Just explained an AWS s3 recruiter why I will not return to AMZN. Please read if you consider accpeting an offer

Update to my post: Turns out this is the hiring manager, not a recruiter. They responded to my email -they wrote me they work hard to make their org a better employer. I believe they have good intentions, but wasn't it Papa Jeff who said that good intentions (by themselves) do not count? Background; I was never put on PIP, left on good terms, 15+ YOE. Former SDE2 (Most of my experience was not quality) TC At Block: 440K, 236K Base (IC6) A recruiter reach out to me today to consider returning to Amazon. I answered him thoroughly on why I don't think it will happen: Hello ****** and happy holidays to you and your loved ones. Thank you for reaching out. I have been a customer of s3 for more than 15 years (wow, time passes so fast), so I really appreciate you reaching out to me. I also enjoyed my tenure at my former Amazon organization - ******, I learned a lot and worked with some incredibly smart people. and Amazon helped with my relocation and issuing a green card. However, I will not return to Amazon in the near future, and because I do care about Amazonians I personally know, I will share with you why: A. I do not want to take any part in a culture that has unregretted attrition (URA). I have seen/heard enough stories on how this culture creates competition among engineers in a team which leads to a cut-throat culture. Though URA may align with "Frugality", In my personal opinion it contracts the new leadership principle of "Strive to be earth's best employer". Earth's best employer must not have an artificial cap, and their performance improvement plan should be a real opportunity to coach engineers, and not a way to justify getting rid of them. B. Skewed vesting schedule. More companies adapt to the new reality and not only their vesting is balanced or front-loaded, but they also provide a schedule with no one-year cliff (or one that after one year cliff, the vesting is every 3 months). C. Skewed refreshers policy Refreshers start in the 3rd year (more or less), no point in discussing this further (I already got refreshers at Block, as I've been 6 months at the company before the annual performance review). D. Skewed promo process/comp adjustment after promotion The "year after year top tier" policy in order to get a 100% target is flawed. The vast majority of promos end up with engineers getting ranked as "Meets expectations" after promotion, which means that even if they excel in the year after, they will get only 80% comp target. The promo process is skewed, with too much documentation, the worst at FAANG after Google in that sense. Meta's process is more lightweight, not to mention other companies like Block's. The fact I was overworked at some points and did not have time to constantly update work summaries and "chase" people who will write evidence about me, was a big issue, after many of the people who could potentially recommend me either left the company or switched teams and had no longer interest to help, as they were overworked and busy with their own tasks. However, eventually, Amazon did me a huge financial favor by not promoting me (150% increase on the expected TC for year 5). E. Lack of transparency in Annual review. "Meets expectations" includes HV1, HV2, and maybe HV3. The manager was not allowed to tell me if I'm HV1, HV2, or HV3. Had to use the refresher grant and reverse engineer using the post on "Blind". I found out I was HV1, while I exceeded in each sprint for more than half a year. I decided to disagree and not commit. Management's promises that they are "invested in my career" felt like a stack of lies. F. No penalty for toxic engineers, if they are toxic towards engineers outside of the scope of organization/group/team that may affect their promo. A sister team had a very nice and helpful SDE2. When he decided he wants to become SDE3 and had to operate at the next level, he became toxic to engineers outside of his team (i.e - engineers with the same skip manager, but different SDM). The engineer was promoted. My team was overworked more than once because he pushed back on verbal agreements (a hard lesson for me - always get agreements in writing). It got to a point that as on-call engineers we decided NOT to ask him questions when he was on call, and reached other team members, saying "he is busy with other urgent on-call tasks, can you please help us?" G. New ranges are a publicity stunt - I have enough information on potential comp adjustment for all bands from Principal and senior principal engineers at Amazon. We all saw what happened with the stock market. Even though I believe in a compensation model that involves stocks, with current inflation, even the new top base for SDE3, is less than my current base at Block. I mentioned above all the H. No ESPP, no cash bonuses. Nothing. I. Terrible 401K matching compared to many FAANG / tier 2 companies. J. Rediciouls attrition after 4 years. If you're not promoted, and you have no visa issues, most likely you will leave. K. Remote work at a director's (L8) discretion - a big no. I live in *****, which is a few dozens of miles away from the closest Amazon office. Amazon needs to adopt a policy of being completely remote-friendly. What if an organization X has a director which is ok with remote work, and then the director leaves, and a director which is less ok with this policy starts leading the organization? I think I wrote enough. If Amazon abolishes URA and fixes its skewed vesting schedule and refreshers policy, I will consider returning. The base adjustment is merely a publicity stunt. Senior engineers at tier2 companies get more than 225K base these days (just turned down an offer to interview at a company with 250k base for a senior role). Remote work is a must for me. If these things do change, feel free to reach out any time. Sincerely yours, ****** #swe #l5 #l6 #faang #amazon