How do Amazon devs survive working long hours year after year?
Posted by OptimisticSpirit@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 343 comments
Last 6 months had been brutal for me. To meet an impossible deadline, I worked 10 to 12 hours a day, sometimes including Saturday. Most of the team members did that too, more or less. Now that the project was delivered a week back and I am on a new project, I can tell I’m burned out. I wonder how can Amazon devs or fellow devs working at other companies in similar situation do this kind of long hours day after day, year after year. I burned out after 6 months. How do others keep doing that for years before finally giving in?
YodelingVeterinarian@reddit
I'm no expert but seems like most leave after \~2 years.
EffectiveLong@reddit
Amazon is a great resume filler
TalkBeginning8619@reddit
If you're at AWS working on S3 or DynamoDB or similar, sure. If you're working on DocumentDB or worse, Chime, hmmmm...
asswhole2@reddit
What's wrong with DocumentDB?
TalkBeginning8619@reddit
Everything
-Gestalt-@reddit
Working on any team at Amazon looks good on a resume.
Should it be that way? Debatable. Is it that way? Absolutely.
TalkBeginning8619@reddit
Yeah that's true, as long as you're working on interesting problems even on terrible products it will help your career
-Gestalt-@reddit
It also says that Amazon thought you were worth hiring, despite the level of competition to work there.
Now whether that's actually a good metric to use for evaluating someone's work experience, I'm not sure. But a lot of people involved in hiring seem to believe it is.
TalkBeginning8619@reddit
I think it's valuable and there is generally some correlation between the calibre of an engineer and where they've been hired before. Same as where they went to school tbh. And I mean correlation not that it's set in stone.
-Gestalt-@reddit
That's fair. I do think there's some merit to it. I'm sure I've been the beneficiary of this thinking, so I don't want to be too jaded.
I do think FAANG's and adjacent companies do a good job of weeding out the worst candidates. I've worked with some other-than-stellar engineers, but I can't say I worked with anyone who was truly awful and stuck around.
On that note, I also think staying around and moving up in these sorts of companies also indicates quality much more strongly than simply getting in.
EffectiveLong@reddit
Still. Those are still better than bad projects in other non FAANG companies.
KrispyCuckak@reddit
That is indeed the only thing its great for, employment wise. Plus you really appreciate your next job, in most cases.
tempaccount00101@reddit
This is terrible because the vesting schedule of your RSUs are over 4 years: 20% in the first 2 years, 80% in the last 2 years. So this makes me think they get laid off rather than leaving on their own accord. Not sure though.
DorianGre@reddit
That is nearly criminal.
BetterAd7552@reddit
I wonder who downvoted you?
DorianGre@reddit
Right?
Elmepo@reddit
That's why the vesting schedule is shaped like that... It's rather explicitly a move to reduce churn/keep employees longer.
Ok_Slide4905@reddit
It’s the other way around. They intentionally backload RSUs on the last 2 years because they know you’ll quit before then and/or they’ll manage you out before you can vest.
byzantium-1@reddit
this is kind of crazy.
in my experiences, it take at least 2-3 years before a dev really hits their stride (learn about the domain, get broadly familiar with the code base, develop relationships across disciplines (pm, qa, devops, etc), really dig into whatever tech/tools/algos they are using...
what an inefficient way to manage an org. encourage people to leave right after they start to get good at their job.
jokerlegoy@reddit
Y1 and Y2 cash bonus make up for the backloaded vesting for most folks
Agent7619@reddit
I'm sure management is well aware of the correlation between typical employment length and the breeding schedule. It's not an accident.
BomberRURP@reddit
Exactly
DigThatData@reddit
No, they leave. It's not worth it.
-- Left after I hit a year +1 day just to be safe. Bought a plane ticket to Hawaii the next day.
Tasty_Goat5144@reddit
Anecdotal, but everyone I know who left early did so of their own accord. That's how bad it is.
sleepyguy007@reddit
they smooth out comp with a signing bonus that is highest in the first, and still there in the second to smooth it out so its not really as bad as it sounds
TimonAndPumbaAreDead@reddit
I just started with Amazon and at the current price of AMZN my signing bonuses are more than the stock
Goducks91@reddit
I’m sure that’s the reason why it’s structured that way. They’re trying to incentivize people to stay, without you know changing the culture.
brainhack3r@reddit
This is why there is discrimination in hiring older engineers.
We're too smart to put up with this BS and realize life is too short.
FinestObligations@reddit
And family matters most.
SpiritedEclair@reddit
and friends, and things that make us happy… grinding leetcode, system design, or crunching to meet whatever outrageous demands S-team has consumes our souls.
csanon212@reddit
My prior Amazonian type company has no one with gray hair that was an IC.
byzantium-1@reddit
that is so wrong.
you need deeply technical ICs in any reasonably sized engineering org. those people need 15+ years to grow.
corrosivesoul@reddit
It depends. I have worked, and would do so again, an 80 or more hour a week if there was a reasonable return on the value of the work and the work was interesting. I wouldn’t be so happy about it if it was some artificial and meaningless deadline, code that might or might not ever go live, and a bunch of other factors. Oddly, money would be on the bottom of the list. However, I’ve been on enough projects that were badly managed, with unclear objectives and no real sense of value on the work, that I’d be very unlikely to find a project again that would appeal to me like that. I put in a very solid 40 (I don’t take a lunch and am very heads-down at work), and don’t open my laptop after quitting hours are over now. Probably not ever going to be in line for a promotion, but I don’t really care to get into anything managerial. My raise and bonus this year was solid, my boss thinks I’m doing great work, and I’ve been in my current role long enough to have more than enough domain knowledge to be safe. So, yeah, I don’t see a death march on the horizon!
KrispyCuckak@reddit
All tight-deadlines at big companies are just artificial bullshit designed to make some VP look good. The only time a deadline is truly real is if its a startup that will otherwise run out of money if something isn't delivered soon.
StoryRadiant1919@reddit
or a government audit/mandate.
corrosivesoul@reddit
This is very true. The larger the org, the more leeway there is anyway. If you are developing a new product or feature, there is always an offset when it’s done and when it gets used. I think the other thing people forget is that there is always more work that is waiting. Pacing yourself is crucial for devs, too.
jeerabiscuit@reddit
I have done it when I was reasobably sure my job was safe because doing it at the barrel of a gun led to burnout. Attracting flies with honey vs vinegar kind of deal.
wecome0utatnight@reddit
Can confirm. 2 years and 9 months and I put in my two weeks this Monday.
SpiritedEclair@reddit
2 and a half, leaving in 2 weeks and I couldn’t be happier. I feel great about it!
EM_555@reddit
You’re making the right decision.
The one good thing about working at Amazon is every other software engineering job feels like a breezy dream comparatively. I’ve been so much happier, been treated so much better, had way less work stress, and made just as much money every other place I’ve been in the decade since I quit.
SignificantlyASloth@reddit
Going to Amazon was the first and only career change I ended up regretting in 20+ years of professional experience. Not only was the amount of stress extremely high, it was also kept artificially so. Most of what we were doing was busywork and dealing with red tape. Tons of politics. Massive echo chamber. Most people were enemies, not allies. I guess I can say I'm happy I worked there, now pretty much every other job seems like a dream indeed.
TornadoFS@reddit
After working a high stress job I have problems coping with the amount of delivery I am doing at my lower-stress job. Like I have PTSD or something that I should be pushing to get more done.
ssrowavay@reddit
Amazon was a breeze compared to every game dev job I ever had. I wasn't on an AWS team though, so I usually had 40 hour weeks.
wecome0utatnight@reddit
Hey, thank you! This is reassuring to hear. I spent most of my professional career in software at startups and AWS is my first FAANG job. I accepted a fully remote role at a smaller but mature company and I'm so ready for some change. I have an unconventional background so getting in and being promoted were major milestones for me but I feel so hollow working there outside of it being a nice resume piece and making a few friends along the way.
GronklyTheSnerd@reddit
When I was there, most people weren’t lasting one, and those that made it two tended to leave voluntarily. I stayed for three years, and that was too much.
jimRacer642@reddit
Does Amazon not get that recruiting costs money? And that the longer you stay, the more effective you are at solving problems?
GronklyTheSnerd@reddit
They were weirdly oblivious to that, while obsessive about pinching pennies in other areas.
They practiced stack ranking, and had quotas of how many people they required managers to put on a PIP.
The working conditions resembled a snakepit, particularly once you understand the performance review/ promotion process.
jimRacer642@reddit
Sounds like a company that shouldn't have so much money. I remember when I used to sell on amazon they often took a cut so big that I often lost money on items I sold. So we're taking money from ppl busting their asses to shuffling it like a pimp at a strip club, gotcha.
ShoePillow@reddit
How did you stay for 3? Chill team?
GronklyTheSnerd@reddit
My junior engineers asked me that. I didn’t know then. Mostly necessity and some unusual circumstances, I think.
I have a fairly rare combination of skills, and I’m very good at them. The main relevant one, there are probably tens to maybe a couple hundreds of people worldwide that know that stuff as well. So I am not an interchangeable part.
