Waiting for the post- holiday party to start, might as well write a post. Amazon has been good to me. Learned a lot in two years, and got promoted 1 year in. Met awesome people, had unlimited booze access, and watched a ridiculous amount of YouTube and twitch at my desk. In many ways, AMZN reminds me of college. The scale and ambition are inspiring. The anonymity is crushing and liberating. The people are generally smart, though social skills and manners vary widely. It's the only company I've worked where I felt so empowered and in control of my own success. Almost to the point where you wonder if you're not taking advantage of the boundless opportunities available. All that said, it feels way too reliant on good management. For a company that espouses leadership, I haven't met many great ones, mgrs or otherwise. I've seen a large team die a slow death after losing a sr mgr, as the remaining L5s struggled to fill the power void. The sdes focus too much on promotracker instead of business needs, so tech debt continues to pile. Back filling is terribly slow, and more attractive groups within the org can poach candidates you interview, further delaying this process... the big picture is really lacking, at least on my team. Also, IT is super fucking slow on TT resolution. So is lab126. Jesus fuck. What are SLAs for you guys... *shrug* Not my problem anymore. For current Amazonians: good luck and stay strong. I hope the stock continues to rise and hq2 is somewhere pleasant. I also hope the Seattle housing market stays strong, since I bought a house. Lol For everyone else: Amazon isn't that bad. It's actually pretty great sometimes, but the horror stories have validity too. It's a spectrum, and most teams have issues of some kind to sort through.
Where are you going?
Unlimited booze access? Are you confusing booze with bananas?
Banana wine
Congratulations
What team were you at? Role?
Dude you think Amazon engineers focus on the promo tracker? Come to Microsoft.
The new promo process has been both good and worse. Its funny to see people starting on their L6 docs immediately after getting to L5.
Exactly. I liken it to achievement farming in games. Once you level up, you immediately start farming your new quests. So many unqualified brown bags... I'm glad engineers have paths forward, as I've definitely worked places with zero advancement opportunities. But I've seen a noticeable drop in ownership taken by teams since it went live.
Post holiday party??
Can someone describe what is a promo tracker is and how promo at Amazon works? Curious to compare to FB.
Arbitrary definitions for what each technical role should encompass at any given level of expertise. Usually it's a set of categories you have to meet or exceed in order to be properly qualified for a promotion. It's great if you change teams or managers, as the entire process is documented through the tracker portal. You can get sign off for portions along the way, etc. It's terrible if you have a huge backlog of unattractive projects and engineers only prioritize what helps their promotracker profile.
Dude, there are so many teams that are nothing but shit projects. In fact, some orgs punt to a specific team and put new-hires (typically new-grads) and cut them loose.
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Where ru headed?
Which company?
Answering may reveal his identity