Still New Grad?
Joined Amazon (AWS) recently (about 2.5 months ago) and while I really like my team, I'm not really liking the work I do. Most of it seems to be operational work whereas I'd rather do actual coding and programming. I specialized in distributed systems in college so I was pretty excited, but I don't really enjoy the work I do. Am I being dumb for judging this early? Or is it better to switch? If switching, then should I look at a different team or different company entirely?
AWS is notorious for ops. Switch.
It's never too early
Change teams.
If this is all you're ever going to be doing, then, yeah, switch teams. But before that, ask your manager what their plan for you is. Because ops is often a useful way to learn the internal tools and see how the product gets from development to production, and thus is often used as ramp-up for new hires to learn before getting bigger responsibilities. If you've been doing a good job, there may be more interesting things coming your way soon, and it wouldn't be good to jump ship before figuring out what the plan is. I also want to note that, realistically, you're likely never going to get completely out of doing ops without just leaving the industry, just as you can't get out of the requirement to occasionally put food into your body without dying. But you can and should expect to get to a point where doing ops is just a secondary, necessary process to make way for the other, more interesting things you're doing.
Switch teams.
Same story as me. Have been doing for 6 months. But talked to Manager and got myself on good project
What do u exactly mean by operational work ?
I would either switch or get another offer and talk to the manager about switching teams. In my experience if this is what you are doing in last 2.5 months, you would be doing it for a longer time. So better switch before your skills are rusted. If you get another offer, it is upto you to either switch to another company or find another team at Amazon. May be people at Amazon can answer how easy it is to switch teams internally.
If I apply elsewhere, am I still considered a new grad?
Yea you are. You are considered new grad until 1 year since your graduation date.