Amazon CEO unveils 55k tech jobs in his first hiring push(reuters.com)
reuters.com
Amazon CEO unveils 55k tech jobs in his first hiring push
https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-amazon-ceo-unveils-55000-tech-jobs-first-hiring-push-under-his-watch-2021-09-01/
95 comments
Amazing. I bet Tesla would do the same if they had enough cash
This is incredible.
I wonder how many will get PIPed in a year ;]
Got to cull the bottom 10% every year! I wonder how many people rejoin at a later point of their career, otherwise surely these sorts of practices would be unsustainable (without hiring lots of labour from abroad?).
I can't imagine many of those folks are eligible for hire. It's like a permanent stain on your HR record.
what's PIPed?
Performance Improvement Plan.
Fired, but with extra steps.
Fired, but with extra steps.
> Fired, but with extra steps
Heh, I like this one
Heh, I like this one
Yeah, with prolonged humiliation
If your employer wants to fire you, then they’re going to fire you. The PIP is a miserable process, but there’s not typically a nice way to be fired. The PIP gives you a decent opportunity to make other plans at least.
Exactly, if I were given PIP then first thing I start doing is using company time to upskill myself.
I haven't seen many cases but PIP were 100% leading to firing. Also my corpo didn't respond to work reference bar HR letter stating you worked for them.
So in my experience PIP is a sentence but you will face no consequence for not working.
(In two cases the PIP were purely because manager didn't like the guy and just wanted them gone)
I haven't seen many cases but PIP were 100% leading to firing. Also my corpo didn't respond to work reference bar HR letter stating you worked for them.
So in my experience PIP is a sentence but you will face no consequence for not working.
(In two cases the PIP were purely because manager didn't like the guy and just wanted them gone)
Performance Improvement Plan
It's what they put you on, before you are fired. Some people think it's purpose is to get people to quit before they are fired.
It's what they put you on, before you are fired. Some people think it's purpose is to get people to quit before they are fired.
I wonder how they do this outside of US. In Australia we have a regulatory body named Fair Work Commission where you can take your case if you think you were unlawfully fired.
Its purpose is to reduce legal risks and financial costs. The legal risk is in case ex employee claims some type of harassment or discrimination.
The financial costs is to keep unemployment insurance premiums lower. The more unemployment benefits your ex employees receive, the higher the unemployment insurance premiums. Ex employees are not eligible for unemployment benefits if they are terminated for cause.
Ideally, a PIP in a white collar setting is also for the benefit of the employer about to be terminated to serve as advance notice that they should start looking for other employment. It benefits the employer because if they can start planning and looking for work elsewhere earlier.
Ideally, they do and resign from their position, and the employer benefits here also since there is reduced risk of litigation from a resigned employee, and the ex employee is ineligible for unemployment benefits due to resigning, so the employer saves money on unemployment insurance premiums.
The financial costs is to keep unemployment insurance premiums lower. The more unemployment benefits your ex employees receive, the higher the unemployment insurance premiums. Ex employees are not eligible for unemployment benefits if they are terminated for cause.
Ideally, a PIP in a white collar setting is also for the benefit of the employer about to be terminated to serve as advance notice that they should start looking for other employment. It benefits the employer because if they can start planning and looking for work elsewhere earlier.
Ideally, they do and resign from their position, and the employer benefits here also since there is reduced risk of litigation from a resigned employee, and the ex employee is ineligible for unemployment benefits due to resigning, so the employer saves money on unemployment insurance premiums.
Every company large enough to have a dedicated HR team has PIPs.
There is nothing special about Amazon in this regard - including the fact that the vast majority of PIPs result in termination.
There is nothing special about Amazon in this regard - including the fact that the vast majority of PIPs result in termination.
I'd not go for AMZN for double the salary I currently have at GOOG....
I'm probably biased because I work at Amazon, but really not for double your salary? That's an awful lot of money to say no to.