I was also a system engineer in a team of network engineers. My job was basically the same as theirs plus I wrote nearly all the software. I think that’s probably not a common situation?
csanon212@reddit
How do other companies see that? Is it ok that they had less than 1 YoE there because it's Amazon and it still acts as a resume booster?
Coldmode@reddit
Most hiring managers know that Amazon just churns through people.
GronklyTheSnerd@reddit
I don’t know. My guess would be that it depends on the people doing the hiring, and what they know about Amazon.
Twirrim@reddit
There is a very noticeable 2 year cliff when you're there. When I worked there I saw regular initiatives kick off to try to incentivise engineers to stay longer. Of course none of them were going to succeed because they couldn't really tackle the reasons why people were getting burned out.
2 years is certainly enough time to learn a lot of things and get a much stronger understanding about how things work when you're operating on large scales (S3 engineers used to joke that one in a billion events occur several times a day for them), then take that knowledge and leverage it to get a better job elsewhere.
martabakTelor6250@reddit
"one in a billion events occur several times a day for them" even with time and money, that kind of learning experience is hard to get
3141521@reddit
Dynamo db services 500 million requests a second
zmug@reddit
It is such an unimaginable scale and that's just one service they have. It would be extremely interesting to get to scale something to that extent from the behining. That would give so much valuable lessons that very very few selected devs get to experience first hand.
We serve 50k reads / second from our MySQL and haven't hit any significant problems when it comes to scaling. Just replicating the master without much tweaking.
reddi7er@reddit
> 50k reads/s
what spec do u have in the mysql server/node/instance?
zmug@reddit
One cluster across 3 AZ, 1 writer, 1 reader both with autoscaling. Heavier on the read side, usually 7-10 readers each serving 7k reads a second or so @ 50% cpu. R7g 4xlarge instances
forkkiller19@reddit
I'd love to read something about this. Any links or references?
HippityHoppituss@reddit
check out the google sre book
FlatProtrusion@reddit
There are two of them, seeking sre and sre: how google runs...
Are you referring to both?
HippityHoppituss@reddit
Referring to this one: https://sre.google/sre-book/table-of-contents/
TornadoFS@reddit
Well, I it is not one big dynamo db instance doing 500 million req/s, so a very different type of problem.
zmug@reddit
Off course. It's more of a networking/infrastructure problem to solve at that point. You have to spin up instances into existing hardware on-demand, register those instances into service discovery/load balancer, create routing, access control, backups all on the fly. What happens when one machine gets overloaded when customers databases/userbase grows beyond a shared host? You need to be able to seamlessly move them over to somewhere else. How about hardware maintenance and so on.. at that scale these are all very important and your software needs to support these situations. It will be software that orchestrates these things in the background and there are the lessons to be learned. How do you manage all that when you have millions of requests coming in at the same time and you don't want to have service interruptions even during hardware swaps.
Life-Principle-3771@reddit
I mean yes these are problems but they are not the hardest ones imo. I've never been on a system that does 500 million or anything but I've been on systems that are above 2 million TPS.
Hardest problems that I dealt with at that scale:
Logging is a massive pain, for a few reasons. It's very tempting when you have a lower TPS service to just dump a bunch of information into the logs about your calls. When you are at very high TPS doing that will eat your disk space very rapidly, so you have to be extremely strategic about what you do and don't log.
The cost of logging is also very high. When you have billions of requests and hour this eats up tons of Cloudtrail space and becomes extremely expensive. Our solution was just to gzip files and dump them to S3, which brings us into the following problem...
Searching the logs becomes extremely hard. Let's say you have 500 hosts. If someone is complaining about errors they are getting or if you think your system has a bug you now have to somehow search the files of all of these hosts to find what you are looking for. We solved this by just dumping these S3 files to a separate host on regular basis and people just had to get really really good at grep.
You are a whale customer and that is a massive pain. You are potentially going to break the shit out of every single outside dependency that you take. Get ready for a lot of discussions of the type "we don't actually know what happens to our system at that scale". We had to onboard and then later offboard from several different technologies due to this.
Having a very large service like this means you probably have a lot of big customers and those big customers can be very noisy.
The networking/infrastructure issues we didn't find nearly as hard as those have been solved at incredibly massive scale. Perhaps at the 500M request level that becomes an issues, but not at 2M.
Deployments and rollbacks can be a nightmare and take several hours due to the high number of hosts/need to continuously serve traffic.
juvenile_josh@reddit
This guy fucks I can smell your SAP
_marcx@reddit
Leader election 🙃
zmug@reddit
Thanks for the insights. The deployments/rollbacks are hard enough on a smaller scale especially if you had database migrations too. I watched a talk about AWS deployment pipelines and if I recall correctly rolling out a new version of a service globally takes a week. Imagine having multiple deployments queued one after another but what if one of those starts causing issues later on in the pipeline warranting a rollback but there is already 50 new deployments in the pipeline still distributing behind the bad deployment 😅
I've ran into issues with logging in the past when disk space was harder to come by when everything was ran on prem or in a server room where we would rent our racks.. not a data center since the old days were simpler and server rooms could be the size of my living room 😂 novadays it is more of a conversation about cost as you said since cloud storage isn't cheap by no means. And if you do end up dumping all that data out of whatever cloud provider you are working with, you end up incurring egress fees which might surprise.
big-papito@reddit
It is useful experience if all you do is scale. If you join a small startup and start talking about handling 10K requests per second, you are just wasting everyone's time.
FeliusSeptimus@reddit
yeah, a bunch of the stuff I maintain won't get 10k requests in 10 years.
zmug@reddit
Yes indeed. That's why I said it would be interesting to get to walk the path to that scale of scaling from the begining. Also that's why I brought up our 50k read/s database (with caching in front of it) up because even at this scale I can't say there is any "scaling" to be done.. with modern machines could run a few million monthly active users easily in one machine.. the entire thing could fit all of itself in RAM 100 fold.. 😂 so why scale?
big-papito@reddit
I call it "common scale" - the scale where a single beefy SQL databases, perhaps with a read-only secondary, will basically be it. The rest is just making sure you don't do stupid shit in your code.
zmug@reddit
That's a good term for it, I like it! The bread and butter of common dev experience!
ryanchants@reddit
Yeah, I've been there where people have hired ex-FAANG because of their experience with these services. But so many don't do it anything close to the real scaling problems, and also I'm trying to keep this company alive until the next fundraising cycle, I don't need to build for 1000x the current traffic.
Mephisto6@reddit
At the amazon scale, the question becomes: what other place will have those issues? Where will I have to worry about cosmic rays except for like 2 companies in the world?
Twirrim@reddit
Mostly it teaches you to do things in a boring fashion. Complicated things tend to fail in complicated ways, boring things tend to fail in simple and easily understandable ways. The solutions are often quite obvious, too.
xampl9@reddit
We’re nowhere near their scale, yet one thing new people have to learn is that the code is all edge cases. Because that’s what the data is from the users, and that’s the business.
Twirrim@reddit
No feature survives first contact with the ~~enemy~~ customer. No matter how much you think you can anticipate everything they could do or want, and account for it cleanly in the design, they'll always find things you didn't want think of. I think one of the marks of the senior developer is getting to a point where that's okay, and you can implement it without unnecessary complexity.
NoCoolNameMatt@reddit
Institutional knowledge is a very underrated asset. I'm in IT for a company that's been around for 100 years. Most of the old hats there understand it. Amazon eventually will as well simply because not valuing it will eventually bite them in the keyster.
They'll accept it or die.
juvenile_josh@reddit
My roommate is an s3 eng and is leaving this week due to burnout
It’s crazy the amount of 1/1mil events they have when the customer base is in the 100mils per year
That means 100 super rare events per year across 365 days a year = 2 to 3 events per week like that
putin_my_ass@reddit
The fish rots from the head.
It won't change because the people running the show believe this is the best way to run the business. Ideologically motivated, so they won't hear arguments to the contrary and the yes men and women surrounding the decision makers know to tell them only what reinforces that belief.
And those decision makers are so wealthy, they can afford to carry on the fantasy.
Twirrim@reddit
When I was there (left in 2016), it was one of those things where no one higher up asked for it. They even said quite clearly and regularly "Don't do it".
What they never did was actually do anything to enforce that or discourage it. No manager ever faced consequences for it. So whether you had a good experience or bad was entirely based on which team you landed in. My service team at the time was actually really good. I didn't tend to work too many extra hours (probably only averaged just above 40 hour weeks, all considered).
I still got burned out, because I was facing a lot of long manual processes that couldn't be automated, and I couldn't get any leadership in the team responsible to actually fix the underlying issues, or take ownership of their shit. Nothing I hate more than being stuck with a solvable problem I can't drive to some kind of resolution one way or another.
lokkker96@reddit
Thing is, unless you’re working in another company of that scale, why would anyone care about that knowledge in particular? It just means you’re gonna get yourself again in a corporate job again and burn out. The only benefit to me seems that people love to see that you worked for big companies so they think you’re some kind of magical human being so they hire you more easily.
brainhack3r@reddit
I'm wondering if this is because they're just making more money elsewhere. Like they're jumping because studies show if you leave after 2 years you get a better promotion/cash at the new job
TripleFreeErr@reddit
which makes it a feature not a bug
brokenfingers38@reddit
I've heard this too. The only other custom web app dev on our team left to get a job there and I didn't know whether to be happy for her or sad. Her skills were more ML focused than web so it'd be more in her lane but they work people hard.
