
Amazon's Current Employees Raise the Bar for New Hires - glaugh
http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304753504579285133045398344-lMyQjAxMTA0MDAwNzEwNDcyWj
======
JonFish85
"With a word, they can veto any candidate, even if their expertise is in an
area that has nothing to do with the prospective employee's."

Ah good, giving some extreme power to someone otherwise completely un-involved
in the hiring process. Why should Rachel in accounting get to veto Sara as an
engineer?

"Sailesh Rachabathuni, who developed software for Kindle devices before
leaving Amazon in 2012, says he once vetoed a candidate for a programming job
because the candidate didn't know much about a specific programming language,
a detail others missed."

Great! A game of software trivia! Could be relevant, could just be this person
being a douche, hard to say.

~~~
trentmb
Pull the ladder up after you climbed it.

~~~
yapcguy
Exactly.

Why hire someone into the company who might end up competing against you?

The veto is a gift for Machiavellians lurking in the officefor

~~~
jeffbarr
It doesn't work that way. The whole idea of the Bar Raiser (this should be
evident from the name) is that we want to raise the expectations for a
particular level or job position over time. The goal is to keep improving the
quality of our hires at a given level over time.

~~~
vladimirralev
The goal is clear, but how do you motivate "bar raisers" to work against
themselves? If they hire smarter people than themselves they will be made
obsolete. If you are not smart enough to see that you will be replaced by
someone who will and the next iteration will correct the problem. It's a
system that always converges to a "shrinking, but reasonable and politically
correct cap on the performance".

~~~
SubuSS
To address that, as the article mentions - Bar raisers interview in another
part of the company. They can't bar raise for their own team.

And in a 110k employee company, to think one extra hire will obsolete you is
extreme paranoia. You would rather hire smart folks and increase the company
value.

~~~
vladimirralev
The negative selection rule applies transitively. It's not just one extra
hire, these bar raisers hire 100s of people. Increasing the company value
matters only if you own a stake in it that is big enough to offset the risk.
And last but not least, in the context of software engineering and
monekysphere(location) the population drops to less than a 1-2K people, not
110K.

It's a double-edged sword, if you hire smart people but demand them to act
stupid, they will implode the company.

------
armon
I've worked at Amazon, both in the warehouse management division as well as
AWS, and the whole "bar raiser" phenomenon is mostly just marketing fluff.
There are a handful of engineers who don't mind interviewing (or at least hate
it less than most), and they get picked often to be part of the interview
circuit. After some number of interviews, you are considered one of the
mystical "bar raisers". However, in my experience, they are not any different
from other interviewers. More experienced sure, but the difficulty of
questions is highly variable, and honestly there isn't much culture at Amazon
to worry about culture fit.

~~~
RankingMember
Can you compare it to any of the other places you've worked to give some
perspective to your comparison? Like "isn't much culture" compared to working
at IBM or "isn't much culture" compared to Google/Zappos/RedGate?

~~~
hirammcdaniels
Amazon has a certain body of engineers that get into the official culture, get
involved in broomball and wing-eating competitions and the like, but there are
far more engineers who pretty much ignore the whole thing. As far as I could
tell, the biggest piece of their culture is now a bunch of bitter engineers on
internal mailing lists slowly working up the courage to leave for more
enjoyable companies.

That said, different teams at Amazon were SUPER different. Some teams went out
drinking together twice a week, some teams were super extraverted and into
video games, but many other teams were a bunch of quiet, serious introverts.
TEAM fit was super important. This of course absolutely sucks for you if you
get roped into interviewing for one team and you're a much better culture fit
for a different team. Too bad. Rejected.

IBM has a culture, it's just a boring culture. Pretty much a bad IBM culture
fit is a person who's passionate about something in life. I'm sure there are
parts of IBM that are different (it's huge), but I was just glad that I didn't
have to wear a suit.