Obviously Amazon doesn't actually pay more than Google so I guess we'll never know.
Obviously Amazon doesn't actually pay more than Google so I guess we'll never know.
Health and sanity (mental health) are invaluable. I've never heard stories about about how amazing the life/work balance is at Amazon, quite the contrary.
I haven't heard them from Google either, but also I haven't heard horror stories from Google.
I haven't heard them from Google either, but also I haven't heard horror stories from Google.
How much do they pay: I am not from the US and I see pretty large differences in salaries thrown around here for FAANGs.
Not from the US, I work from Canada (Montreal) and my salary is between 90-100k before bonuses and RSUs (those vary a lot more so it's a bit pointless to share). I'd say you can expect 110k total for L4 (SDE1) which is about as much as you can get for a new grad.
I can hear all those binary trees being sorted.
Last time I reluctantly agreed to a phone screen interview at Amazon as a UX designer, and they wanted me to write a binary tree sorting algorithm over the phone, I knew that was probably not a place I'd find any gratifying work
hmm, considering to land a job on amazon, is there a good hackernews advice on how to prepare yourself? classic leetcode grind or things changed since then?
I have interviewed and done interviews for Amazon, I'd say leetcode easy with the occasional medium is to be expected, but Amazon is special in that it feels like a bunch of small team with different expectations and requirements so YMMV.
I know Amazon gets a bad reputation these days but I really enjoy working there so if you are considering applying I'd say go for it.
I know Amazon gets a bad reputation these days but I really enjoy working there so if you are considering applying I'd say go for it.
What's the work life balance like for you? The companies I've worked at expect 40 hours per week but in practice are more like 30/week. Amazon has a reputation of 60-100 hours per week depending on who's telling the story
At AWS most team are pretty independent so it's hard to give a definitive answer. That being said I never met L4 SDEs working a lot more than 40 hours. Some team will experience crunch before reInvent but even then more than 60 hours (or even 60 hours honestly) would be unheard of for me.
There is OnCall duty which can be a pain from time to time but it really depends on your product.
TLDR: Your team's work-life balance usually defines your work-life balance. Never met anyone working 60 hours but that anecdotal.
There is OnCall duty which can be a pain from time to time but it really depends on your product.
TLDR: Your team's work-life balance usually defines your work-life balance. Never met anyone working 60 hours but that anecdotal.
> There is OnCall duty which can be a pain from time to time but it really depends on your product.
In India, on call expectation is to be available for 24 x 7. Is that the same?
In India, on call expectation is to be available for 24 x 7. Is that the same?
Can't comment to the expectations (I'd guess it's 24/7 across Amazon), however in a reasonably size team you should not be on call more than a few days every month and Sev2+ event (the ones you have to wake up for) are somewhat rare so it's not like you find yourself fixing bugs in production at 3AM every month.
Very team dependent and dependent on the scope of your production systems (E.g. is Amazon.com dependent on it or is it some random downstream system). There are countless teams at Amazon that get paged 20+ times a week.
I would recommend 1 hour of leetcode and 1 hour of hackerrank every day, plus a 30 minute “programming koan” every morning, for 6 months leading up to when you expect the interview. You should also read “Cracking the Coding Interview” at least once.
Familiarise yourself with the STAR recruitment method, alongside amazon's leadership principles. You won't only be judged based on your skills, but how well you seem to suit their work culture.
meanwhile they illegally resist workers who want to unionize and have awful conditions for drivers and factory workers.
The National Labor Relations Board has determined that Amazon violated labor law after workers at its Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse tried to join a union, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Workers Union said Monday. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/amazon-violated-labor...
"I resort to peeing in bottles, and women urinate through funnels into bottles, just so I'm able to get done with my deliveries," Valerie G, a driver for one of Amazon's Delivery Service Partners (DSP), told Insider. "Those conditions are extremely unsanitary, and we are there with all those packages and our own urine and bodily fluids. That's unsanitary for the customers receiving the packages." https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-drivers-interview-gia...