ElCthuluIncognito@reddit
I’ve got a friend in ML at Amazon. Apparently they are panicking to catch up in the industry since they are behind and they are crunching even more than usual.
TalkBeginning8619@reddit
yeah they are, and their sales/solutions folks are told to push the nova and titan models pretty hard. Their stuff isn't up to par, but it's cheaper though
TheFIREnanceGuy@reddit
I'm shocked they're behind given the hours they are pulling, must not be very efficient at what they do. Or they have been overtaken by people good at office politics hence less is done
georgehotelling@reddit
At a certain point, adding more hours has diminishing returns, meaning that hour 60 isn't going to be as productive as hour 1.
At another point, adding more hours has negative returns.
aeroverra@reddit
Sounds like you have never worked too long. After too many hours you tend to find yourself sitting there staring into space trying to solve a super complex problem only to realize the next morning you don't even need to solve that problem because it's irrelevant and you were starting to become delusional from the over work.
MinExplod@reddit
That’s the funny thing, the more hours you work a single person the more that persons throughout reduces.
After a certain point, there is an inverse relationships between good code and amount of hours worked, atleast in my experience.
DorianGre@reddit
Awful. You want to output 20% faster/more, you hire 25% more people.
Roshi_IsHere@reddit
Instructions unclear. We laid off the team except for one and offshored the rest.
potatodrinker@reddit
Is that when the RSUs just start to get good?
YodelingVeterinarian@reddit
No I think the RSUs are actually backloaded. But it’s the amount that will be meaningful on a resume I guess.
IcarusTyler@reddit
Yeah lots of sources telling how they burn out after 1-1.5 years and leave. I remember one where somebody calculated that if you stay sth lik 2 years, you are one of the most senior employees
Mortal_Crescendo@reddit
IIRC the average tenure at Amazon is only 1 year.
wolfpwner9@reddit
RIP vesting schedule
termd@reddit
I'm 10 years in. Most of us that have tenure find teams that have a decent wlb. At one point I went to an aws team that had a reinvent deathmarch. I delivered the product by working a lot then noped the fuck out.
Some people can genuinely just grind though. There's a lot of money at stake.
If you find a team with mostly red+ badges then they probably have a decent wlb. We don't really have to grind anymore, most of us can just leave and have decades of funemployment if people try to make our lives suck.
After a while you become pretty useful and can get things done so no one really wants to fire you even if you aren't grinding anymore. I'm not delusional enough to think that I'm irreplaceable, but everyone knows that when we lose our red badged l6s, it really hurts our ability to get things done.
MonstarGaming@reddit
There are teams of mostly red badgers? That's wild. I've never seen a team with anything but mostly blue. Even teams with decent WLB are blue heavy.
termd@reddit
We'll have 3 soon, 10, 9 and 9 on my 2 pizza team of SDEs. All of us have been on this team a while and all of us complain that we can't do leetcode anymore because we've been around too long. We like our team and manager so we're all just like ehhhh why not stay.
We have another 9 year who wants to join our team but we don't have a req. I'd find it amusing if we had 4 red badges on 1 team that is only 6 people.
GrouchyPlatform5678@reddit
Need an L4?
termd@reddit
Sorry, no reqs at all atm and if we ever get another I have 3 other devs that want to join our team already
Our turnover is quite low
Irish_and_idiotic@reddit
Can you give insight into the badge colours?
quiubity@reddit
Curious myself. Turns out badge color at Amazon represents tenure. Interesting.
As someone who's contracted at FAANG, and gets a different colored badge from FTEs, I'm personally not a fan of this system. It is pretty ridiculous when you get discriminated against because of the color of your badge.
Why does Amazon do this?
codeham@reddit
Amazon caste system
termd@reddit
Amazon doesn't discriminate based on badge color, it's not msft.
Badge color is a signal for how long you've survived. In general, it's a bad idea to pick fights with red+ badges because not only have we survived amazon for a long time, our friends are all L6/L7s and a number of our old L7 managers are now directors. We aren't untouchable for sure, but we do know where all the bodies are buried and people owe us favors.
MonstarGaming@reddit
I've never seen it used for discrimination. It's more like a small way to recognize people with long tenure in an organization known for high turnover. Work gets done based on the org's priorities not based on the tenure of the person making the request.
mkirisame@reddit
how do you handle moving team after delivering a product? do you communicate to the manager that you want to switch team before the product is delivered?
termd@reddit
No you want to deliver your current project because your old manager gets some say in olr and you’ll see them again if you stay at the company. You do want your reputation to be good
mkirisame@reddit
I understand that part, but how to initiate the transition to other team? do you ask your manager you want to switch? is that done before or after the project is delivered?
termd@reddit
You'd start informal meetings with hiring managers before your project is delivered and try to get an informal offer. HR is supposed to be trying to stop informal offers, but most experienced managers should still be doing it. After your project is delivered, you'd inform your manager in a 1:1 then immediately after the meeting you'd apply on jobfinder.
mkirisame@reddit
nice, thank you!
Why HR wants to stop informal offers btw?
csanon212@reddit
I'm not sure if it's considered a lot of money though. Many small business owners can make as much if they play the cards right
termd@reddit
When you have 400k+ on the line per year that’s considered a lot by virtually everyone that gets a w2
We don’t have the same risk as a business owner
CVPKR@reddit
Purely depends on the team, my team comes in at 10am and leave before 4pm with 1 hour lunch in between
4215265@reddit
Which team?
CVPKR@reddit
Shopping under Tony c, not going to dox myself more than that lol
ksco92@reddit
Been at Amazon for 15 years. I work from 7 to 4. Not a minute more, not a minute less. 1 hour lunch. I own my time. Being vocal about your own limits is actually something I would love to see in other devs that I don’t see a lot. I see tons of people just getting extra workload and never saying no and I’m like… sigh, you don’t have bandwidth you should have said no. 😂
FuglySlut@reddit
It's funny how people are so conflict avoidant they accept way more work than they can do. Counterintuitively it also usually hurts their career. They then end up doing a shit job because they don't have the time to focus on anything, get labeled as a bad engineer and then they're fired.
teslas_love_pigeon@reddit
I mean you're replying to someone who is likely a multi millionaire if they've been at Amazon for nearly two decades. It's easy to grow a spine when you can be without a job for 5 years and experience no pain or suffering.
jimRacer642@reddit
what if he worked as an amazon driver, would for 15 years, would he still be a millionaire?
ShitPostingNerds@reddit
What if he had flippers for feet, how fast could he still run?
banana455@reddit
Money is not the answer to everything. But having financial security to the point where you don't need to live in fear of losing your job is a massive benefit to you mental health.
jimRacer642@reddit
15 years at amazon? were u working as a picker in a fulfillment center?
ahistoryofmistakes@reddit
When I was at Amazon I was afraid to speak up because of the over arching top down S-Team policies that promote URA. Would think most feel the same.
yellowddit@reddit
Earn trust with your manager
BasketbaIIa@reddit
Yea idk. What I see here is people like you lean on people who can’t say no to get your task done. Does your manager know the split or do you split credit 50/50, or worse, into your favor?
robotzor@reddit
Thank god for the people who can't say no
BasketbaIIa@reddit
Maybe they thought they had a teammate that could or would pick up slack.
Then they get stuck with yall and suddenly there’s no “scope” or some shit lol. Yall are too afraid to say “yea, idk how to code” to the manager.
It’s both funny and sad
ArtisticPollution448@reddit
I spent 10 years at Amazon. I did not work long hours. At all.
A mentor of mine early on taught me: work 8 hours per day. When you can't do that, work 40 hours per week. When you can't do that, work 40 hours per week *on average* per month. And when that fails, switch teams or find a new job. Oh, and if you get paged while asleep, your alarm clock goes off for the next morning and you get your sleep back.
I joined Fulfillment back when everyone knew it was a shit show. Didn't matter. I did some extra hours here and there, but I took them back later. When I *did* start to burn out at one point, I told my manager I was dying here and he was like "You have a lot of vacation time saved up- go use it, you idiot" and I took off to Europe for 3 weeks.
You are on a team and org that has failed you. Your manager is shit for asking you to do this. His manager is shit for looking at the Connections scores that say "This dude is fucking his people over" and then not firing him. And the Director is shit for not catching it as well.
randylush@reddit
I also think that most developers have no idea how much leverage they have. Most will just let their manager make their schedules. Most will never say “I’ll get that done by next week.” Instead they just accept all requests coming in.
Which sounds easier:
work 80 hours a week because you never push back and never shop for another job
Work 40 hours a week + 5 hours a week making yourself the best developer you can be (studying for interviews, reading white papers, personal projects etc).
If you are working 60+ hours a week you are probably not doing yourself any favors, unless maybe you have clear ownership of a project with a clear line to a promotion.
Torasr@reddit
This is very wise advice, thanks for sharing. Pushing back seems scary but compared to the alternative it’s a no brainer.
