What should I know about Amazon?
I left Google a few months ago, and just got an offer (L5) at AWS; I'm starting in about a month. Is there anything I should know in advance about working at Amazon, to be better prepared?
Why did you leave Google?
So many reasons. Boils down to shittiest manager I've ever dealt with.
Not every team is what you hear about Amazon. There are teams where the WLB is really good. But obviously for most of the teams, people arrive by 8 and leave by 6. And then there are on call teams, where its literally hell. But Amazon is a vast organization, cannot generalize
People work hard at Amazon, but almost no SDEs except for the old people with kids and long haul commuters show up for work at 8am.
Yeah. It's pretty rare for the 8am people to still be in the office by 5pm too at least on my team. Typical work day for most of us is just under 8 hours
If you’re eng, then here is my two cents: Google cares more about doing engineering the right way at expense of giving customers what they want quickly. Amazon cares more about delivering to customers and building the right products quickly but at the expense of good engineering (Eg half automation so really bad developer experience, overkill on operations & Oncall instead of automation because automating everything takes time and investment and amazons investment is only in the customers, not engineering, no SREs/QA so more pressure on engineering...just be prepared to use really really bad internal tooling if you’re coming from google).
Source: I came from google to amazon. Culturally, it’s JUST the opposite. No such thing as “googleyness” (which indirectly translates to being a good person). Amazon = “can you be a corporate person who cares about customers” and knows how to politic around. Also random stuff like almost no 401k, way worst benefits, no stock refreshers, but those are pretty well known in the industry
Or they leveled up when they moved to amazon , worked on bigger scope projects or made more money since google lowballs a lot and down levels as well. Also wlb in MANY google Teams is shit around delivery time There are many reasons and it ain’t black and white Know a few ex google employees and have a good friend interviewing now.
Personally, I'm asking because I like to be prepared, but there's no answer you could give me that would make me not accept the offer. Worst case is I make a few buckets of cash and quit.
YOE and TC?
15 years. TC is irrelevant because I'm non-US.
Remember to bring your cojones!
Nice troll op. If you do that you will make history.
You'll be compared to peers and 5% will be PIPd each year. Expect your TC to drop after year 4 if you aren't TT or promoted. There are no refreshers as you know them. If you get promo your comp will be bottom band and lower than new hires. Performance is decided by a distribution with how visible you are in pissing people off or delivering high impact. You compete with teammates for opportunities. Time in role will lower you and increase odds of pip so career is at risk. WLB depends on team. Expect to spend at least half your time fighting shitty Amazon infrastructure and not much time coding. People are nice but the system is FUCKED.
I forgot advice. Get the biggest delivery you can as fast as possible. As a new hire you are vulnerable and will soon be compared to peers who know Amazon's systems. You are easy pip target for manager to make URA. You left a stable Google career so enter knowing there is a bullseye looking for targets. If you are not used to delivering learn fast. Don't ever be difficult or others will argue you cause team problems. You're on your own so don't trust people. Amazon does not give a shit about you or your life.
I wasn't at Google for very long, my team there was hell on earth. When you talk about visibility in pissing people off, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Honest question, I'm not sure if it's better or worse to be noticed because you're pissing everyone off but creating value for the company.
You are going in the wrong direction. Turn around.
I’m sorry for what you are getting into.