
Ask HN: What can an experienced engineer uniquely learn by joining AWS? - reddygaru
I work at a well known company in the Bay area. I make close to 380k, subject to market conditions.<p>I sometimes get bored by doing run of the mill backend work like building APIs, gRPC, etc.<p>I am seriously considering joining AWS as senior SDE. Is there anything I can learn uniquely by joining AWS?
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pinewurst
How a truly abusive work culture feels from the inside?

How to memorize "principles" and use them as tools to advance yourself and
sabotage others?

Unless you're looking for a post-grad credential in sociopathy, find another
cloud vendor or infrastructure provider that's more benign.

~~~
reddygaru
I know there might be more ops load and the bar is high to perform.

But is it really cut-throat in terms of co-workers trying to sabotage each
other?

~~~
pinewurst
(Edit: ok not formal, but "Connections/Anytime Feedback/Forte" does that job
well enough and effectively anonymously)

Oh yeah - including a system for anonymous denunciations.

Also please consider the average (very short!) tenure there.

~~~
_msw_
Disclosure: I work for AWS.

I am personally unaware of any such "formal system for anonymous
denunciations," or that there ever has been. I am in a position where I would
know if such a thing had existed within the last 10 years, and I know how to
engage with the the appropriate owner if one ever came into being (as all
Amazonians are encouraged to do if they have a concern).

[edit written at 2020-04-06T19:50:00Z in response to parent edit]

Forte, and Anytime Feedback before it, is not anonymous, nor is it
"effectively anonymous". Just like an email to someone's manager, when you
submit feedback your contact information is known to the manager receiving the
feedback for one of their reports. It is the responsibility of a manager to
take the feedback in context, along with any other information they have or
can obtain, and decide what, if any, message should be conveyed to their
report. Within my (very large) organization, it is our intentional practice at
the highest levels to reinforce that managers must "own their feedback" for
their reports. That's to say: you take in all the information and signals that
help you grow and develop your report, and you don't say "one of the pieces of
feedback that I received is _____."

Currently Forte feedback is provided verbatim to employees without any
information about who provided a piece of feedback (both positive feedback and
growth areas). This may be why you characterize the feedback as "anonymous."
However, 1) only feedback that you request from your colleagues, or your
manager explicitly requests on their report's behalf, is included in the Forte
annual process. It does not provide any mechanism for someone to provide
"unsolicited" feedback (though constructive feedback is encouraged at Amazon,
either direct or via a manager). 2) Feedback provided in the Forte annual
process is only provided to their report at the discretion of the manager.

From your comments it's pretty clear to me that you didn't have a good
experience at Amazon. I'm sorry for that, especially if there was a manager
who didn't live up to our high expectations with regard to how to manage
performance and develop their reports.