Areshian@reddit
Yup, same here. I’ve been here 10 years now. I don’t think there has been a single month I worked more than 40hrs per week on average. The need to work more hours is a planning issue
muffl3d@reddit
That's my experience too so far, about 2.5 years in. But what I've noticed is that coworkers on visa tend to work harder. My hypothesis is that they work harder due to fear of getting pipped while on visa before getting permanent residency.
ralphpotato@reddit
I was on an AWS Lambda team and your comment about getting paged in the night and then sleeping in makes me laugh. Sure my teammates and manager encourage and accepted getting some rest after a middle of the night page but our team was getting 30-40 sev2s a week and maybe 25% of them were between 11pm and 6am pacific. This was after one of my teammates did a huge alarm recalibration and grouping task so that alarms triggered in series would get grouped into one alarm.
Ultimately most of the sev2s resolved automatically due to some upstream internal service recovering or it was just from some high load while a bunch of scheduled lambdas got kicked off at the start of a work day in a region around the globe, but you still have to immediately get on, acknowledge the sev, and determine quickly if you need to take action or page other people for help, because if you wait 30 mins and something escalated it can not only be harder to deal with but people will get mad.
I am sure there are real solutions to improve this and part of our massive non-sev2 ticket load was due to our team being called “async-lambda” so I theorized a lot of outside-of-lambda devs who needed lambda help just found our team first in the directory so we had to triage a ton of tickets (many questions were so vague that it took back and forth before realizing that they needed to talk to another lambda team).
But it’s hard when you have a core service that AWS expects five 9s of reliability across ~30 regions that also relies on other AWS services which themselves can impact Lambda. And how do you effectively deal with issues where a premium customer who has their own, dedicated internal resources, submits like 50M lambdas by accident, each with a multi-minute runtime, and only has a concurrency limit of a few thousand? The queue for their jobs sometimes just grows and grows and they don’t really understand why it’s backed up and now we have an alarm going off to help them clear their queues.
I think dedicated devops engineers and more dedicated ticket triaging support would have helped, but I don’t really know.
ArtisticPollution448@reddit
That's awful. I had a friend on a team within AWS in a similar situation- 30 pages a week, most at night. He just got tired of it and quit, like everyone else more senior than him.
I will say this though: Lambda is fucking awesome, and y'all deserve credit for that.
ralphpotato@reddit
I think in the ~2 years I was there, about everyone on the team when I started had left. I had 3 managers in that time.
I would like to take more credit for the lambda work but I ended up being stuck doing mostly just configuration management haha. My biggest feature was enabling cloudtrail logs (a feature you have to pay extra for) for a few parts of the lambda ecosystem to help users better figure out configuration issues with their lambdas.
Ok_Afternoon5172@reddit
This.
Internal transfers are super easy. I've been on a few AWS teams that just kept getting marching orders, but they are not all like that.
Go find a management chain that will push back.
The tech debt will show up as operational load (oncall) even after you "deliver results"
MonstarGaming@reddit
I'd argue internal transfers are only super easy if you're a strong engineer. Some teams having hiring bars that are... below average. I've interviewed a few folks from those teams and wouldn't ever hire them into my team.
dreamCrush@reddit
I strongly disagree that internal transfers are easy. At least when I was there an internal transfer would mean a full round of interviews. And the interview feedback would go on your permanent record. So good luck transferring if you don’t get it on your first try
aceshades@reddit
when i transferred to a new team back in 2022, i was considering between 2-3 different teams. i had chats with the manager and Sr. SDEs on each team, but i didn't have to do a full round interview with any of them. i just picked the one i wanted ultimately, and then had to jump through the remaining administrative hoops.
just sharing my experience, i haven't heard of an internal transfer needing to do a full round of interviews. sounds pretty wild to me.
dreamCrush@reddit
This was like 2013 so it may have gotten better
boricacidfuckup@reddit
Wait there is a permanent record? If i bombed the phone call interview 6 months ago, will that show up if i apply to AWS again?
MonstarGaming@reddit
I'm not sure about phone screens, but the results of full loops are retained. I imagine it's a legal thing. When it comes to interviewing later it can be used to filter out people who really bombed and are trying to interview again without adequate time to grow. Like if you absolutely bombed your loop and are applying a month later then you won't be able to because it's very unlikely that one month changed anything. I believe if you bombed an interview you have to wait a year. If you did ok, but not bomb it completely it's 6 months. If you did well, but had a skill set mismatch with the team you can immediately reloop with another team.
chaos_battery@reddit
I think these big tech companies need a reality check. I've never been able to pass their stupid marathon interviews where they want to see how you're thinking. They keep saying that over and over I want to see how you're thinking. Like I'm being as verbose as I can but you dumbasses won't hire me. I've since given up and went working for normal companies or I make 600k per year doing overemployment so probably better off financially that way anyway. Part of me thinks maybe someday I'll get a chance to work there if they keep chewing through all the candidates in the country as quickly as they do. Law of large number says eventually I may get a shot in there.
aMonkeyRidingABadger@reddit
Of course it will. But it doesn’t really matter. They let you try again every six months to a year because they know it doesn’t necessarily mean you wouldn’t be worth hiring.
MonstarGaming@reddit
That's still the case, at least it can be if the hiring manager wants it to be. For my team we do a mini loop with the EM doing an hour on LP and I do an hour technical interview. So two hours total with the assumption the original full loop covered most of the bases and we just need to gauge fitment. The feedback still goes into the same hiring system that is used for new hires so the outcome still is a permanent record.
Minimum_Elk_2872@reddit
If you are perceived as a strong engineer they are easy. If you have a lot of organizational trust you have a lot of agency to leave poor situations.
EnderMB@reddit
They haven't been "easy" for a while in Amazon, at least since the layoff days. Any roles my previous org in AGI used to open had maybe 50-60 people internally alone, alongside the pressure from recruitment to bring external people in instead.
Sidereel@reddit
Note though that you gotta transfer while still in good standing with your manager. By the time I was looking to transfer teams it was too late, I just didn’t know it.
notger@reddit
That's the right answer.
Though I had to laugh a little at "a lot of vacation" = three weeks. Happy to live in Europe.
ArtisticPollution448@reddit
I was in Canada where 3 weeks per year is standard (plus 12 holidays). Not Europe level, but better than the US (2 weeks standard).
For me, it was near the end of the year and I had literally taken nothing since Christmas.
PaulDaPigeon@reddit
I live in EU and get 25 days a year, 3 weeks is more than half my yearly allowance
mollested_skittles@reddit
The European vacation time doesn't feel enough to me. :(
TornadoFS@reddit
> "You have a lot of vacation time saved up- go use it, you idiot" and I took off to Europe for 3 weeks.
3 weeks is not a lot of vacation time...
TheTeralynx@reddit
Maybe they had 6 weeks and took 3 of them
Fabiolean@reddit
Amazon has a very underwhelming PTO policy. I doubt it was this.
TheTeralynx@reddit
Yeah.. Though I worked for years at places with maybe two weeks of PTO and no sick days, so I understand feeling like it’s a lot.
MonstarGaming@reddit
Couldn't have said it better. Definitely agree on the 6, 7, and 8s all being shit for not catching problems that are clear as day in connections scores.
element-94@reddit
I can’t plus one this enough. Leadership is EXTREMELY lacking. Even Panos in devices has been off putting.
element-94@reddit
Same here. Fulfillment, Alexa, Ring. Exactly the same mindset for hours.
cedarSeagull@reddit
I interviewed at Amazon several years ago and as I recall you do an interview w/ the hiring manager, someone else on the team, and then someone from another team. I interviewed with the hiring manager and he liked me. So then he goes to schedule the interview w/ someone else on the team and keeps having to reschedule. I finally do the interview and it's the hiring manager again. He says "well it's supposed to be Clara (made up name), but she's not here today so i'll take her place". Kinda weird, but sort of a shoe-in for a company i've wanted to work at. Then the "other team" interview scheduling comes about and the guy for some reason can't find someone else from another team with the time to interview me. That's when I resigned from the interview process.
My suspicion is that some parts of Amazon are run VERY WELL and other are a complete insane asylum with no locks and skrillex blasting 24hrs a day.
corrosivesoul@reddit
Interesting approach. Personally, I would be very anxious about the quality of work a team is producing if they are on a death march. I have worked on death marches and the quality of the code was far worse than normal, and honestly, the quantity of code produced was lower than a normal schedule, once you factor in things that are so badly done they have to be reworked or replaced.
ahistoryofmistakes@reddit
Exception not the rule I'm afraid. When I was at Amazon it was clear the team had issues retaining senior devs and after a year I was the third most experienced person on the team. I could have shopped teams and tried the "interview with HM before official interview" but it was so draining I just left.
Also fair to mention team switching has become a much heavier lift with actual interview loops and a form for managers to queue potential transfers. Also remember the potential for focus blocking team transfers as well.
driftingphotog@reddit
Same experience. Tech Survey results are (or were?) public. Use them.
foxh8er@reddit
When I was at Amazon there was simply not enough work for me to give it more than 6 hours a day. There's also no real benefit to performing highly
what-no-really-why@reddit
Why not just let GenAI write all your code? /s
bentreflection@reddit
Before I had kids I regularly worked 10+ hours a day for close to 15 years. I just enjoyed feeling productive and I enjoy my job so it didn’t feel terrible. I think burnout comes when you feel you HAVE to do it or you’ll get fired or you dislike your coworkers/boss/project.
