As a developer, it pains me to say this, but Amazon’s existence is some of the best evidence that you don’t need to pull out all the stops to lure in developers in order to be wildly successful as a tech company.
From all accounts I’ve heard, they pay new grads relatively well, but when you compare the compensation of amazon employees to other big companies, it doesn’t look so great for experienced people. And that’s not even counting the lack of perks (no free lunch, etc.).
I don’t know what it is about the culture, but when I’ve visited Seattle, my friends at amazon are all busy and often have last minute emergencies keep them at work. Maybe part of it is that thing about all engineers being in the on-call rotation, but it can’t just be that. Never had a buddy from MS, Google, etc., cancel because they had to work through lunch or dinner. The environment generally sounds like you’d expect from a place where that happens a lot. From the comments I’ve seen elsewhere, the experiences of my friends isn’t unusual.
And yet, amazon is incredibly successful is Bezos is worth something like $25B. I’m glad the company I work for treats its employees well and pays market rates, but I don’t understand why they do; you obviously don’t have to.
As a developer, it pains me to say this, but Amazon’s existence is some of the best evidence that you don’t need to pull out all the stops to lure in developers in order to be wildly successful as a tech company.
I was in Seattle interviewing as a new grad with multiple companies and would small chat with other candidates. I was surprised to find out that it was well known that Amazon had the worst offers and poor working condition among many candidates, even the H1-B seekers.
Despite the fact that the vestment schedule is extremely tail heavy (10/10/40/40 for new grads), Amazon has an extremely high attrition rate with the average engineer tenure being 18 months.[0]
Out of all my recent interview experiences, Amazon’s was marginally the worst. It was highly impersonal and I felt like a cattle being prodded along in their attempts to find replaceable Java coders who can churn through tickets.
And yet, amazon is incredibly successful is Bezos is worth something like $25B. I’m glad the company I work for treats its employees well and pays market rates, but I don’t understand why they do; you obviously don’t have to.
Wal-Mart has a $240B market cap despite having a bad reputation among distributors and workers. Amazon is essentially an online Wal-Mart without the stigma. The company is business / retail first with tech as an afterthought. I honestly don’t know why Amazon is so commonly placed at the same tier as Google, Microsoft, and Facebook.
[0] This Quora answer goes into more details on why Amazon is so successful despite the poor attrition rate.
Amazon actually does have its own cafeterias. The food just isn’t free. Also, there are plenty of restaurants in the area, most of them with pretty healthy options. The food also isn’t terribly expensive. I usually only take 30 minutes for lunch as well. Also, if you are concerned about time and eating healthy, you can always pack your own lunch, which a lot of employees do.
As a developer, it pains me to say this, but Amazon’s existence is some of the best evidence that you don’t need to pull out all the stops to lure in developers in order to be wildly successful as a tech company.
From all accounts I’ve heard, they pay new grads relatively well, but when you compare the compensation of amazon employees to other big companies, it doesn’t look so great for experienced people. And that’s not even counting the lack of perks (no free lunch, etc.).
I don’t know what it is about the culture, but when I’ve visited Seattle, my friends at amazon are all busy and often have last minute emergencies keep them at work. Maybe part of it is that thing about all engineers being in the on-call rotation, but it can’t just be that. Never had a buddy from MS, Google, etc., cancel because they had to work through lunch or dinner. The environment generally sounds like you’d expect from a place where that happens a lot. From the comments I’ve seen elsewhere, the experiences of my friends isn’t unusual.
And yet, amazon is incredibly successful is Bezos is worth something like $25B. I’m glad the company I work for treats its employees well and pays market rates, but I don’t understand why they do; you obviously don’t have to.
I was in Seattle interviewing as a new grad with multiple companies and would small chat with other candidates. I was surprised to find out that it was well known that Amazon had the worst offers and poor working condition among many candidates, even the H1-B seekers.
Despite the fact that the vestment schedule is extremely tail heavy (10/10/40/40 for new grads), Amazon has an extremely high attrition rate with the average engineer tenure being 18 months.[0]
Out of all my recent interview experiences, Amazon’s was marginally the worst. It was highly impersonal and I felt like a cattle being prodded along in their attempts to find replaceable Java coders who can churn through tickets.
Wal-Mart has a $240B market cap despite having a bad reputation among distributors and workers. Amazon is essentially an online Wal-Mart without the stigma. The company is business / retail first with tech as an afterthought. I honestly don’t know why Amazon is so commonly placed at the same tier as Google, Microsoft, and Facebook.
[0] This Quora answer goes into more details on why Amazon is so successful despite the poor attrition rate.
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Amazon actually does have its own cafeterias. The food just isn’t free. Also, there are plenty of restaurants in the area, most of them with pretty healthy options. The food also isn’t terribly expensive. I usually only take 30 minutes for lunch as well. Also, if you are concerned about time and eating healthy, you can always pack your own lunch, which a lot of employees do.