aminadude

Tangent - there was an article on the NYTimes the other day about how their editorial work was trivializing Bernie Sanders political impact the last election and actually using misleading headlines to distort the truth. I’ll try to find the link (on my phone now). It was pretty eye opening and had links to sources as well as exposing some of these editors and their role working for the Clinton camp.

I call this out because I see a steady stream of NYT articles that focus on big tech in a negative way.

Big tech has its problems and should be regulated. On the other hand, I question the NYT and their motive. This clearly isn’t honest journalism but NYT focusing on companies that are now directly competing with the NYT.

Edit: article I was referring to https://fair.org/home/sidney-embers-secret-sources/

I’m at Amazon now. None of the teams I’ve been on have had an absurd on call burden but I do know of teams that do (not in my org) and therefore struggle with high turnover (people don’t really leave Amazon burn just switch teams in my experience).

Overall, it’s made me better leaps and bound as an engineer prior to when I joined. Over the years when I’ve picked up a book on scalable systems or design, I easily identify the patterns of failure or whatever topics mentioned because I’ve had to deal with them on the job.

Amazon isn’t for everyone. My stress and anxiety level is generally pretty high.

I work with really really really bright people (compared to my previous companies) but being extremely intelligent doesn’t speak to your character. As a matter of fact, really intelligent people with bad character are 100x worse than Todd from my previous company who did very little work and was merely collecting salary.

If you have an opportunity to work for Amazon, at least as an SDE I say definitely go for it. But, if you want a relaxed 8-5 job, it may not be the place for you. The teams I’ve been on are full of overachievers but too many of those people in one room isn’t always a good thing.