Twirrim@reddit
There's a whole slew of academic research that shows, regardless of the job, your actual overall productivity drops when you work more than 40 hours regularly. Crunch time long hours has a very very short period of effectiveness until you're actually making less progress than just having everyone do 40s.
Doing 10 hour days because you enjoy it is fine, if it's not burning you out. That's 10 hours of enjoyment every day. It is generally healthier, physically and mentally, though, to find other things to do with those 2 hours. Be that getting out and about, finding some non-computer based hobby, or similar. Brains aren't really designed to just do one thing constantly.
bentreflection@reddit
i agree completely. I now spend my time doing endurance sports and backpacking/hiking and wish i had spent more time when i was younger doing that rather than sitting behind a desk.
Goducks91@reddit
I’m kinda jealous. I hate coding but am in way too deep to switch careers.
darkforceturtle@reddit
Same, but I'm 4+ years into the field with a degree and a severe burnout and I hate it.
Goducks91@reddit
10 years in 🫡
Working on trying to move to an EM, to hopefully climb the ladder on the business side.
darkforceturtle@reddit
Best of luck!! Did you perhaps have a good employer in those 10 years or did you spend it all in burnout and exhaustion? Also wouldn't an engineering manager still have to code and mentor other engineers and therefore still have to keep up with coding?
I'm noticing there are more and more horrible employers now who demand too much work and chaos and are basically burnout factories (it's especially hard for me since I'm neurodivergent). Been thinking of switching to product management to get away from coding but not very sure.
jimRacer642@reddit
that's interesting, most ppl switch into coding, not the other way around
WhompWump@reddit
It's never too late to take up exercise as a hobby, everyone should do it
forbiddenknowledg3@reddit
Is that research for the average person who works to get paid? Because I highly doubt people who enjoy their work (e.g. founders) are more productive working fewer hours.
MoreRopePlease@reddit
Who actually codes for 8 hours a day? When I work 10 hours it's because I want to code, lol. Between design meetings, team meetings, answering questions, guiding juniors, writing designs and stories, ugh, some days just go by in a blur.
PuzzleheadedPop567@reddit
At smaller or newer companies, there’s often just a ton of things to do. And no supervision, you can basically just go out and design things how you want.
NatoBoram@reddit
I would be very surprised if that number is actually 40 and not closer to 30. The last 2 hours of a 8 hours work shift are basically useless.
aMonkeyRidingABadger@reddit
Not everyone works the same way. If I have some code I am genuinely interested in solving, 8-9 hours is no problem. On those days I usually just have a quick snack from the micro kitchen instead of lunch because I don’t want to stop.
And then I have to remind myself at the end of the day that the work will still be there tomorrow to make myself quit and go do something else. I could easily keep going if I didn’t set hard boundaries for myself.
iamakorndawg@reddit
Agreed this happens to me too!
Also in response to the parent comment, for me, it's probably the first 2 hours of work that are typically not productive.
MisterFatt@reddit
Yeah this is what I don’t get about people grinding 10 and 12 hour days. Basically anytime I do that, I have to rework everything I did in the last few hours, if I managed to get anything done at all. Not only am I bad at coding if I work too long, I also have less time where I’m able to think deeply and process problems without hacking away at a specific thing.
devhaugh@reddit
I don't even do 40. My contract is 37.5, and I might do 20ish a week.
DorianGre@reddit
My adhd has made working 14 hour days pretty easy on my mind, but terrible for my body
snrcambridge@reddit
How did you avoid the arm problems
EarthquakeBass@reddit
In my experience: (1) vertical mouse and Microsoft sculpt ergonomic keyboard, (2) rsipain stretching exercises, (3) stress and mental factor, it was very bizarre, but I swear there was an emotional satisfaction component, that once I tackled, it substantially helped
snrcambridge@reddit
Any mouse will eventually create shoulder and arm problems because of the continuous reaching. Vertical is obviously better but it only really helps the mouse arm not over develop in weird ways. I’ve just picked up a Svalboard and having the mouse and scroll right under the hands is the final solution (with an eye mouse for big movements) - 12YOE
gfivksiausuwjtjtnv@reddit
RSI could be from genetics or just being overweight honestly (extra fat pushing on nerve)
I spend a lot of my life coding, playing FPS games or tremolo picking metal songs on guitar at 200+bpm, never had arm or hand issues at all (but check out my neck and shoulder tension hahaha…)
pheonixblade9@reddit
burnout happens under two conditions (which are similar)
when you have accountability with no agency
when effort and reward are disconnected
mikaball@reddit
I don't know what are you talking about. In 18 years of career I rarely worked more then 8h a day, and with the option of home working and not spending 2h in transit, is better than before.
Right_Benefit271@reddit
At Amazon you have to work in office though? There is no option to avoid the 2h transit
TheFIREnanceGuy@reddit
Is your team hiring? :p
shifty_lifty_doodah@reddit
Gotta push back or get more efficient at what you’re doing. As you can see you’re burning out so this can’t continue.
One technique is just to work say 40 hours a week no matter what, and let them fire you if they’re not happy with that
Right_Benefit271@reddit
How can you avoid the manual testing and unproductive dev environments
generating_loop@reddit
Switch teams. Been at Amazon for almost 10 years (although, I'm an applied scientist not an SDE). I rarely work more than 40 a week, unless there's a real emergency.
There are a lot of good teams with decent work/life balance. Talk to a few, be very straightforward about your expectations of hours, and make sure to talk with the L4/L5/L6s who are a lot more likely to be honest about it.
I know a lot of devs/scientists here who work the same hours you do, and I know a lot who work reasonable hours. The difference is that myself and a latter group say no to projects that don't forward our careers and the team's main goals. Learn your team's big goals for the year - if someone asks you to work on something that doesn't directly improve your goals, don't work on it. If you need to prioritize - prioritize the thing that is best for your performance review. When you have your 1:1s, ask your manager what the most important things to work on are, and ask them to prioritize the list.
If a deadline is impossible (meaning, you can't do it within 40 hours at week), say that. Preferably in email, and preferably with a breakdown of task estimates. Make sure that if someone wants you to work more than 40 hours, you get them to say that in email so you can point to it later if needed.
wisead10@reddit
joining as a new grad what can i expect?
yetiflask@reddit
By not being a prima donna taking 2 stress leaves a month.
Humans are more than capable of working long.
UnexceptionableHobby@reddit
They don’t.
Amazon treats devs like lightbulbs. When one burns out you throw it away and replace it.
Normal_Help9760@reddit
They don't. That's a why turnover is insanely high in at Amazon.
load__error@reddit
how this is future-proof if they are losing the knowledge with people all the time? Maybe higher tiers look different?
Dave9876@reddit
They consider you expendable. You either burn out, or...there is no other option. Join your union!
Zaprey@reddit
9
4_fuks_sakes@reddit
Devs need to quit and tell others don't apply
paholg@reddit
I worked for Amazon for a few years. I never worked 12 or even 10 hour days, and absolutely never on a weekend.
If you're given an impossible deadline, communicate clearly that it's impossible. Then, work your 40 hours a week.
If you see your coworkers overworking themselves, tell them to stop.
If management pressures you to work more hours, tell them they're being unreasonable and potentially start looking for a new job.
It's just a job. It's not worth killing yourself over.
GrizzyLizz@reddit
I never learnt how to pull this off, partially because I'm not very good at giving estimations. Feels like I'm always chasing deadlines because I didn't push back during project planning. How long did it take you to get good at estimating tasks? I work at a company with many different microservives and lots of internal tools. I'm still working on getting better at reading new codebases so I'm never confident when a task involves diving into a new codebase
nimbledaemon@reddit
Buffer time dude. Just always over estimate by 50%-100%, if asked for a justification say you think x could end up being complicated and need some rework if the first solution doesn't work out. If you finish early, finish early, it's always easier to move on to new stuff than say you need more time for something. This is why agile story points are supposed to be specific to a team, and not represent a specific due date or time estimate or transferable comparison between teams evaluation, because software development is not a constant rate guaranteed estimation type of thing. Plenty of things will take less time, and plenty of things will take more time than you thought. But finishing early will be seen as being productive, even if you weren't actually working that hard on the thing. Pace yourself 90% of the time, so you have enough in the tank for the 10% or less of the time you actually need to crunch.
nullpotato@reddit
The classic fallback strategy of guess, then double it and add 10%. Shockingly accurate a lot of the time.
paholg@reddit
I'm terrible at estimating tasks. But deadlines aren't real, it's okay to miss them.
brainhack3r@reddit
This is a really important thing - especially for new engineers.
If you're young you don't realize that you can tell your manager "no"
Life-Principle-3771@reddit
Depends on who your manager is. There are definitely a fair number of old school Indian managers at Amazon that see being told no as time to start managing someone out.
brainhack3r@reddit
Works for me! Honestly, these things end up working in your favor. :)
Prudent_healing@reddit
How can you program there for 80hrs? It’s not as if the product is completely new and needs built from scratch or am I missing something?
otomino@reddit
As an experience that survived this word for 12 years... Not all 12 hours must be brutal. Save time to be relaxed. Do not respond on time all the time. It is important to show delay in the tasks. Take a look at the future and keep time for you. I mean do not be lazy.. just need to find a room in the working day for you. Otherwise you will die in 2 years
-ry-an@reddit
The answer is cocaine.
