Amazon only changes things when it has to, and only in a lip-service kind of way. There was a flurry of discussion and proposals when the article was published, but it's all died down and we're back to where we were beforehand.
Compensation, culture, and perks are infinitely better at Google, Facebook, Lyft, Uber, etc. All of them start vesting your stock monthly after 1 year, whereas Amazon has a ridiculous vesting schedule (5% after year 1, 15% after year 2, 20% every 6 months thereafter). Not to mention the awful 401k matching, no free food/drinks, terrible drab offices, etc. All in the name of "frugality." Leadership claims that our competitors waste their money on these things, despite all of them being insanely profitable with higher employee happiness and retention.
I'm working on moving to one of the above competitors now. I recommend avoiding Amazon, even if the role you've been offered sounds cool.
Thanks, this made things clear. I was seriously considering joining until the responses in this thread. Its better to wait for another offer for few more months rather than suffering for the next 2-3 years.
I think it really depends on the team you're on at Amazon. (well, the vesting, free drinks etc doesn't).
I never found the NYT article to be even slightly representative of my time at Amazon, and the group I was in at the time made additional changes to help improve morale that really worked. I believe you can find a good, or bad, team to work on at Amazon, and I assume the same is true of other big companies too (I have worked at another big company and it was true there too).
If anyone here honestly believes free food and office decor stack up as benefits right alongside retirement benefits and vesting schedules, please take a step back and evaluate your life. I'd rather live on a software developer's salary with no 401k access and a 6 year vesting cliff than live on 2/3rd the salary with immediate vesting and a generous 401k match.
In year 0-6, I would think the latter case comes up better, assuming (which is definitely true at like, all large tech companies) that yearly stock + 401k match (not even touching tax benefits) is better than 1/3 of your salary?
I would think stock + 401k > 1/3 salary basically
(this was true for me at Workday, anyway)
I'm curious as to what level you're at. I hear that there is a pretty hard line between Principal engineer and SDE, in that Principle engineer is a pretty good gig.
I interviewed for a C# dev job at their new Dublin offices in the old Irish Nationwide building. I had to attend a recruitment open day watching presentations about why Amazon is so great and then come back a few days later for a surprisingly easy technical and HR interview.
Despite being refurbished their work space looked very basic and clinical, but at least there were good views on the higher floors. No free food, just tea and coffee.
The package they offered me was pretty poor. Salary was above average for my skill level, but zero perks. No share options, no flexi-time, and a PRSA pension scheme instead of a real one.
I asked about perks only to be told they weren't offering such generous packages at that time. I found this odd as I didn't contact them, they found my details on LinkedIn and approached me. In those circumstances I would have expected some perks to sweeten the deal.
A colleague of mine moved to a senior position in Amazon Dublin about 3 years back. He quit in less than a year after being fed up with the ultra conservative attitudes of the people calling the shots there. He also mentioned they're pretty frugal when it comes to employee perks. Also you had to be on call two weekends a month. But it's a big company so maybe he just had a bad experience.
No they haven't. There's always been an initial 1 year cliff. This changed in the past year. Source: I joined google less than 6 years ago and had a 1 year cliff.
That's a very unusual deal. Most Google offers were (up until I think August/September 2017) structured as base + target % annual bonus + cash signing bonus with first/second paycheck (which you would need to pay back prorated if you left before a year, but this isn't a cliff) + equity with a 1 year cliff before vesting on a schedule that depended on the exact amount, but varied from annually to monthly.
This was true for new grad offers as well as for most experienced hires. I believe I've heard of different structures for cases where Google was doing essentially an equity buyout, but those were absolutely the exception, not the rule.
checking myrewards, some are on the 20% schedule every 6 months (for 2.5 year for full vest) and some are on the 10% schedule (for 5 year for full vest), and some are on a 5% schedule every 3 months (for 5 year for full vest).
To each their own. I struggle with compulsive eating and free food at a workplace correlates with weight gain for me.
Of course, that's just me. I'm not saying you should be deprived. I like getting a free beer or two on Thirsty Thursdays but if I were a recovering alcoholic I would hate it.
I believe GP was being sarcastic... That said, while I don't mind free food and drinks, I also don't mind taking care of it on my own. The only difference is if there is a weekly event for all company with food + drink, sort of a gathering. That does wonders for morale.
Yeah, where I am now has after-work drinks on Thursdays and I really like it. We chat, play some video games (we make them so it makes sense), have a beer or two - it's good.
But I would not be shocked if at least some of the people who I know never come do so because there's a not small percentage of the population for whom being around alcohol is incredibly challenging. I'm like that with food - and truth be told, on those Thursdays I tend to eat too much. But eating too much doesn't have the same impact professionally as getting drunk (it's still not great, though).
Exactly. Free food is worth ~$300/mo. for me - easily compensated for by ~$5K extra in base pay. But this is a signal to me that the company does not care about employee happiness / convenience.
It's also generally more cost effective for the company to buy food in bulk compared to passing the cash onto you in your salary for you to buy food on an individual basis.
Plus (and this is dependent on the company handles the providing free food business), food cooked or prepared on site is potentially healthier and tastier than whatever calorific sandwich and chocolate bar you picked up on the way to work. Healthier and happier employees are a win for both parties.
My last company was in an office park in the middle of no where and I don't drive. There were no stores within walking distance either. So if I felt like having a snack or something to drink that wasn't water I'd be SOL. So it was nice that we had snacks and drinks available and made working in such a remote spot much more tolerable.
I don't understand how this is an argument in favour of free food/drink. You're selling whatever additional time you give to your employer for a rock bottom price. It's not a good deal.
I don’t consider myself to be on an hourly wage. I’m on a salary. If I need to work more hours I work more hours, if that’s what it takes to get the job done.
Plenty of people are self aware enough to know they don't have what it takes to [start,own,run] a business. They can still be passionate about the work they're doing.
Amazon only changes things when it has to, and only in a lip-service kind of way. There was a flurry of discussion and proposals when the article was published, but it's all died down and we're back to where we were beforehand.
Compensation, culture, and perks are infinitely better at Google, Facebook, Lyft, Uber, etc. All of them start vesting your stock monthly after 1 year, whereas Amazon has a ridiculous vesting schedule (5% after year 1, 15% after year 2, 20% every 6 months thereafter). Not to mention the awful 401k matching, no free food/drinks, terrible drab offices, etc. All in the name of "frugality." Leadership claims that our competitors waste their money on these things, despite all of them being insanely profitable with higher employee happiness and retention.
I'm working on moving to one of the above competitors now. I recommend avoiding Amazon, even if the role you've been offered sounds cool.