Google-like companies are pretty much the opposite of IBM. If you don't have
some weird interest you're passionate about, you kind of stick out.

~~~
RankingMember
"Pretty much a bad IBM culture fit is a person who's passionate about
something in life."

I had to pick out this quote because it's hilarious. :)

------
amzbr
There are a lot of factual mistakes with this article.

(see notes at the end before flaming)

Amazon interviewers typically go through a long "shadowing" process where they
calibrate their questions and evaluation criteria. You can't just go on to
interviewing candidates on your first week. Also, interviwers interview for
their own "job families", so e.g. SDEs and SDMs will typically interview
technical roles and likewise for non-technical roles. All interviewers are
also required to enter detailed "feedbacks" (if you've been put-off by the
interviewer furiously typing away, please pardon them - they're not emailing,
just taking detailed notes).

Amazon bar-raisers go through _additional_ rigorous shadowing process that
typically lasts many dozen of interviews and calibrations. An Amazon BR is
more like a "moderator" in the interview loop than an all-powerful veto-
machine. Veto is a very powerful tool, to be wielded extremely sparingly. BR
on a loop is an "external" third-party who makes sure no self-interests are in
play while hiring a candidate - i.e. no team is compromising on quality just
to fill open positions.

Also, it's patently false that BRs ask extremely hard questions. Infact, most
questions of BR focus on soft-skills and Amazon's leadership principles
(Google them, we take them very seriously!). Also, BR's do loop within their
job families and anything otherwise may happen only under extraordinary
circumstances.

Notes: Amazon being as large it is, is comprised of thousands of autonomous
groups and hence some candidate's experience may be sub-par and might have
been contrary to what I've written. If you had a bad experience while
interviewing at Amazon, please reach out to your recruiter who'll then forward
your feedback to BRs. We take instances of bad candidate experience _very_
seriously and will try to fix deficiencies if any. While recruiting, we
consider the candidate as our customer and strive to make their interviewing
experience delightful.

NB: Yes, I'm an Amazon BR. Posting using a throw-away account.

~~~
codex
Rather than use a BR to make sure that a group doesn't compromise on quality,
why not just have interviewers interview candidates outside of their group, or
interview them for a generalist pool which are assigned to groups later, or
randomly? That prevents the BR from inserting subjective bias into the
process. Everyone has bias, but the best way to cancel it out is to distribute
influence, not concentrate it, nor attempt to "fight" the influences of other
interviewers.

~~~
amzbr
That's one of the ideas often toyed with in Amazon. It hasn't worked out so
well in Amazon because of rapid expansion of the company. As an SDE/SDM you
have only so much time to devote to hiring, and with lot of pressure to hire,
people like to devote time to hiring for their own team. Hence, the BR becomes
the "balancer" to the process.

A BR can not be a "bar raiser" on his own team's interview loops.

------
jayhuang
"he once vetoed a candidate for a programming job because the candidate didn't
know much about a specific programming language, a detail others missed"

He appears to be pretty proud of this. Most top companies actually care less
about knowing specific languages as opposed to having the critical thinking
skills they're looking for.

Not sure him vetoing a candidate because of a lack of knowledge in one
language was a plus for Amazon.

~~~
ignoramous
Amazon doesn't place emphasis on language-specific skill-set. But there are
certain job roles that require specific skill set, for instance, someone
interviewing for a Software Development Engg role might get asked a lot of
Algorithms, Data Structures, Databases, Operating Systems and so on. Someone
interviewing for Web Development Engg role might get asked questions about
JavaScript and HTML. Same thing goes for SDEs being hired for Machine Learning
or Big Data teams... there are times when these teams are on look-out for
experts in certain fields.

But yes, generally, AFA technical roles are concerned, Amazon doesn't place
emphasis on language-specific skill-set.

~~~
jayhuang
Yep, exactly.

I interviewed for a Front-end Development Engineer position with Amazon, and
aside from the poor handling by the recruiter, the on-site interviews covered
a very well-rounded set of topics that were extremely relevant to the
position. One of the better interview experiences I had in terms of topics
tested IMO.

------
jw_
One fun benefit of having such a "tough" (low probability of hire, not
necessarily difficult-question tough) hiring process is that smart people
constantly get weeded out, which makes filling spots extremely tough, which
means that your team is constantly understaffed. This of course means your
existing staff are overworked and turnover is high, meaning you now get to try
to fill even more spots.

------
lukethomas
In context, Amazon is also one of the worst performing companies in the
Fortune 500 for employee retention. An average employee lasts 1 year:
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/07/28/turno...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/07/28/turnover_rates_by_company_how_amazon_google_and_others_stack_up.html)

~~~
mvgoogler
I would take that report with a huge grain of salt.

