p*u
发帖数: 2454 | 1 "
Hello visiting Amazon Interns!
I hope you are enjoying your summer here in Seattle!
I'm sure by now most of you are settled into your gigs at Amazon and working
on some project the team you got stuck onto has put off for months and
thought, "Fuck it, just give it to the intern when they show up in June."
Since I have been at Amazon I've seen hundreds of you guys come through, you
're all smart as hell and you work yourselves to the bone over the summer
for a chance to impress your mentor and get a job offer.
You are smart, driven, and are no doubt going to be successful in whatever
you do, which is why I want to urge you to STAY THE FUCK AWAY from Amazon
when it comes time for you to leave school and jump into the workforce.
There are a number of things that Amazon doesn't tell you when you sign up.
You know that big pile of stock that they promise you in your offer letter?
You are going to vest around 20% of that in your first two years there.
Now, the average employee stays at Amazon for LESS than two years, so when
you do the math to compare offers from various companies go ahead and factor
that in. The entire system is designed to bring you in, burn you out, and
send you on your way with as little equity lost as possible.
That signing bonus they offer you to offset the fact that they give you jack
shit for stock your first two years? If you leave before two years is up
you actually end up OWING Amazon money. You have to pay it back on a pro-
rated scale. It's not a bonus, it's more like a payday loan.
Two years is also the amount of time you have to get promoted from Software
Development Engineer 1 to Software Development Engineer 2 before they put
you on a PIP and kick your ass out the door. If you are an SDE-1 at Amazon
your job is in every way temporary, you are basically participating in a two
year job interview for an SDE-2 role.
In other words, up to 80% of the initial stock grant presented to you in
your offer letter is contingent upon you being promoted to SDE-2. There are
a limited number of promotions each review cycle and chances are very good
you won't receive one of them.
Amazon's work life balance is awful, and it's even more awful for fresh
college students who don't have obligations outside of the office to excuse
them from working all night. You'll be stack ranked against your peers, so
if the rest of your team is going to stay until 8PM working on some project
we need to finish before Q4 then you better do the same, otherwise it's
going to be PIP city for you come review time.
The most fucked thing about bright young engineers such as yourselves going
to work for Amazon is that you have your choice of ANY technology company
out there. If you are smart enough to get through an Amazon interview loop
then you're smart enough to get through a Google/Facebook/Apple/etc. loop
without any problems. So why throw yourself into an environment that is
designed to chew you up and spit you out?
I'm sure you will kick ass on your projects this year. Work hard but don't
spend all night working. Leave at 5 or 6PM and go enjoy the city while you
are here. While you are in the office pay close attention to the happiness
and job satisfaction of your team mates.
Read up on the stories people have posted about life at Amazon, they are
completely accurate. Here are a few:
http://gawker.com/inside-amazons-kafkaesque-performance-improve
http://gawker.com/inside-amazons-bizarre-corporate-culture-1570
Check out the reviews on Glassdoor: http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Amazon-com-Reviews-E6036.htm
You are smart, hard working, driven, and the type of employee Amazon loves
to take advantage of.
Don't let them take advantage of you.
" | s********l
发帖数: 998 | | p*u
发帖数: 2454 | 3 Amazon is bad bad bad!
【在 s********l 的大作中提到】
: 太长了
: summary please~
| j********l
发帖数: 325 | 4 https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/3ce0s8/dear_amazon_interns_some_
advice_from_an_old_man/
后面很多评论挺精彩的
Former Amazon engineer here. Interned and then full time for a while. Had a
great time, worked on interesting things, and made some amazing friends.
Problem with many of the FTE horror stories is that they were stuck in a
team or org that was just bad and they did nothing about it. Or maybe I just
got lucky and ended up in a nice team. The rule for intern projects in my
org was that they must be interesting, self-contained, and doable in 3
months. It wasn't schlep work that nobody else wanted to do as OP suggests.
It could be things that were nice-to-have but couldn't be done right away
because priorities. "X would be a cool feature but we need Y working in time
for launch" doesn't make X boring.
Regarding exploitation of engineers: Everyone does it. Google, Microsoft,
whatever. Amazon is no exception. That doesn't make it right, but OP makes
it sound like Amazon was unique in exploiting engineers this way. Other
places won't be different. Although I agree that the vesting period thing is
a bit cheap. Also, you don't end up owing your full signing bonus when you
leave in the first two years. Your signing bonus will most likely be in two
variably sized parts: the first part you get with your first paycheck. The
second part will be with each paycheck over the course of your second year.
So if you leave in the first year you pay what you got back (pro-rated, I
believe). Second year, you can leave whenever and keep what you've gotten so
far.
Couple tips:
Don't overwork yourself. Don't work weekends (unless you're on-call in which
case only work if you get paged) and don't stay until 7-8 because someone
else is staying. Nobody will judge you if you leave at normal times. Just
get things done at a reasonable rate. I usually worked 9-5. Stuck around
till 6 if we had plans to go get drinks afterwards. Which brings me to my
second point.
Know your team. Socialize with them. Eat and drink with them. This will make
your experience infinitely more enjoyable. If you're going back to the team
you interned for, you probably already know some of them. If not, get to
know them. Try to eat lunch with them most days. Set up a thing to go to a
bar together after work once in a while. I cannot stress enough how much
this will improve your experience. You'll make some great friends and
working around them will very pleasant. Some of the best stories I have from
my time in Seattle involve my former coworkers.
If your team does task estimates (it most likely does), don't be overly
optimistic about how long it'll take you to finish the task, and don't
overwork yourself in doing it Take what you think it'll take you, assume you
're working at 60-75% efficiency, and round it up a bit. That's the estimate
you communicate. Under-promise and over-deliver. And if you still find you'
re behind, don't overwork to catch up. Estimates can be revised. As long as
you're not incompetent, you should be fine.
Don't ever feel trapped. Don't ever feel like you have to stay because of X.
It'll make you miserable if you think you can't leave. If you don't like it
, leave. You got into Amazon, you can get in anywhere else. | N*D
发帖数: 3641 | 5 我不是写过一篇吗？咋没出名啊。。。
不过其实也没这么差，看组。好的组堪比天朝体制内；差的组比黄世仁都黑 | b**********5
发帖数: 7881 | 6 this applies to any big company...
【在 N*D 的大作中提到】
: 我不是写过一篇吗？咋没出名啊。。。
: 不过其实也没这么差，看组。好的组堪比天朝体制内；差的组比黄世仁都黑
| p*u
发帖数: 2454 | 7 pls list good teams in Amazon
【在 N*D 的大作中提到】
: 我不是写过一篇吗？咋没出名啊。。。
: 不过其实也没这么差，看组。好的组堪比天朝体制内；差的组比黄世仁都黑
|
|
