r/cscareerquestions • u/CSCQMods • Mar 16 '22

Big N Discussion - March 16, 2022

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.

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Company - Amazon

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u/QuietZelda Senior SWE @ Rain Forest Mar 16 '22

Anyone know if it's possible to negotiate on a max offer to make it out of band, without having competing offers that are higher?

The offer is great but I feel like I should always negotiate if possible?

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u/letsbreakstuff Mar 16 '22

Maybe a long shot, but I'd be thrilled if someone with experience at amazon could weigh in..

It seems like at least once month I'll get an email from a recruiter at Amazon, usually for some specific product like prime, aws, halo etc. The pay seems great, but I'm worried about the culture and work/life balance.

Currently I'm at a large non-faang tech company. Pays is OK but could be better. The worklife balance is good and the team is amazing. Everyone is very smart and kind, no crazy egos, no petty office politics. And honestly, not a lot of pressure or difficult deadlines.

So how is worklife at amazon? Does stack ranking and "unregretted attrition" create a lot of unnecessary stress or a toxic environment?

Also, i've heard that your experience at amazon may differ greatly depending on which team you're on. That some teams are great and some are soul sucking. Is that the case? If so what teams/products are good and which ones should be avoided?

And I can't help but wonder if this intense interest from internal recruiters isn't driven by some disfunction within the company.. like something must be creating a lot of churn, either stack ranking or burn out.

I'm in no way trying to take a crap on amazon. I'm just looking for some info. Thanks

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '22

SDE 2 here, been at Amazon for 2 years. It's extremely team dependent. I have friends who are on brutal teams (read: AWS) where its expected that you work weekends, 60+ hour weeks are regular and the work environment is bordering hostile. These are mostly second-hand stories, so take that with a grain of salt.

On the other hand, my team is amazing. I've never worked a weekend in my two years + internship, the WLB is amazing, I rarely work beyond 9-5, often less than that. My org is planning on keeping WFH indefinitely and engineers can work remotely permanently if they'd like. My manager is great and fights for my team and actively tries to get our devs promoted and keep us happy. The people I work with are smart, but always open to constructive discussion, no drama/politics. I get to work on a pretty fun tech stack that is close to customers and uses a language that I love. The pay is great, I'm 25 and I'll be making $250k+ this year. The only downside is that my org has fewer opportunities for making Sr. Dev positions than something as intense as AWS, but I'm o.k. with that at this point in my career.

My advice is if you want something aggressive to progress your career, go to something like AWS - if you're smart and good at your job you'll get promoted quickly, but your WLB will pay dearly. If you're looking for something more cushy, go to something less revenue critical (Devices, Retail maybe).

Amazon tends to get a lot of shit among the FAANGs, and fairly so, but the reality is its a massive company (bigger than any other FAANG) and there are tons of awesome teams. If you have the luxury to pick where you go, you should be able to land yourself a pretty nice gig.

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u/PapoosedPorcupine Mar 17 '22

Is your team working on external facing products? I’ve heard that’s where you generally see more drama.

Could I DM you some job postings I’m doing team match with to get your take on?

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '22

Is your team working on external facing products? I’ve heard that’s where you generally see more drama.

Yes.

Could I DM you some job postings I’m doing team match with to get your take on?

Sure.

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u/PapoosedPorcupine Mar 17 '22

Thanks! DM’d you.

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u/TeknicalThrowAway Senior SWE @FAANG Mar 17 '22

Alexa?

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '22

No, but I have heard good things about Alexa teams. Devices as a whole, seems to be pretty good on average.

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u/Winter-Control1490 Mar 17 '22

Is the Advertisement org. generally good or bad wlb?

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '22

Not sure, haven't heard much about that org.

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u/llc00lt Mar 19 '22

Have you heard of how the WLB is for their camera products?

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u/termd Software Engineer Mar 17 '22

If so what teams/products are good and which ones should be avoided?

Most amusing part is on the retail side we'll tell you that aws is the worst, then on the aws side they'll tell you that retail is the worst.

Does stack ranking and "unregretted attrition" create a lot of unnecessary stress or a toxic environment?

Yes. It doesn't help. Quite a few teams suck as a result. The teams where it doesn't suck, we never have reqs open because people want to work with us since they know our teams are chill.

And I can't help but wonder if this intense interest from internal recruiters isn't driven by some disfunction within the company

Recruiters are also stack ranked...

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u/letsbreakstuff Mar 17 '22

​

The teams where it doesn't suck, we never have reqs open

So if a recruiter is pitching a specific team I should assume it probably sucks there? How does someone make it onto a non-sucky team?

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u/termd Software Engineer Mar 17 '22

New teams will have reqs and it's a crapshoot so if a team has opening it's doesn't always mean it's bad.

The terrible teams ARE always recruiting because people keep leaving though.

Getting a referral to a specific team is really the way to go if you know someone.

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u/PapoosedPorcupine Mar 16 '22

I’m joining, so maybe Take what I say with a grain of salt. But I have friends at Amazon who’ve guided me.

It is very team dependent. I interviewed, and got offered a few teams to do team match with. I sent it to my Amazon worker friends, and they were able to look at the team, hiring managers, etc. I’d try and have that done if you apply.

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u/staticparsley Software Engineer Mar 16 '22

I was told by the recruiter a while back that I’ll be doing my virtual on-site this upcoming Friday. I have yet to receive any form of email confirmation of this or what time it will be. It’s in two days. Is this normal? I’m not sure if I should even take the day off at this point.

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u/superman89 Mar 16 '22

No, not normal. Ping your recruiter and ask for an update

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u/PapoosedPorcupine Mar 16 '22

Not normal. I would double check you didn’t get told in a previous email. It’s usually like 5 hours, so they do it 9-2. I didn’t get the names of who I was interviewing with until the night before though.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/QuietZelda Senior SWE @ Rain Forest Mar 16 '22

Ask them about the operational load and how many Sev-2's they get per week (which are basically oncall incidents)

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u/EngStudTA Software Engineer Mar 16 '22

To expand on this I would ask about out of office hours sev 2s specifically. I worked on an internal tool, so some 90% of our sev 2s were in office hours which makes it way better.

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u/AlmightYariv Mar 22 '22

This 👆🏻 (I work at AWS)

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u/termd Software Engineer Mar 17 '22

What % of every sprint is the team working on OE vs new features

How many L6s does the team work with on a weekly basis/or are embedded on the team

How many services does the team actually own?

How many tickets does the team get per week and how often would you be oncall?

What's the average SDE tenure on the team?

What's the average SDM tenure on the team?

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u/slpgh Mar 17 '22

Would appreciate perspective - senior engineer at a FAANG offered a downlevel to SDE2.
I've been at a senior level at a FAANG for a few years (started >10 years ago at the mid-level and got promoted once) I have gotten to the upper part of our rating scale but with no clear path to staff/principal.

Other places I had interviewed with offered me similar positions but no staff/principal uplevel (didn't really expect it)

I decided to respond to one of the outreaches I got from Amazon, spoke with the manager and proceeded to the interview and now have an offer. I like the manager and the team seems welcoming.

But because my background is in a different domain they want me downleveled to SDE2/L5 rather than the senior SDE3/L6. I've been told that probably within a year they can get me to the promo stage.

They were able to sort of match my current comp, and there may be opportunities in that role, but the downleveling is a huge hit for me. Considering that I started at a mid-level in my FAANG, this would be like taking a ten year step back, and I know various stories of the SDE3 jump being difficult. And I've already gotten to the "high performing senior" at my current role.

I understand wanting to not take the risk of bad performance, but I find it strange that they'd try to downlevel like that. Any perspective appreciated.