Article Critique

Article Critique

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Article Critique

The Amazon is a big region, spanning various South American countries, and is inhabited by citizens of modern cities of the 21st century, as well as indigenous hunter-gatherers that wear little or no clothing. About the only thing that links the myriad of cultures is the tropical latitude band and the climatic conditions that dictate a certain tropical lifestyle. Amazon has an intentionally designed culture with very few perks. It you want a sense for the place, read the leadership principles. Now, imagine that the person in charge of enforcing “The Principles” is a combination of Stanford MBA and Marine Corps Command Master Gunnery Sergeant. He has high standards, expects brutal honesty based on cold logic and first principles, and expects rapid execution and complete commitment when a decision has been made. He doesn't need to shout, he doesn't need to threaten, but being ill prepared, undisciplined, or making excuses will incur a cold logical smiting that will haunt an individual.

Honest failure is acceptable, but a failure due to a lack of dedication and commitment is not. There isn't a lot of room for grand thought or philosophical debates, or staking out a personal vision or strategy. Anything less than a complete commitment to the customer, backed by data, and core to the mission is unacceptable. Amazon isn't big on innovation for its own sake, the efforts of the company are focused on solving customer problems in ways that serve the company by interconnecting profit centers and businesses across the company.

Speed is always valued over quality, which can lead to a lot of wasted effort and potential. It's frustrating at times. One of the better descriptions that can be heard of Amazonians over the years is missionary/mercenary. Zeal and an almost romantic commitment to core principles, with ruthless, brutal and calculating execution against mission and goals.

One thing to consider: the average Amazonian only lasts about 18 months at the company. The impressions of anyone there less than 3 years with a grain of salt. The 3rd year is the hardest, but if anyone make it beyond that point you've figured it out. Like it is said, “it's not for everyone”!

A lot of positive and negative has been said about work life and work at Amazon in media so the details of every aspect would not be discussed here but a few selected areas need to be pointed out. Picking first 10 points as they come to mind.

Work: Amazon is a leader in retail and cloud. To become a leader an individual solved problems that no one solved in the industry. By being at Amazon you get to work on problems that are new. This is one reason why I will like to stay at Amazon. Why go somewhere and resolve a problem that Amazon has already solved.

Not all teams are equal: This is true and true for every company. Not every team works on “cool” stuff but what makes Amazon different is the ease with which you can move around teams (Linden, Smith, & York, 2003). If you don’t find good work in one team then there are thousands of more teams to choose from.

Field: At high level it is retail and cloud but to solve the related problem you end up working on practically everything.

Burn out: Let’s say you like to run along with your buddy. One day you take some route which is scenic. On the way you climb a mountain to some distance. You love it. It is so beautiful. Now you start taking the same route every day. You like the scenic route and you climb further every day. Your buddy on other hand starts to get tired. He starts alternating between a flat trail in park and the mountain road. Amazon is same way. You have a tough problem to solve every day. At some companies you will get a mundane problem on one day and a tough one other. How long you can keep doing it is up to you. Some engineers burn out in a year and others continue. To give you some perspective in my current team everyone has been in Amazon for close to a decade. In my previous team except me no one was over 2 years at Amazon.

Work hours: A person working at Amazon has WFH option if they need to. You have decent number of vacations and time offs. Never seen any manager who does not let you take vacations or time offs (McCord, 2014). There could be some days when you may not be able to take vacation based on how many others in team are on vacation or if you are the only resource on some critical project but it is very rare.

Technology: Choice is made based on problem. All common technologies and some more in use at Amazon. Said that Amazon is not a good place to work if a person work only in “Java” or specific technology.

Salary: While not the highest in the industry it is not less. Amazon stocks have in general done better than other companies so that is a big plus.

Perks: Compared to other companies (Google, Microsoft, etc) it is less. No free food or gym or other nice things that some other companies provide. Anyone would love it if they were there but it is not important enough to say company is good or bad.

Job security: Unlike other companies the Amazonians had not seen mass layoffs at Amazon during recession. There are engineers who are let go due to performance reasons but again that is not common.

Location: Like to travel? Amazon has offices in multiple countries and cities. You are free to change teams and location does not restrict it. Amazon even takes care of moving you.

In short, working at Amazon gives you a unique insight into the world of software development that you will rarely get at other companies. The problems that you’ll come across will teach you so much. In retrospective, Amazon was one of the best things that happened to me. And a lot depends upon the team you are in. Some of my friends had excellent managers.

References

Kantor, J., & Streitfeld, D. (2015). Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace. Retrieved 30 July 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html

Linden, G., Smith, B., & York, J. (2003). Amazon. com recommendations: Item-to-item collaborative filtering. IEEE Internet Computing, (1), 76-80.

McCord, P. (2014). How Amazon reinvented HR. Harvard Business Review, 92(1), 71-76.