This is surprising to hear. Do you know if it’s all prod support or if it’s development with prod support, sre, etc on the side? Cus I wouldn’t mind if it is not the main focus.
Maybe primarily is the wrong term. But if your team is small and the oncall load is high you can spend a lot of time on support type tasks/bug fixes instead of building products which is what it sounds like you’re interested in
Honestly just give it a shot. Even if you don't get in, studying their leadership principals and getting used to answering in STAR format will help you for future interviews. If you do get in, you'll have much more information by then to make your decision.
With 500 LC you can join many other top companies. Please seek referrals and apply away. No need to think about Amazon at all if your health is at risk. Don't do it. I would highly recommend Microsoft as their interviews are easy and great wlb. Give Google a shot as well, you have a good chance to pass.
Microsoft and Google are my dream companies but there are no openings for someone like me (not a new grad and less than 3-4 YOE). Plus I didn’t even get pass the resume screen phase when I applied in college.
Get a referral. Google and Microsoft interview industry candidates all the time with less than 3-4 years. I've seen people interview with 1 year or less. They do have openings, what's your exact yoe? Just apply for L3 or sde1 which is for industry and not new grad.
A year ago I went from a lead at C1 ~210 TC to SDE3 @ AWS ~330 TC. It’s a very similar feel just a greater volume of work. Including ops - similar to “you build it you own it” C1 pushes. Everything else is team dependent at both companies. The work on my new team is actually easier but it’s more boring and there is way more of it to be done. Overall I’m happy with the move but if you have great WLB now it’s unlikely that will exist here. Everything in the thread above covers anything else I’d type.
id call it more of a jump then step. better find something medium between cap one and amazon