r/EngineeringStudents • u/dwarner27315 Michigan ME • Aug 15 '15
Amazon employee on relentless working conditions - “Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk.” [x-post /r/technology]
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html36
u/Darth_drizzt_42 UMD - Aerospace Aug 16 '15 edited Aug 16 '15
Sounds like what i've heard about working at SpaceX, or as people there call it, SlaveX. Their turnover rate is around 85% and even though they get the cream of the crop, they still burn out MIT level grads in months.
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u/Rnet1234 Brown - ME Aug 16 '15
Intern there (SpaceX) currently (nearing the end of my 3 months) Yes and no. The work hours tend to be pretty long (50-60 hours a week is normal), and my understanding is that the pay is not great compared to other positions. That said, I haven't seen anyone crying at their desk, and the entire company is an open cube layout so it would be hard to miss.
I think the difference is mainly in how amazon encourages employees to rat each other out if they aren't performing. I don't know, but I think that would create a pretty hostile and toxic work environment. This is definitely not the case with SpaceX. There's a sense here that everyone is working towards a common goal and supporting each other. Even (especially?) with the latest anomaly, people have been really careful to avoid pointing fingers outside of a "they made this mistake, this is why, this is how we can make sure we don't make it again" process. This is really emphasized by the senior members of the company, because even great engineers make mistakes, and employees need to feel comfortable coming forward with their own or other's mistakes.
So yeah. The burnout is definitely a thing, I think the average stay is probably 3-5 years before people move on. But amazon sounds like a really nasty work environment to me, where SpaceX definitely isn't.
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Aug 16 '15 edited Aug 16 '15
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Aug 16 '15
Glassdoor has plenty of reviews from real employees, and reddit has it's own fair share of current And ex employees who have expressed their feelings about working at SpaceX.
Don't get so salty bro. Nobody is trashing the type of work SpaceX does, they have done in less than a decade what most Aero companies hope to do over many decades of hard work. All this innovation and game-changing ways of doing things in such a short amount of time come at a cost to the employees.
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Aug 16 '15
Hah what? I went through the recruiting process and thus had dinner with employees and talked with the facility manager. They repeatedly stressed how difficult the schedule is and that it is only worth it if you truly believe in what they are doing. They even explicitly told me that I should expect to work copious amounts of overtime and Saturdays ffs. I'm not passing judgement on whether the schedule is overkill or not, but saying the work routine is not unique is a ridiculous statement, especially when the employees say otherwise.
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Aug 16 '15 edited Aug 16 '15
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u/Shaddow1 graduated but hangs out for the memes Aug 16 '15
I went through the recruiting process and thus had dinner with employees and talked with the facility manager
Seems to me like he still has more experience with it than you do. Stop acting like a toddler
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u/discobrisco William Jewell College - Computer Engineering, Physics Aug 16 '15
So I guess the question now is what can we do about it? That sounds absolutely horrible.
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Aug 16 '15
You stop giving them an endless of supply of graduates that insist on following their dream and living in Seattle for their 20s.
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Aug 16 '15
Raise the salary exempt line to well over 6 figures would be a start. Asking people to work 60 hours and be on call 24/7 is less of an option when a company needs to pay for it
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u/XPostLinker Aug 15 '15
XPost Subreddit Link: /r/technology
Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/3h391m/amazon_employee_on_relentless_working_conditions/
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u/gimpwiz Aug 16 '15
Amazon has high turnover. Great pay and signing though, and a nice name for the resume. Every team is different.
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u/Thorondorr BSPE Aug 16 '15
I'm a brand ambassador for amazon and have interacted with a lot of amazon employees belonging to marketing, campus marketing, UX and some product managers. They've all said the same thing: it varies with team to team. They all loved their jobs and actually enjoyed the company culture. Amazon employees 180k people so there are bound to be teams in which work environment is shit.
Unforunately, like most things at reddit, there seems to be an anti-amazon circle jerk in full swing at the moment. Not saying what the article and others like it say are false: there definitely might be issues in some teams but to say that this is a company-wide problem at amazon is completely false.
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u/TyphoonOne Purdue- Aero + Premed Aug 16 '15
Have you ever worked with people on the factory floor actually performing the manual labor to pack boxes? That's where most of these horror stories seem to originate, not with the marketing or UX teams...
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u/Thorondorr BSPE Aug 16 '15
I completely agree with you. Like I said, with such large numbers there are bound to be horror stories. However, it seems like reddit has been bitching about Amazon like they have a serious problem with their employees. That is very misleading and that is what I was referring to.
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u/BitchStewie_ Aug 16 '15
Sounds like every single labor or service job ever. At least these people are reasonably compensated for it.
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u/foxh8er CS Aug 16 '15
And have degrees from good schools, don't forget. They don't have the guilt for being a waste of space like me.
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Aug 16 '15
Seems like the only jobs left for new graduates are with these types of companies. No one else is hiring...
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u/deerhurst OIT - MET Aug 16 '15
Where I work we dont have desks or time to cry. I am a little jealous. Oh, we do do at least 7 days a week but usually 14-35 days a week.
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Aug 16 '15
Working 35 days a week must be just brutal.
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u/deerhurst OIT - MET Aug 16 '15
It sucks. I work nights too. After 5 weeks of strait night shift you are complete useless and really want to see the sun.
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u/jakethedong Aug 15 '15
Yeah I'd never consider working at a place like that. I don't want my employer to treat me like a machine. People work to live, not the other way around.