The National Labor Relations Board has determined that Amazon violated labor law after workers at its Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse tried to join a union, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Workers Union said Monday. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/amazon-violated-labor...
"I resort to peeing in bottles, and women urinate through funnels into bottles, just so I'm able to get done with my deliveries," Valerie G, a driver for one of Amazon's Delivery Service Partners (DSP), told Insider. "Those conditions are extremely unsanitary, and we are there with all those packages and our own urine and bodily fluids. That's unsanitary for the customers receiving the packages." https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-drivers-interview-gia...
Off topic
to them hiring 50k people??
"55k tech jobs", not drivers/warehouse
Ah, yes let's treat it as if tech workers cannot unionize, and pretend Amazon won't shit on its engineers too just as soon as they think they have the leverage, look at Google now.
how is that off topic?
I wonder how Amazon's poor reputation as an employer is going to effect this hiring push. I would take one of those 55,000 jobs for a FAANG salary but only if I was sure Amazon wasn't going to chew me up and spit me out.
For all the people like you who might have reservations, there's a line out the door with slightly worse, or even comparable qualifications who would be head-over-heals for an offer from Amazon.
This may have been true a few years ago, but eventually they will burn through qualified candidates. Every article I read about Amazon is how terrible it is to work there and that includes white collar jobs.
I would have thought about working for Amazon as an inexperienced engineer, but at this point after getting just 3 YOE, I have way too many options to go work for Amazon, they would have to more then double my salary because Amazon is known for backloading pay, so you won't make that much money until you have been there 2+ years.
As we all know, there is not an infinite number of experienced devs and Amazon is burning through them quickly
I would have thought about working for Amazon as an inexperienced engineer, but at this point after getting just 3 YOE, I have way too many options to go work for Amazon, they would have to more then double my salary because Amazon is known for backloading pay, so you won't make that much money until you have been there 2+ years.
As we all know, there is not an infinite number of experienced devs and Amazon is burning through them quickly
Yes but how many thousands of new grads come into the job market every year? With the salary they're offering, there's always going to be demand. They might lose the best candidates, but I don't think they will have an issue long term.
I don't know if a company without any senior devs is going to make it long term.
My point is even with a relatively small amount of experience, I have an unbelievable amount of opportunity, so I wouldn't take an Amazon job.
If Amazon becomes a revolving door of new grads who are just trying to get a year or two experience and bolt, it will not be good for Amazon as a company and eventually and the Amazon stamp on your resume will loose its prestige, at which point even new grads won't want to work there.
Amazon desperately needs to change its reputation.
My point is even with a relatively small amount of experience, I have an unbelievable amount of opportunity, so I wouldn't take an Amazon job.
If Amazon becomes a revolving door of new grads who are just trying to get a year or two experience and bolt, it will not be good for Amazon as a company and eventually and the Amazon stamp on your resume will loose its prestige, at which point even new grads won't want to work there.
Amazon desperately needs to change its reputation.
Do you actually think this is at risk of happening?
I understand the argument you are making, but it seems like Amazon is one of the most successful companies ever, and is absolutely printing money.
I'm not saying you are wrong, I just don't know if this reality or whether this is what people wish would be the case for emotional reasons.
I understand the argument you are making, but it seems like Amazon is one of the most successful companies ever, and is absolutely printing money.
I'm not saying you are wrong, I just don't know if this reality or whether this is what people wish would be the case for emotional reasons.
Yes, absolutely it risk of happening. Lots of huge companies have either gone out of business for less.
It's not a binary thing, it's a scale. Fact is Amazon could keep better engineers for longing if they weren't so cut throat and that is not helping them. Will they be able to stay successful regardless of this? Who knows, they will probably become worse at innovation, but they could potentially keep running their store and delivery for a long time without much innovation.