First - it's based on dubious sources "_Payscale's report recorded data
collected from 250,000 people working at Fortune 500 companies in the past
year (July 1, 2012 to July 1, 2013)_" It's not from official company data.
There is little to no information about how they collected the data.

More importantly, median tenure says little about retention or employee
loyalty in company that is doing a lot of hiring - e.g. if a company hired 50%
of it's total work-force in the past year, the media tenure will be around one
year.

Another potential source of skew would be if the data included contractors,
which are often limited to one year of tenure.

------
mratzloff
In my younger days I interviewed with them twice, but every aspect of the
hiring process was so protracted that I ended up accepting jobs with other
companies instead. Inevitably, several days after I had started at the new
company I would get a phone call from Amazon to schedule the next round of
interviews.

This was before they were as desperate as they are today, but even then the
questions were hardly brutal.

Here in Seattle the reputation most often associated with them is "sweatshop".
This isn't universally true, of course--some teams are better than others--but
just about everyone I know who works there always tells me, "Thankfully I work
on a good team. I wouldn't want to be one of the guys working on XYZ, though.
Those guys are chained to their desks." The people who had negative feedback
about their own team didn't work for them anymore, of course.

Anyway, churn and burn. Bring on the H-1Bs!

------
parennoob
> John Sullivan, a San Francisco State University management professor, said
> Amazon's protracted hiring process is an important signal for applicants
> that Amazon is a tough place to work, with a lot of pressure.

A high-pressure interview, to work at a high-pressure, slightly-better-than-
averagely paid job, that is then touted in the Wall Street Journal as being
"bar-raising"?

No thanks. I guess Amazon is yet another company that failed _my_ interview
process.

------
codex
I imagine using a bar raiser increases the randomness of the interview process
at Amazon, as it effectively reduces the number of interviewers down to one in
the veto case. Thus, more noise. However, reducing the false negative rate
isn't a high priority in most organizations, and Amazon is so desperate for
employees that you often see the same person interview multiple times until
they get in, so perhaps it doesn't matter.

~~~
rhizome
_Amazon is so desperate for employees that you often see the same person
interview multiple times until they get in_

This doesn't make sense to me. Wouldn't they hire them first time around if
they were truly desperate?

~~~
codex
Because the interview process is structured to "raise the bar" but is also
highly random. As with any tech company, you have to run the gauntlet to get a
hire. It's politically easier to have candidates reinterview when they fail
rather than get permission from executives to "lower the bar."

~~~
rhizome
OK, I get that, but this assumes that their politics are not affected by their
desperation, right?

------
seivan
Some HR goon wants to tout their new revolutionary system. The only way they
actually look like they get work done.

~~~
walshemj
Any experienced HR person woudl be having nightmares god only knows what
discriminatory hiring practices are going on here.

~~~
ignoramous
It is not that Bar Raisers get away with just the Veto. Usually the process
involves discussion between every one involved in the interview loop,
including the manager, BR, other engineers, and the HR. A final "hire" or "no
hire" call is made based on "data-points" collected over the course of the
interview / interactions had with the candidates by the people present in the
interview loop.

As evident, BRs clearly have a final say in the hiring process, but they don't
always go about vetoing every candidate just because they can. They usually
justify it with valid "data-points" and if one or two others have "data-
points" to make a compelling argument against what the BR says, then they
usually do so. And BR do listen to others who have contributed to the
interview loop... they aren't in the mold of dictators exactly.

Even BRs get evaluated for performance... since the HRs are also involved in
the discussion, one can be sure that no HR would tolerate discrimination, let
alone 4-8 other engg or managers on the interview loop.

Again, just my take on things, I do not speak on the behalf of my employer.

~~~
walshemj
Perception is everything

This sounds like the sandwidge chain in the UK which had staff make input into
hiring and it turns out that they favored _nudge_ _nudge_ their country men
and women from eastern Europe and funnily no local kids from say tottenham
seemed to get hired.