No_Life_2303@reddit
You don’t (but still brag about it as if it was some type of flex).
ass_staring@reddit
A good friend of mine is going for 5 years now and has been stuck at mid level since he joined. 💀
Life-Principle-3771@reddit
Very normal. I saw strong L5's that had been at that level for over a decade.
ass_staring@reddit
Interesting. The way he puts it, he’s always passed for promo while everyone else is not. I suspect what holds him back but I rather not indulge in those thoughts or getting involved because we are friends.
There seems to be this expectation that if you are not progressing to at least senior you will eventually get laid off but from what you say its a normal level to plateau at in Amazon. Good to know.
Life-Principle-3771@reddit
L5 is terminal. No such thing as being passed for promo you must force them to promote you. Also it's very hard/ competitive to get Senior scoped projects on most teams so you have to be pushing hard for promotion
Ok_Afternoon5172@reddit
Senior (L6) bar is pretty high (at least it was), requires the right opportunities, and some politics. If they are stuck, it's on them to get unstuck.
L6 isn't passed out just someone has X amount of experience. There are many L5s that have many years of experience and are just happy to stay at that level since the L6 scope is super wide.
zero02@reddit
Work 40 hours. Pretend to work harder but don’t.
Decent_Project_3395@reddit
What ends up happening is that people integrate their lives into the job. The number of hours is detrimental to productivity, but the bosses expect the hours. As you burn out, you get less productive. Some people find ways to cheat, and this is why the back to the office movement is happening. They want to see you in front of a screen for those 12 hours. But developers who are burned out aren't inspired.
Don't take this to your bosses. Amazon is brutal. You may want to figure out how others around you are coping. You probably need to research burn out as it is pretty well covered on Youtube and the web.
Everybody kind of has their optimum workweek and then they have a limit. My limit used to be about 50 hours before I would slowly slide into burnout. You just have to figure it out, and it will change based on any number of variables both internal and external, so it really is on you to figure out. Good luck.
BertRenolds@reddit
Amazon burns through people plain and simple. You need to establish boundaries from the start.
wcolfaxguy@reddit
what people need to learn is that you should join the B tier companies, make 70% of the same comp, but work half as much
chinniya@reddit
Please list good b tier companies
dudeitsandy@reddit
Any good examples? More curious on your take on the b tier than anything else :)
Eastern-Injury-8772@reddit
On top of that, most of the work seems useless and unengineering.
Frenzeski@reddit
Someone i know developed an eating disorder
Popular_Plankton_112@reddit
As long as he did meet their deadliness...
Frenzeski@reddit
There’s a morbid joke here about his wrinkles that I can’t quite find
Popular_Plankton_112@reddit
These are not wrinkles. These are badges for him compensating for the errors of management.
I hope his supervisors will remember them in the future.
Which btw. did not (a) start the projects enough, (b) did not plan enough personell capacity or (c) to change plans when it became obvious that the deadline could not be met.
Joke aside, if the personell has to do overtime regularly there is not enough personell in a company. It is not the job of the employees to compensate for this.
At least where I am from.
red_rare_reini@reddit
You need to actively engage with shaping those deadlines. If you don't tell them exactly what they will get within the time give they will roll the dice for you and impose their unrealistic expectations on you.
Key-Ad-8526@reddit
I’ve been an engineer at AWS for over 8 years now. Not every team in Amazon is putting their nose to the grindstone constantly. It depends on your leadership and the deadlines they set. If you’re constantly working weekends and 10+ hour days that could be a problem with how your leadership is planning or perhaps they’re not pushing back enough on unreasonable deadlines. Also if you’re working on a new product, there’s going to be a lot of pressure to get new features to market quickly.
I will say that since Jassy took the reins, there’s been more top-down mandates that are eating up every teams time and mounting pressure to get things done more quickly. It hasn’t always been like that though.
travelinzac@reddit
They all burn out in 12-18 months and never vest the majority of their RSUs.
aceshades@reddit
i work at amazon, these kind of crunch periods come and go. i had a pretty rough week this week, but the sprint before was fairly chill. like <20 hours worked kind of chill.
every time i find myself and my team in crunch i take it as a personal and professional duty to raise that up to management. for the most part, unless you have a pretty psychopathic management chain, they generally understand that working this much is not feasible in the long run. they don't want you to actually be working this much. they don't. not really. they just want you to meet the deadline more. if they can get you to meet a deadline and also have work life balance, i think most human beings would prefer that.
so the enemy is the deadline. and unfortunately that battle needs to be fought, tooth and nail, like existentially, by engineering against management VERY early on a project's lifecycle. by the time the team is in crunch, it's often too late. what happens in my experience is either:
ultimately, the failure of crunch falls on planning and on management. engineering does have to provide reliable inputs to that planning so we take some responsibility. try to avoid/improve the above since these are things that you can hopefully influence. if you get zero traction on any of this, i would lose faith in management. my 1:1 meetings with my manager would grow increasingly more agitated until i leave and find a new team.
Sorry_Beyond_6559@reddit
With AI and offshoring, these work hours are becoming pretty standard. The fact is, American professionals have had it REALLY cush for a long time, and you need to fight every day to justify your salary compared to cheaper alternatives. I’d say upskilling and cranking work out 60+ hrs a week is a minimum, and it’s only going to get worse.
There’s not much time before we’re all replaced and those with the least means starve on the street, so work hard and save aggressively to give yourself the best chance of avoiding a painful death in the post-apocalyptic hellscape the greed of the bourgeoisie is driving us to.
PruneLegitimate2074@reddit
“Laughs in blue collar” I’ve worked 6 12-14 hour days for 10 months a years for the last ten years.
ForTheLoveOfNoodles@reddit
If you work more than 8 hours a day as a dev, you need to work on your boundaries and use your “no”.
GuessNope@reddit
No one else will ever say No for you.
GuessNope@reddit
It has been known since the 1970's that people cannot do this.
The seminal work was Mythical Man Month. It was resurmised in Peopleware.
You just end up with "under time" where people are at "work" but not getting effective work done.
Google is actually much worse followed by Amazon and Microsoft used to do this but I believe they stopped. They take advantage of fresh graduates and actively try to ruin your life via "delayed adolescence" subterfuge.
This is why they have such ridiculous churn.
This is why they have to pay their supervisors and managers such obscene salaries.
They have built and image of "the place to be" but they are abject shitholes of incompetency.
Google is the most ineptly run company in human history. They waste $75B/yr on six functional products.
And their success wasn't even their own; it was a gift from Steve Jobs making the smart-phone hip right when Google finally figured out how to monetize search. This caused a tidal flow of advertisement dollars from all fop the legacy media conglomerates into Google coffers. This is why they can afford to be so preposterously incompetent.
YareSekiro@reddit
jkingsbery@reddit
I've worked at Amazon coming up in 9 years. (Obviously, just sharing my experience...) The times my boss has asked me to work 10 hour days have been rare, and were short term. For the most part, the work life balance has been better at Amazon than most other places I've worked (and Amazon is the 6th company I've worked for, so I have a decent sampling).
It's important to set boundaries, but I haven't seen many issues enforcing those boundaries once set. I don't put work email on my phone, for example, and I tell my coworkers, so they know I'm not going to respond outside of normal hours unless I get paged in to a high sev issue. I also mark my calendar as out of office for the hours I don't work.
hibikir_40k@reddit
My understanding from many people that tried stints there is that it depends a lot on where you land. There are orgs where there's no such things as boundaries, and you have to bounce. In others, it's a constant death march. Sometimes nothing can ever get done because there's too many fires, and never enough people to actually fix the source of said fires.
When you get to Amazon size, there's no such thing as a standard experience.
hibikir_40k@reddit
Some... Don't.
A friend of mine used to work in Amazon, on the retail website. They were there from pretty early Amazon, and it was the first job from school, so they didn't know better. 6 day weeks, every week. 8 hours at the office, then take the ferry, then work from home. Eventually, my friend was working on something important, but caught pneumonia. They were pressured to work full hours through said pneumonia. This left them with permanently scarred lungs, and therefore really weak lung capacity. They travel with an oxygen machine. Eventually they realized this was too much, and outright abusive, quit, and took a 1 year sabbatical. When they tried to work elsewhere though, they realized that they had build such trauma around coding that they couldn't keep a tech job, or have the physical endurance for most non-tech jobs. The Amazon machine had chewed them out, and now they were disabled. The only good bit is that sufficient years of early Amazon, while not as good as early google, meant that non-dismal super early retirement... but again, at the cost of scarred lungs.
I've worked that hard, elsewhere, for about two years, but it was for extreme compensation. I knew I was not going to last long, and i'd not work through sickness, but that this would make compound interest be forever in my favor. Too many people that try to go much longer either end up disabled like my friend, or sometimes straight out dead early: My dad didn't get to 45 from overwork. I've had a supervisor die from a heart attack before 50 too. The body gives out, and you only get one.
double-xor@reddit
Just curious - what happens if just you just nope out? You try fired right away?
mello-t@reddit
Good ol work/life blending. There is a reason most folks dip after the equity vest.