You are probably right in regards to emotion, who doesn't want to see a company who treats workers like that fail? I still shop there, it is way too convenient and cheap.
It's not a binary thing, it's a scale. Fact is Amazon could keep better engineers for longing if they weren't so cut throat and that is not helping them. Will they be able to stay successful regardless of this? Who knows, they will probably become worse at innovation, but they could potentially keep running their store and delivery for a long time without much innovation.
You are probably right in regards to emotion, who doesn't want to see a company who treats workers like that fail? I still shop there, it is way too convenient and cheap.
RE: IBM was the FAANG in the 70s and 80s
Based on what I have read so far, it seems there are two Amazons, in a sense. Frontline workers ( warehouse, drivers and so on ), who, rightfully, complain about the conditions and corporate workers, where work is not as onerous and your level of 'enjoyment' depends on the team you join.
If I had no other options, I would obviously go for it. That said, despite a good addition to resume, its not something I would personally go for of my own volition.
If I had no other options, I would obviously go for it. That said, despite a good addition to resume, its not something I would personally go for of my own volition.
If you join as an engineer it seems that getting on a decent team is a gamble. You could end up with great people, or with people who'll make you miserable.
Needless to say, I'd rather look at other FAANG options.
Needless to say, I'd rather look at other FAANG options.
Does it matter? You'll have Amazon on your resume. Its a door opener for whatever job you apply for next.
For those of us who value life above work, it does matter. My focus for the next 1-2 years is enjoying them, not being miserable just to open career doors
Are there actually 40.000 available people in tech to hire?
I don't see a time frame in this article. If the target is 40,000 over the next decade, then probably yes. If the target is shorter and they're willing to hire anywhere and not insist you live within commuting distance of an Amazon office, then also probably yes.
If you pay enough.
For the right price, I could be available.
Depends on skills bar you have.
When I see numbers like this, I wonder what on earth those 55k people will do.
Like I recently interviewed a candidate who was working on a team of over 60 iOS developers working on a single mobile application. I've built fairly complex products with a team of 4-5 people - how would 55 more people manage to keep busy, let alone add value?
I realize Amazon is a huge, multinational corporation with a lot of product offerings, but do they really have enough to work on that they need another small city of tech workers?
Don't get me wrong, being in the industry I'm happy to have big players driving up the price of talent, but part of me wonders if they really understand how scaling works (or doesn't) with tech headcount.
Like I recently interviewed a candidate who was working on a team of over 60 iOS developers working on a single mobile application. I've built fairly complex products with a team of 4-5 people - how would 55 more people manage to keep busy, let alone add value?
I realize Amazon is a huge, multinational corporation with a lot of product offerings, but do they really have enough to work on that they need another small city of tech workers?
Don't get me wrong, being in the industry I'm happy to have big players driving up the price of talent, but part of me wonders if they really understand how scaling works (or doesn't) with tech headcount.
Since there's an approximately logarithmic relationship between headcount and productivity, you can keep 60 devs busy doing the work of 5 devs by virtue of each of them becoming as productive as 1/12th of a developer.
That's definitely true of some teams at Amazon. If you're working as an "away team" as they call it, it can take months to get even a one-line change reviewed. It can take a couple of days or more just to figure out how to submit a review request for the "host team".
I'd be curious to hear too!
I knew somebody at Twitter years ago, and he said their mobile teams were bloated and individuals didn't do much. I mean, the Twitter app is quite simple overall, how can you have hundreds working on the UI?
My guess is it becomes hard to contribute quickly at an individual level due to process, lots of overhead with planning, and perhaps codebase not being clean, or just overly large that you don't have good sense of the scope.
Would love to hear from somebody that's worked on a team like this
I knew somebody at Twitter years ago, and he said their mobile teams were bloated and individuals didn't do much. I mean, the Twitter app is quite simple overall, how can you have hundreds working on the UI?
