What is this so called “toxic culture” at amazon ?

Intel
Asde

Go to company page Intel

Asde
Sep 16, 2018 26 Comments

@Amazonians : I have heard this term from a lot of fellow SEs. I have heard stories wherein two employees are pitted against each other wherein a part of feature development is given to both. Whoever develops it faster better is considered better performing. I am considering an offer at amazon for a software engineering role and wanted real insights ! Could you guys please shed some light?

comments

Want to comment? LOG IN or SIGN UP
TOP 26 Comments
  • Amazon / Mgmt
    🤑>🤮>💀

    Go to company page Amazon Mgmt

    🤑>🤮>💀
    Toxic culture revolves around how crappy they treat their employees and the large amount of bad people managers that are empowered to be jerks. True to an extent in many large companies but it's practically encouraged at Amazon. They intentionally create sink-or-swim working conditions which produces great results occasionally for ambitious teams with talented people, but it also produces a ton of shitstorms when rest-and-vesters or incompetent people/leaders are involved. Again, happens to extent at all big companies but just extra accentuated and indirectly encouraged at Amazon.
    Sep 16, 2018 5
    • Amazon
      tertel

      Go to company page Amazon

      tertel
      Better WLB than Facebook. FB's code is even more of a giant collection of hacks then ours so not sure where you're getting that idea. In FANG really only Google and Netflix have an obsession around clean core tech, Facebook and Amazon are both about speed to market above all else.

      Also I don't buy you comment on lack of open discussion. I suspect that's you own personal experience.

      I also suspect you are not tech since you think "internal tools" means document systems...
      Sep 17, 2018
    • Amazon / Mgmt
      🤑>🤮>💀

      Go to company page Amazon Mgmt

      🤑>🤮>💀
      It's just an accessible example. Internal tooling on the engineering side is not as bad. It's absolutely garbage on the product and design sides though. Maybe you don't understand the significance of lacking good tools for that side of the equation in managing projects and delivering good products (which would just prove my point of the skill/knowledge gap).

      Open discussion is not solely personal experience. Internally Facebook employees use FB@Work to discuss about a lot of things internally that can be visible companywide, including calling out C-level executives for things said at all-hands meetings. When is the last time you saw someone very publicly call out any of the C-level execs at Amazon, aside from the filtered question cards that JeffB can selectively choose to answer at Amazon all-hands? There's a reason why Amazonians are so hush hush secretive about their identities in press articles about Amazon culture criticisms, moreso than Google and Facebook.

      Also, WLB really just depends on the team and location. Lots of FB employees I know complain about it in MPK but not in SEA (aside from the Identity team in SEA that was working their asses off after Cambridge Analytica)
      Sep 17, 2018
  • Amazon
    OTdS88

    Go to company page Amazon

    OTdS88
    In my relatively brief experience (little over 2 years), i wouldn't call it toxic per se, but it is extremely hard to get anything done sometimes. Dependencies who won't cooperate or who have their own agenda, half baked tools, ops issues and fire drills popping up all the time, constantly shifting priorities (like sometimes weekly). It all takes a toll. I feel like I'm constantly fighting non technical battles to get anything done and then get the sense it isn't enough from everyone who evaluates my work.
    Sep 16, 2018 3
  • Netflix / Eng
    LukeCage

    Go to company page Netflix Eng

    LukeCage
    Just look at the posts on blind.
    Plus all the Amazon refugees we hire are super happy.
    Sep 16, 2018 1
  • Amazon / Eng
    jNeo42

    Go to company page Amazon Eng

    jNeo42
    If there is a toxic culture, it’s hierarchical rather than lateral. Amazon works from the top down, kind of like a big bank or government agency. That always breeds degrees of toxicity, but not fatally so. It’s obviously working out very well for Amazon.
    Sep 16, 2018 5
  • Amazon
    tertel

    Go to company page Amazon

    tertel
    I've never heard of two people on the same team being given the same features and pitted against one another.

    At a broader level Amazon is something like a constantly evolving ecosystem and it's not uncommon for multiple teams to be competing to solve the same problem. They either end up working together or one wins out.

    It's not so much anything planned as it is the result of the level of decentralization at Amazon where teams basically self-propose goals to hit and it just happens that multiple people in different parts of the company independently propose to solve the same problem in different ways.
    Sep 16, 2018 1
    • Amazon / Eng
      hu.lee.shi

      Go to company page Amazon Eng

      PRE
      Amazon
      hu.lee.shi
      We had actually to teams developing the same thing. However is more successful gets headcount and other resources. This is a very well established strategy and not unique to Amazon.
      Sep 16, 2018