A lot of the Amazonians who had a "mission first" mindset at the mid- and upper-level rungs of engineering and product management all ended up become leadership or executive management at other companies, or founding their own companies.
That said, it is important to highlight the mindset that did help Amazon during it's golden era.
Hey, cut them some slack. They're barely getting by: they only made $18 billion in profit last quarter. They gotta cut some dead weight to stay solvent.
So we come back to my previous statement/question. Above what profit amount should a company be obligated to keep (in their eyes) unproductive workers?
[0]: https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/amazon-target...
They take huge personal, family and financial risks to move for a job. When you are getting rid en-masse people, you are ruining local communities. There is a real societal cost.
It also sucks for businesses, because hiring & onboarding is so freaking hard and expensive. Not to mention that once the company has established a reputation of a revolving door, then nobody gives a shit about it. They will exploit it for the short term and let it die.
Layoffs should the absolute last resort for a company due to the disruption they cause. If the market dynamics do not naturally lead to this, then regulation should shape the field.
Probably why it’s considered one of the worst places to work for. Works well when you are a small company that is trying to attract talent to build great things with the promise of big rewards. Doesn’t actually work that well when you’re trying to keep an established company stable and don’t offer much in return. If all you can offer is mediocre pay and a threat of PIP if I don’t work 60+ hours, I’d rather stay unemployed.
Meta is another dumpster fire. The highest level you can receive at a promo cycle is "Redefines Expectations". Congratulations, you have worked so goddamn hard, your reward is a redefined expectation and the next cycle if you work equally goddamn hard you will only "meet" that newly-redefined expectation. You're on track to a PIP!
cringe
It again is pretty clear that Software development has no engineering culture. If you are faced with a problem in hardware, you can not patch it, so much of an engineering culture is about how to define what different parts of the organization want and how they can be fulfilled and validated. This also becomes clear when the article talks about the director, in any hardware company he is the person who must be informed about the processes and who must himself communicate about his state in the development process.
The article brings in the word "Craft" which I think is very descriptive. Software development has a culture of craftsmanship, which values individual contributions of craftsmen, not processes.
(Also a hardware company can not fire 14.000 of their engineers, without becoming non-functional)
Hope you Deliver enough Impact before you burn out. Honestly sounds like a corporate brainwashing effort more than anything. “Senior principal engineer”? What’s next, “Senior staff principal engineer”?
throwaway439080•2h ago
damn_trolls•2h ago
At Amazon, unkind and downright unprofessional behavior by people higher up the chain is normalized, and has been for a very long time.
tekla•2h ago
I got an invite to a team skip level meeting once, and holy shit I could not believe the asshole and bullshit crap those seniors were tossing at each other, at the Partner manager, and also us.
darth_avocado•1h ago