My guess is it becomes hard to contribute quickly at an individual level due to process, lots of overhead with planning, and perhaps codebase not being clean, or just overly large that you don't have good sense of the scope.
Would love to hear from somebody that's worked on a team like this
At large companies, Project Managers and Product Managers are really good at filling up time and creating tasks. They also create processes that slow things down. So instead of making a UI change that a customer requested in 1 day as you can do at a startup, It takes months to get through the design,approval,testing,deployment schedules,etc...
A lot of engineering time goes to building things that never ship. These companies do a ton of A-B testing of small changes in various combinations and only the best performing thing ships. When you have 100M DAUs a 1% bump in engagement (or whatever you're optimizing for) is huge
In my career I definitely moved into smaller organisations. Often they would, over time, get bigger and I would move on.
I probably could have earned more, but working with a few good people and directly impacting the end product made work mostly a pleasure.
I probably could have earned more, but working with a few good people and directly impacting the end product made work mostly a pleasure.
If it's something that is multiple countries... I could see 1-2 people per language/region for language/ui/testing.
This was specifically front-end developer headcount. Would you really ever need separate developers for separate localizations?
I guess it would depend on the size/scope of the project. I could see it happening, but also could easily see it not being required for most projects.
What application could you imagine needing a static workforce of 60 developers?
Not a mobile app, but I did see a team of 50 working on one project - enterprise Java in... 2002. It still wasn't all developers - between 30 and 35, then some PM, testers, etc. I can envision projects being that size, I'm not sure I can see a good justification for that state though. I can see 60 devs on a project, just not the need for them, if that makes any sense. I'm accustomed to seeing a lot of people work on stuff getting very little done, mostly talking to each other about how stuff should work, but not doing it.
Hiring 40k would be competitors instantly makes your company/product more competitive.
[deleted]
Tech people believe that highly skilled jobs are quality not quantity, Amazon CEO goes for quantity.
I initially thought it was a little flippant, but that is actually spot on. The idea seems to be to hire a lot and see what sticks. If that is the case, he seems to see those jobs as fairly easily interchangeable cogs.
I find it mildly amusing.
Naturally, it could just be PR.
I find it mildly amusing.
Naturally, it could just be PR.
[deleted]
will this drive up salaries?
Is Amazon competitive, salary-wise, in the FAANG/Finance space anymore?
My understanding is that max salary is capped at ~$175K, bonuses/options take years to vest, and managers play games with these.
If you get hired and manage to stay for years, you'll do well in terms of total compensation, but the chances of that seem low.
My understanding is that max salary is capped at ~$175K, bonuses/options take years to vest, and managers play games with these.
If you get hired and manage to stay for years, you'll do well in terms of total compensation, but the chances of that seem low.
Speaking strictly in software, they're still competitive but you'll likely have to negotiate with competing offers to get top dollar.
Base salary caps around ~160k in non-Bay or NYC areas. You'll get a competitive sign-on bonus split between the first two years to compensate you for the fact that 80% of your stock options vest in year 3 and 4.
Base salary caps around ~160k in non-Bay or NYC areas. You'll get a competitive sign-on bonus split between the first two years to compensate you for the fact that 80% of your stock options vest in year 3 and 4.
I'm in India, and the recruiters are trying to make me apply. Even I was interested before, but after reading this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27569594. no thank you.
As somebody who works with many Indian coworkers in tech, out of curiosity, could you explain if "even" is commonly used in India in that way?
> Even I was interested before
To me as an American, often hearing "even" used this way by Indian coworkers, it's confusing. To me the sentence reads like this:
> Even I, who you would expected not to be interested, was interested
Something like it's an unexpected claim. This is confusing to me because there's no reason for me to expect that you, specifically, aren't interested. But in contexts like your sentence and talking with coworkers, it seems like the intended meaning is something like the following:
> I, too, was interested
Please don't take this the wrong way; this is just a question from somebody who's a fan of linguistics. I've encountered so many constructions in English from Indian speakers at work that I've never seen from other speakers (like the way "itself" is used [1]) that it makes me wonder where it's coming from. Based on my research so far, some things come from trying to carry over words/grammar from Indian languages, and some come from British English as used during colonization.