Boris Johnson noticed that something was wrong Boris Johnson!!

------
WalterSear
Amazon is a sweatshop, from bottom to top.

Source: relative who worked for Amazon and had frequent interactions with Jeff
Bezos.

~~~
cantcatch22
It's a large company with diverse departments and diverse teams within those
departments. You cannot generalize the sweatshop mentality to the whole
company.

Source: Worked on an Amazon team that did not strike me as a sweatshop. Also
these views are my own and I do not speak for Amazon

~~~
WalterSear
A fish rots from the head down.

------
mathattack
As a general policy, this seems fantastic. It just doesn't sound like they're
scaling the culture carriers fast enough.

* Bar raisers may be asked to assess as many as 10 candidates a week, for between two and three hours each, including paperwork and meetings—all while doing their regular full-time job, be it in finance, marketing or product development.*

20-30 hours per week for a non-job activity? This can't possibly be correct.
Or does Amazon have a workaholic culture that supports this - 20-30 hours for
those hungry after their 50-60 hour workweeks?

I heard a story about Google that the employees who were vetoed as candidates
but hired anyways actually outperformed, because they had something about them
that was so valuable that it was worth trumping the process.

As someone who has hired in the past, I have gotten in trouble by letting too
many people have vetos. You wind up having to accommodate so many pet peeves
("They don't have 5 years of specific experience", "I don't like their
school"...) that it's impossible to get good candidates.

~~~
jasoncrawford
When I was at Amazon, BRs did maybe 5 interviews a week, and that was
considered a lot. If BRs are really doing 10 a week these days, it's probably
due to a temporary shortage of BRs.

~~~
mathattack
Still a lot if you take the paperwork seriously. 10 hours falls into the 20%
above and beyond category. It's a big investment in the importance of culture.

------
midko
Somewhat offtopic but I think there's a chance someone here might be able to
help.

I had applied through Amazon's website for a graduate position nearly 2 months
ago and according to the dashboard, my application is still under review but I
have never heard from anyone. I think my application has been stuck in some
limbo and is now invisible to HR. I tried looking for a relevant email so that
I can follow-up but this has been impossible. Granted, I found a graduate
email I had written down 1 year ago but so far haven't had any reply and the
email seems deprecated because its not advertised on the website anymore. Even
on on-campus events, Amazon recruiters would give only the website address, no
emails.

Could anyone perhaps point me to someone I could ask to have a look?

edit: To clarify, I am certain the application has not been rejected. I also
do believe I am at least worth looking into hehe ;)

------
Jun8
"To become a bar raiser, a worker generally must have conducted dozens or
hundreds of interviews, and gained a reputation for asking tough questions and
identifying candidates who go on to be stars."

Typical interviewing scenario where P(FA)>10^10 and P(Miss)=0. Such schemes
create groupthink problems later on.

~~~
jessaustin
_...dozens or hundreds of interviews..._

When does a "bar raiser", like, _work_? I've never been part of an org large
enough to afford this sort of distraction.

------
johnrob
It sounds like the amazon hiring process takes a long time, which probably
also contributes to their goal: employees who stay long term. Filtering on
quality gives you little guarantee as to how long someone will stay (in fact,
I wouldn't be surprised if those attributes were reversely correlated). But a
slow hiring process will definitely reduce the field to those looking for a
long term commitment.

------
bane
This happened to me. I got pretty far into a TPM interview and had a couple
interviews with people that were so far out of my area they may as well have
been working in a different company.

I still had fun and don't regret not working there, but thought it was odd
that somebody who interviewed me for logistics backup plans had anything to
say in my hiring process.

------
ck2
ebay has 30k workers? no way.

they don't have inventory, they don't police listings, they don't do support
by email anymore

what exactly are all those 30k people doing?

------
mratzloff
By the way, Jeff Bezos owns both Amazon and the Wall Street Journal, which
published this particular fluff piece.

~~~
Isofarro
Bezos owns the Washington Post, not the Wall Street Journal.

~~~
mratzloff
Shoot, you are correct! Thanks for the correction.