MachineOfScreams@reddit
They don’t. It’s a very high burnout environment and they constantly churn through employees.
arekxv@reddit
This is pretty much the reason I didn't even consider Amazon for dev work. Find a company which sees you as a person, not as a number.
Embarrassed-Ebb-1970@reddit
I left ProServe FedCiv after two years. During Covid we were working 7am to sometimes 3am everyday and some weekends, on repeat for months. We were burnt out, most of the team left when I did.
Any-Fox-5446@reddit
How do you even work 7am to 3am at a tech job? You're going to producing garbage buggy code after the first couple hours.
ancientweasel@reddit
My question is how does even Amazon hire devs when everybody know they will get used?
I laugh when I see messages from Amazon recruiters and I got a lot as a Re::Invent speaker.
Any-Fox-5446@reddit
Insane salary/benefits band when compared to anyone that isn't FAANG.
latchkeylessons@reddit
Most of them don't. They just burn through high performers for the most part. There's some good teams, but they're by far the exception. Most people that stick around have very serious life problems going on that either force them into it or as a result of the work. And then most of them also have very serious addiction problems to be high performing. It's not pleasant to be around for a long time.
lilpig_boy@reddit
kinda presumptuous and rude. i don't know any high performers that have addiction problems. maybe they are generally intense people? almost all the people i know who have had personal/health problems end up being substantially less productive and leaving as a result. i'm sure what you describe happens but i think it is implausible to claim that it is the norm.
Any-Fox-5446@reddit
The highest performing person I know in cybersecurity has a very serious drug addiction to ketamine and marijuana. They also have severe identity issues leading to them to think they were trans, they hate their parents and are ostracized from them, and do nothing but work all day.
In development I've seen a lot of the highest performers get divorced frequently. Many of them abuse addy which is just a legal amphetamines addiction.
latchkeylessons@reddit
I don't presume anything. I've worked with many people over there over the years and many others at similar companies that have a reputation for being body shops.
kotlin93@reddit
Same, lot of coke/addy fiends
Aromatic-Pizza-4782@reddit
He’s saying you’re addicted to achievement. And he’s broadly right that you may not be fun to work with, based on your prickly response.
floyd_droid@reddit
One of my friends was at Amazon who is addicted to work and hell bent on getting a promotion.
He did get the promotion but as a bonus, also got divorced. I know how many fights they had due to him working looong hours with no end in sight. I’m sure he didn’t share everything with me. She wasn’t ready for the ride.
csanon212@reddit
Yeah if your wife is not from corporate America she will not understand. I've always had the impression that Amazon is for unmarried folks, or people with spouses who also have demanding corporate jobs
Life-Principle-3771@reddit
I was on an AWS team with international Relo for hiring. We were working...probably 60 a week at the time. All of the Chinese/Indian guys that we brought in on international relo absolutely loved our wlb, so it kinds depends on your perspective/baseline.
agumonkey@reddit
you mean that good devs are exploited and juiced until they can be replaced ?
_marcx@reddit
The last year or two have been especially brutal. I don’t recall it being so busy before then, but I’m still relatively new comparatively
Routine-Committee302@reddit
I am new to AWS and have been here for 4 months, and I am burnt out too. Haven't taken a single day off, and I really need to. But I am PE, so this was expected?
codescout88@reddit
The key to avoiding burnout in software development isn’t working harder—it’s working smarter. A good software engineer focuses on the most critical requirements, eliminating unnecessary work and bottlenecks.
Smart design decisions reduce complexity and prevent technical debt, while a sustainable pace ensures long-term productivity. If long hours are the norm, it usually signals broken processes or poor planning. The best engineers prioritize efficiency, set boundaries, and make smart trade-offs, rather than just grinding endlessly. Success comes from making the right decisions, not working the most hours.
Life-Principle-3771@reddit
Massive scale cloud computing is impossible without long hours at this point. Everyone on every big team was getting worked really hard when I was at AWS. I went to GCP and it was exactly the same. I know several people and Azure and it's not different. Maybe someday in the future we will find a better way but right now it's impossible to not get into ops hell imo.
codescout88@reddit
This makes sense for cloud infrastructure teams, but the original post was about Amazon devs in general. For many product and application teams, smart planning and prioritization can help avoid long hours.
Minimum_Elk_2872@reddit
No. It’s about knowing what your manager and PMs want and need.
codescout88@reddit
That’s just part of focusing on the most critical requirements and working efficiently.
Minimum_Elk_2872@reddit
Only if what they want and need is aligned with the business.
aneasymistake@reddit
I did this for about five years in the games industry. Then I decided that could go fuck itself and I haven’t done if for the last twenty years. I know I could get paid a lot more if I worked at Amazon. I don’t think they’d hire me anyway, but this does not seem to be a problem.
wgfdark@reddit
If I enjoy what I am doing I can do 70hrs/week easy. Have done it at start ups though. Hated big tech, so hard to move the needle
Sad-Prior-1733@reddit
While Bezos smiles and spends over 1 million going to the moon and divorcing and remarrying, losing millions just to have his way.
martianhacker@reddit
They stay for a little longer than a year grab their RSU’s and move on. 😁
Unsounded@reddit
I’ve been at Amazon for almost 6 years - the trick is that most people who stay here a long time don’t work more than 30-40 hours a week.
There are only a few times when I work long hours, I’m either oncall, or there’s a major crunch. But for the most part that only happens a handful of times a year. Every time it does happen I’m told to take time back.
In fact it’s the most flexible and reasonable job I’ve had. That’s not everyone’s experience - it’s a large and vast company. But my org is pretty reasonable about just letting you do what you need to do so long as you hit targets. There are areas of the company where you are expected to work extremely long hours consistently, but in my opinion those are rarer, and it’s so easy to transfer internally you can escape from them if needed.
Bushwazi@reddit
It's easy, they don't!
Adderalin@reddit
Only way I'd be able to work at Amazon is if I underwent the Severance procedure.
stoneg1@reddit
In my experience they find teams that have good wlb. I started on a team that had a great wlb. I probably worked 30 hours a week on average and never left the team. We had orgs and teams we knew were nightmares (dyanamodb, kuiper i heard were the worst).
Look to switch teams, look for teams with higher tenure and principle engineers. Teams with high tenure usually have good wlb, and teams with principal engineers usually have good promo opportunities.
BusyCryptographer544@reddit
Learn to say no
Mysterious_Item_8789@reddit
I left the day my RSUs vested at the 2 year mark, and I'm far from the only one. Amazon chews people up and spits them out. Stay as long as you can, and have them on your resume. Then find some place that values that experience and values you.
scalorn@reddit
I learned to say no when people give impossible schedules/deadlines. And if they do it anyway work only my 40 hrs. When they wail and gnash their teeth I just smile and nod.
People only have the power over you that you give them.
I have been a dev at Amazon for over 19 years now. SDO Tier 1 critical path backend services for the most part.
goato305@reddit
Does the big paycheck help with that or nah?
Fun-Diamond1363@reddit
Im not at Amazon but Im getting run to the ground at my mid level startup. Worst part is we just laid off a bunch of people so now it’s just going to…get worse.
My solution is to start interviewing
Rinktacular@reddit
Not only just Amazon, all of FAANG. I’ve seen it as a contractor, not an FTE, and let me tell you it’s bad.
Calendars that devs have to block off time for them NOT to be working (like 10pm-3am) but “available” otherwise, even those with kids and spouses. It’s not sustainable. Most of them know this but are so accustomed to the amenities and high pay that they know they lose it if they walk away.
They buy into the ecosystem of their particular company and accept it as the only option because non-FAANG isn’t going to pay you $400k, not even close. Buy giving up the role, you accept that your lifestyle will also have to change.
Some burn out, some divorce, some make it work long term. I’ve seen each instance of this and it made me realize Google, for example, is not the dream company I used to think it was, or at least is no longer that any longer.
hgrwxvhhjnn@reddit
After a big project like that I take time off like 1-2 weeks
g0atdude@reddit
Worked 4 years at amazon, I was chilling with 4-5 hours per day.
I guess its very team dependent
sneaky-pizza@reddit
One Amazon dev I know became an alcoholic and ruined a good relationship
Ill-Ad2009@reddit
You have to take a stand before you burn out. Lesson learned. You need to take a stand now, quit, or wait until you are inevitably fired for poor performance caused by burnout.
Im2bored17@reddit
Learn to say no. Manager asks you to do task X. But I am working on task Y, is X more important? What are the consequences if Y slips? I can only focus on one task at a time.
If you lost half a sprint due to on-call, stuff slips and you point to the on-call tickets and say "of course it slipped". Once the on call burden starts fucking up your delivery dates, management has to start caring about the on-call burden.
If you get paged at night, sleep in. If you work 10hrs one day, work 6 or 7 the next. If you work 60 hrs one week, it better be for an important and imminent deadline, and you should chill the next week and mention recovering from burnout. if anyone has the nerve to ask why you're not committing to a full workload. "yeah i was in the office from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed every day last week so I'm taking Monday to spend some time with my family, let me know if that's a problem."
