I work as a Java Developer at an outsourcing company, I was an intern at amazon before this. I am quite disappointed by the type of work that I do and I am not sure if I am too trash, because I do put a lot of extra hours, or this is the way things go. For example, sometimes I spent even 2-5 days to fix a bug in a button for some ui element (debugging java code for some time required), I spend 3 weeks to create an internal tool for image upload for products (frontend skills required + a bit of backend), etc. Basically, I invest a lot of time for things that are not very impressive, but are engineeringly correct. In college I had projects way more cooler (cool frameworks, interesting features) than those at work, in a not too long time, yes they were messy coded and buggy. Please excuse me if this is a stupid question, but is this the way a programmer job goes? Basically, you spent a lot of time on something not very interesting (debugging a calendar component in e shop app) and you get such a short impact?
Hard to have impact in Amazon? Totally depends on the org I'd say. I think Amazon is THE example of creating impactful software. All jokes about PIP & work culture aside (which I don't necessarily disagree with, just not related here).
At the outsourcing company and at amazon team it was the same thing. At amazon a bit heavy on overtime, but also 20% cooler work.
I used to feel this way when I was a front end engineer. I just transitioned totally to being a backend engineer since. At least, I feel I have a little more impact compared to changing the size of an icon/fixing some shitty bug and so on
Can I ask what kind of tasks you do as a backend engineer? Do you create microservices, use queues?
Yes I do all the time! Deploy code in serverless architechture orchastrated through queues and notification service along with. Elastic search etc.
You are a dev, not an engineer. You are doing developer work. There is nothing "engineeringly" in what you and 90% of swe do
You mean that it doesn't follow software engineering principles?
No. I mean that squashing trivial bugs and changing css has nothing to do with engineering. Look at engineering definition
It depends, and you need some luck to be in a position to have impact. But as Steve Jobs put it, don’t settle, keep looking.
Unfortunately this is how a lot of the jobs are .. it seems hard to have impact in a company like Amazon, so I give up a lot of tc to instead work on solutions for customers and win against our competitors on a daily basis (storage).. I like winning ..
But, sorry if I am arrogant, do you feel any motivation when you debug a button for 2 weeks? You learn almost nothing, you spent a lot of time for a... button bug.
No. Debugging a button for 2 weeks wouldn't get me out of bed