1: I often hear sentences like "today itself" to mean something like "today [emphasizing today]" which is not said in standard American English, in my experience
> Even I was interested before
To me as an American, often hearing "even" used this way by Indian coworkers, it's confusing. To me the sentence reads like this:
> Even I, who you would expected not to be interested, was interested
Something like it's an unexpected claim. This is confusing to me because there's no reason for me to expect that you, specifically, aren't interested. But in contexts like your sentence and talking with coworkers, it seems like the intended meaning is something like the following:
> I, too, was interested
Please don't take this the wrong way; this is just a question from somebody who's a fan of linguistics. I've encountered so many constructions in English from Indian speakers at work that I've never seen from other speakers (like the way "itself" is used [1]) that it makes me wonder where it's coming from. Based on my research so far, some things come from trying to carry over words/grammar from Indian languages, and some come from British English as used during colonization.
1: I often hear sentences like "today itself" to mean something like "today [emphasizing today]" which is not said in standard American English, in my experience
Also, you would never say 'a recruiter is trying to make me apply'.
'trying to get me to apply' would be the right thing to say. A recruiter can't make you do anything. Your parents or spouse on the other hand...
'trying to get me to apply' would be the right thing to say. A recruiter can't make you do anything. Your parents or spouse on the other hand...
Most often these are cases of a word to word translation from India languages.
Also, a lot of Indian English grammar rules are leftovers from Victorian England. For example, rarely would you see an Indian speaker use the word "too" after a verb for emphasis. But I see most of my American colleagues use that word way "too" much.
Your example of "Today itself", probably has roots in Hindi where "Aaj hi" is a commonly used term.
Also, a lot of Indian English grammar rules are leftovers from Victorian England. For example, rarely would you see an Indian speaker use the word "too" after a verb for emphasis. But I see most of my American colleagues use that word way "too" much.
Your example of "Today itself", probably has roots in Hindi where "Aaj hi" is a commonly used term.
thanks for the input
> Also, a lot of Indian English grammar rules are leftovers from Victorian England
This is about what I gathered from looking into the topic online. It's a fascinating thing to think about and makes total sense. Similar to how Korean and Japanese are influenced by Chinese, but the Chinese of centuries ago, not today.
Is "aaj hi" "today itself" or "itself"?
> Also, a lot of Indian English grammar rules are leftovers from Victorian England
This is about what I gathered from looking into the topic online. It's a fascinating thing to think about and makes total sense. Similar to how Korean and Japanese are influenced by Chinese, but the Chinese of centuries ago, not today.
Is "aaj hi" "today itself" or "itself"?
"aaj" -> Today
"Hi"(pronunciation he) -> Itself
I interpreted it as a missing 'if'...
> Even [if] I was interested before, ... after reading this?
> Even [if] I was interested before, ... after reading this?
sorry, missed this. yes, like other replies to this comment, most of the weirdness you see are coming from indian languages.
Any one know how or where I can apply for an Engineering Manager position, please drop me a line leisenming AT protonmail DOT com
Fuck Amazon.
55k jobs without offering remote/hybrid? my most recent recruiter email said they require in person in NYC. seems like it may be hard to fill
This announcement is well timed given my recent experiences: I've just (this week) finished the SWE interview process with Amazon. I spent a few months preparing LC and made it to the onsite/full interview - which I thought went fairly well. However I was passed over, and the recruiter was unable to offer any feedback whatsoever, which was a bit insulting given the time commitment that's expected of interviewees. With such a large number of announced new roles, I wonder if Amazon's hiring process will need to become more interviewee-friendly.
feedback of any kind is seen as a liability (you could sue) so it's not offered. I doubt this will change