Rough-Supermarket-97@reddit
When I read this I’m curious what devs are working on that require you to work more than like 10 hours a day
break_card@reddit
I’ve been working at Amazon for close to 7 years now - not all Amazon teams are like that.
notger@reddit
Total(!) productivity goes down(!) if you work for more than 40 hours. Enough studies on that. For knowledge workers, it is even less.
So the correct answer is: Don't work for more than 40 hours, ever. If you do, then you getting less(!) done and increase your stress.
Go home when you feel empty, turn off any work notifications and get at things with a rested head and at full power the next day.
(Sorry for the exclamation marks. I want to make sure you get this right.)
Junglebook3@reddit
Amazon attrition is higher than the industry average.
Emotional_Act_461@reddit
Rack up those 2 years on your resume then go to a smaller company for a higher position with more money and better work/life balance.
Substantial-Tie-4620@reddit
meth
csanon212@reddit
Actually kind of true. I heard there was a culture of Adderall there
Perfect-Campaign9551@reddit
What projects can they even have? Just tweaking current stuff?
jrodbtllr138@reddit
It sucks, but count your lucky stars, some people work more for less.
Had an extended period of time at a tech implementation consulting (programming) firm where I worked minimum 70, max 97 BILLABLE hours per week. It was 7 days a week and late nights, but I didn’t have to come in until 1pm on Sundays. Did I mention it was for 60k per year salary.
How to not burn out when working extreme hours: 1) Take care of your body. Get proper sleep, eat well, drink water, exercise (something that’s enjoyable. If you like lifting or running then sure, do that but I typically enjoyed dancing and sports when working crazy hours). 2) When you get off from work, completely disconnect. Do not think about it, turn off all devices so you aren’t notified. 3) Allow yourself to be still. Close your eyes and slowly look side to side. Helps to reset. 4) Try to keep some novelty in your life. Try some new food, a new activity, talk to a new person etc. Don’t fall into the trap of monotony.
captain_obvious_here@reddit
I have two friends working at Amazon, both started at least 10 years ago. The secret seems to be to change team often: stay in the teams where you're not overworked, and switch when work becomes too intensive.
F_for_FOMO@reddit
You’re not supposed to meet the impossible deadlines. Your team screwed yourselves over by meeting it. Now all deadlines will be like that. Sometimes, you have to let the project run over to keep your sanity. If you told management the deadline is not possible/unreasonable, then you later deliver on time, you lose credibility and now management knows they squeeze this out of you. Amazon rewards managers that are able to “do more with less.” Something something frugality. You have to stand your ground and say no. Clock out after 40hrs a week.
Neither_Ad_9675@reddit
People take long vacations. To prep and start interviewing.
PanicV2@reddit
Almost everyone I know who worked there vested and left after 3.
That kind of money motivates, especially when you're getting started.
Skithiryx@reddit
You don’t.
I was on a team with good work/life balance and could easily work 40 hour weeks plus the occasional week of pager duty (where we were encouraged to take it easy once the issue was mitigated if our pager went off outside work hours). The worst time period for me was when we had deadlines outside of our own control - like for instance the new Echo device is launching on this date decided by the hardware team and needs this feature from Music to be ready for its launch.
But also these things are tenuous - I had a good run but after I left the team I was on got re-orged into an org with much more ops burden and that was being squeezed by their management. Almost everyone I worked with hated it and left, either leaving the company or internal transferring in hopes of a better environment.
Ragnarotico@reddit
Most people don't last 2 years at Amazon. That's also conveniently when the salary cliffs and you get RSUs instead.
CW-Eight@reddit
I was there 16 years as a dev. I simply didn’t work anything like those kind of hours. Fuck that. I’m not saying other groups didn’t expect that, but I picked my groups based on the right balance of interesting stuff to work on and sane expectations.
imstuckunderyourmom@reddit
We don’t
poipoipoi_2016@reddit
They leave or they die and by that I mean I lost two coworkers.
I remember one of their names and consider this a point of deep personal shame.
Wooden-Glove-2384@reddit
I suspect many quit, name drop Amazon on their resumes and get jumped to the front of the line
IeatAssortedfruits@reddit
My teams kinda chill right now but I just started. Maybe I’ll just get axed in 6 months though.
Pretend_Pepper3522@reddit
Meh this trope about amzn. Is not been my experience. Don’t take any job you don’t love. I love amzn. It’s very much a personality type that will thrive there and depends on the team you’re in, i suppose. If you are honest with yourself and those around you, you can’t go wrong, though it may not be a good fit… and that’s ok!
godless_communism@reddit
I think most just go there to get their ticket punched on their resume for a couple years, then bail. I think Amazon intentionally burns out both programmers and warehouse people.
nofishies@reddit
Some teams are brutal. Some teams are mellow the people who stay tend to be on the mellow teams.
Loose-Potential-3597@reddit
Why don't you just internal transfer? It's easy at Amazon. Not all teams have bad WLB.
Ok-Wolf9774@reddit
I got burnt out because of the chaos at workplace more than the actual work.
jeerabiscuit@reddit
You apply request throttling.
nikwhite@reddit
429 Too Many Requests Retry-after: 604800
PredictableChaos@reddit
The point is to burn you out before you hit the higher vesting periods in your RSU grants. Is it still standard practice that they backload your RSU vesting schedule?
rexspook@reddit
This theory makes no sense. They front load it with cash.
nguyening@reddit
the theory makes some sense, but only if the stock is sailing past the initial projections fo 10-15% growth.
Twirrim@reddit
Yes, that's still how they do RSU *but* I think that tends to give the wrong impression, at least as things where when I was there. What they did was for the first couple of years until those RSUs are in full flow is give you a straight cash bonus that mostly fills the gap. Of course, I was just shy of 3 years when I quit, so I never actually got a full load of RSUs :)
February_29th_2012@reddit
You’re correct, that’s still how it is. The first two years when it’s pure cash is the best, especially these days when the stock is flat.
mrchowmein@reddit
Or just let you go. Either way, unless you’re loved by someone important, not being fully vested keeps costs low.
lilpig_boy@reddit
they changed it this year to quarterly. but in any case it isn't really relevant. they give 1-2 year sign on bonuses that put you at your target comp for years 1-2.
EvilCodeQueen@reddit
It’s a feature, not a bug.
xabrol@reddit
I work for a consulting company in with a base $175k salary. We work in exactly 40 hours. If I work over 40 I get x 1.10 pay, abd 50+ is x 1.2 pay. So over 50 im making $100 an hour.
Thats how I survive, making bank. And because I get OT, ot is rare.
The way I get overtime is by volunteering for swarm projects. I just signed up for one that is 80 hours over the next 4 weeks.
If I choose to and work 80 hours on the same paycheck I'll have 160 hours on one two week check. If I do that itll be well over $13k on one check.
I used to have a job where I had to work crazy hours just to hit goals and deadlines but I quit that. And yeah I burned myself out.
Now I work for a company where the harder I work the more money I make. I get paid for everything.
rexspook@reddit
Either they’re in a good org or they leave after a couple of years. I don’t work long hours and I never work weekends outside of on call which happens every few months
thedancingpanda@reddit
Some people are really efficient and can fit the work into normal hours and aren't bothered by this. Some people live to code and build products and aren't bothered by this. Some people like money more than anything else and aren't bothered by this. The rest leave.
ElliotAlderson2024@reddit
They're Uber menschen.
Zentrosis@reddit
This is why I never accepted a position at Amazon
mad_pony@reddit
4 years at Amazon. I don't work long hours and I had never been encouraged to work long hours. Plan your tasks properly and escalate in time, and you'll be fine.
SnooSquirrels8097@reddit
It’s a big company. You don’t have to stay on a shitty team
throwaway0134hdj@reddit
Either conditioned by their families or they are on h1b and it’s either this or go back to their country.
Mr_Gobble_Gobble@reddit
Did you explicitly tell your manager this in your one on one? As a group did you all voice your burnout in retros?
Acapulco00@reddit
L Cow Cow?
illustrious_feijoa@reddit
A lot of us don't work long hours. I'm not saying Amazon is a great place to work (it sucks for a lot of reasons), but it sounds like you're on the wrong team.
FatFailBurger@reddit
You work until you're vested then you find a cushy job elsewhere.
lilpig_boy@reddit
That isn't a reasonable workload so I think it is a failure of your EM/TPM for putting you in that position. I'd guess they were more unaware than malicious, and because people put up with this their behavior doesn't change. I think in many orgs/teams there is at least lip service given to reasonable WLB, and making it known up front that a deadline is impossible to meet by working during normal hours should encourage them to push the deadline and/or admit that they were the ones that fucked up by understaffing.
sleepyguy007@reddit
i did 10 hours a day... at startups for probably a decade. so it was like amazon just with 1/2 the pay and no faang company on my resume. I could grind like that in my 20s and 30s without a lot of outside responsibilities and misguided hope.
It snot like they work in a coal mine 12 hours a day, theres varying levels of hard work
Diligent-Seaweed-242@reddit
Agreed, you just burn out. I burnt out after ~6 years. But that said, I also had cycles where I worked crazy hours and then would get 2-4 weeks of just light work/open in one of the teams which helped. The trick is to know what those teams are if you want to stay.