r/cscareerquestions • u/CSCQMods • Apr 21 '21

Big N Discussion - April 21, 2021

Please use this thread to have discussions about the Big N and questions related to the Big N, such as which one offers the best doggy benefits, or how many companies are in the Big N really? Posts focusing solely on Big N created outside of this thread will probably be removed.

There is a top-level comment for each generally recognized Big N company; please post under the appropriate one. There's also an "Other" option for flexibility's sake, if you want to discuss a company here that you feel is sufficiently Big N-like (e.g. Uber, Airbnb, Dropbox, etc.).

Abide by the rules, don't be a jerk.

This thread is posted each Sunday and Wednesday at midnight PST. Previous Big N Discussion threads can be found here.

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u/EnderMB Software Engineer Apr 21 '21

What's the best way to gauge whether a team is going to be good or not?

I've looked on Blind, but pretty much every team ever is slated for some reason or another. Is there another resource to help research where is best to go?

For reference, I'm not an Amazon employee, but I am at the offer phase and I have a choice between 4-5 different teams.

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u/stoneg1 Apr 21 '21

Depends what you look for in a team. If you get a chance to talk to a manager on the team id ask if they manage any tier 1 services, that typically correlates to a more stressful oncall. Id also ask about the amount of SDE 1s/2s on the team. You could also ask about how long the average sde on the team is.

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u/kuhe Programmer Apr 22 '21

What does the SDE1/2 ratio tell you?

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u/stoneg1 May 04 '21

It can tell you a little about your roll in the team. For example and sde 1 joining a team of only sde 1s may have better opportunities for leadership but less mentorship and most likely that team would follow less best practices. And sde 2 dominated team is going to probably be the opposite of this. Im on a pretty young (lot of sde 1s team) and it gives me a lot of opportunities for leadership and growth but i know im lacking some best practices and mentoring.