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I'm a little drunk, forgive me. I joined AWS last year and was very excited despite all of the stories on Blind. Many of them revolved around how having a bad manager put the nail into the coffin, so I figured I'll be a good manager and things will be fine. This was naive. All of you post PIP PIP PIP. Not saying that isn't part of it but the URA--unregretted attrition--isn't the real story regarding why Amazon is a bad deal. No. Ops and BS feeding senior leadership is the real story. I have a fantastic team of super smart people who are doing work that glorified techie customer service reps could do. I filly expect all of them to quit every day because I don't have much real software engineering work for them to do. I am contemplating writing a quip doc arguing that my job shouldn't exist, that my team can be cut in half and made a subsidiary of one of our sister teams, and that my engineers should be replaced by a crew of support engineers led by a TPM. Don't be fooled into thinking AWS tech is amazing--it is dogshit kept alive by meatgrinding well meaning engineers with bullshit. I am so randomized by campaigns, special one off "projects", PEVs, and ridiculous nonsense caused directly by L7+ leadership not being able to agree on what the fuck our product is supposed to do that I'd literally rage quit if I didn't have a family. Oh fuck we have our annual WBR with Andy coming up--better sweep intellectually dishonest nonsense under the rug and smile for a day. Let's micromanage and nitpick every sentence of n-teenth fucking business revoew blurbs to the point I fucking long for my previous shit job making half my current TC. If you're reading this and can recognize that you're on my team I'm begging you to LC and GTFO of this endless nightmare. I can't come out and say it to you in our 1-1 calls, although I've been dropping hints so fucking obvious that Elliot Alderson would pick up on them. I desperately want to lead you with compassion and empathy and am trying despite the batshit insane cult that we all have for one reason or another fallen prey to. I have an amazing L4 who the whole org agreed was TT that we switched to HV3 because it made the curve fit better. The SDE3 is leaving for another team because he's not an idiot--go with God, SDE3, in the short time we've worked together you have earned much respect from me. You deserve so much better and I hope you get it. My L5s are grumbling that the work they're doing is dogshit. They're right. You owe nothing to this team or company, are talented as fuck one and all, and I hope you get motivated to make a change ASAP. I will NEVER fuck with your internal transfer, just go.. Fly far away from here. I habe no roadmap. My peers are virtue signaling to survive instead of confronting the identity crisis in our product that hangs over our heads like a guillotine. My L7 is a decent guy but optimized for survival over leadership. My L8 is actually amazing but too far removed to understand the gravity of the trap waiting to spring in his org. My VP is sending out invitations to insane all-hands meetings designed to push radical academic wokism on employees already suffering. Fuck fuck fuck why did I take this offer? I have a call with FB on Monday, wish me luck. If you're considering joining AWS, don't. If you're already here, for the love of god leave. L6 SDM TC 350k
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He's rushing to the grocery story to get more bananas for the devs.
All the best for your FB call
thank you!
For what it’s worth, if you need any help / direction with FB interview prep please dm me
will FB be different? will G be different? Everyone'd like to do actual engineering work. Do you deserve it at a big old tech company?
You couldn't have been righter.
They are right a lot.
Isn't it the same in most tech companies?
It is. Tired, sank in boredom and feeling trapped.
@Salesforce hang in there bud
BTW, while there are many issues at Amazon, the crazy ops meat grinder is specific to AWS. The loads of time spent writing business focused docs is pretty common, though I don't let my L6 SDMs drown too much in that. My team is in an org where we (engineering and science leadership) set overall product direction and roadmap, and my L6 managers get to hammer out team roadmaps and contribute to OP1 and 3YPs... If they have great ideas and execute well on them, I steer more resources their way and encourage them. So if you are unable to define a roadmap and carve out a charter for yourself, it is some combination of being in AWS, having a really weak L7 with no vision, and not having enough of a sense of how to navigate the decision making processes in your org (don't get me wrong, it was super opaque for me too my first year at Amazon). Best of luck to you, there are other corners of Amazon that may not be perfect, but don't look much like what you are describing.
Amazon has micro managed itself into a legacy core tech stack held together with tape and tech debt which is beyond reason, which needs to be in ops mode constantly and lacks strategic direction and innovation. Drudge technical work coupled with oppressively stack ranking PIP focused management culture are killing any sense of achievement or fulfillment.
Sir, this is a wendy's.