> The same Times investigation reported the company “intentionally limited upward mobility for hourly workers,” according to David Niekerk, a former Amazon HR Vice President.
It’s not just for hourly workers. I was actively coached on holding promotions as a carrot. My leadership team would commit to unrealistic dates, taking input and estimates from dev teams but hand wave it.
Amazon applies pressure on L7 and L6 software development managers to deliver. They in turn apply pressure to their engineering teams.
We had specific projects where we easily burned out dozens of engineers. They all left within a 1-2 month window of each other.
I can’t tell you how many SDEs were promised that getting some project delivered is key to their promotion. These people would kill themselves working every night, every weekend, coding, writing documents, and so on. They’d get very little in return if anything.
I saw several successful launches, where specific promotions were held back because of nit picks on some engineering decision, which the whole group agreed on, including Principals and Sr. Principal engineers.
It’s just a sweat shop. And the Indian devs work their ass off out of fear of getting PIP’d and with their work authorization, they lose their job means they have to leave the country.
> And the Indian devs work their ass off out of fear of getting PIP’d and with their work authorization, they lose their job means they have to leave the country.
This matches what I saw at Nike. Though it was a bit less extreme, it was the same dynamic. Indian-born workers got paid half what the American-born workers did for the same SWE jobs. And Indian workers couldn’t complain or push back against unrealistic expectations because getting fired meant getting deported. It’s a captive, exploitable labor force. It’s really messed up.
Reminds me of a memorable quote from "halt and catch fire" that changed my workplace-attitude forever:
“I’m so sick of hearing about the future”
“What is that?”
“The future is just another crappy version of the present. It’s some … it’s some bribe people offer you to make you do what they want instead of what you want.”
It stopped working (mostly overtime) on promises that were impossible to keep. In return I got more sleep, social life and very recently a different job.
Amazon engineer salaries are in the 90th+ percentile in the tech industry -- let's not bother comparing them to the typical American's income. They have almost unlimited mobility in their industry: They can find a job elsewhere anytime they want.
I remember you mentioning elsewhere that in 10 years of working at Amazon you're now financially independent. This isn't the outcome you usually see in a sweat shop.
I don't disagree that they have a culture of treating employees as expendable and are a harder place to work for than some other big tech companies but at some point a little perspective on your own privilege is healthy.
> We had specific projects where we easily burned out dozens of engineers
"Amazon" is named after the rainforest, and like the rainforest, developers are an infinite resource that you can burn down forever and there will never be any consequences .. until somehow you run out.
Really the only solution to this is for people to withdraw their labour - not just unionization but refusing to work for them in the first place.
Further, about a quarter of workers are annotated in Ivy as "Do Not Promote." They don't know who they are. I don't know why they get put on that list.
> according to David Niekerk, a former Amazon HR Vice President.
That isn't a nobody. He was a major HR guy for Amazon for over 15 years. I knew his name in passing when I was working there, and met his daughter who was a rising star at the warehouse in Phoenix.
Wild to hear him speaking out against Amazon when he honestly built a lot of the system.
I stopped using Amazon for shopping about two years ago, because of how they treat warehouse staff.
I never thought to work at Amazon, because I heard from multiple colleagues, former employees, that Amazon is profoundly metric based; then the stories such as this, about burning out staff, and about the fake PIP process, began surfacing.
Not shopping at Amazon because the company is big enough to get media attention is a bit silly.
Do you know what the working conditions are like at any of the million non-Amazon warehouses?
Of course not, there’s no media attention for Bob’s fulfillment in Wichita, Kansas.
Here’s the truth: your friendly neighborhood warehouse down the street likely pays its employees far less, with far worse benefits, less safe facilities, and similar turnover.
It shouldn’t be the job of consumers to police labor practices—we’re really bad at it and only care if the company is big enough to get NYT coverage.
This is the role of government and law. If we really care about conditions for workers, we need to focus our attention there.
I try to avoid it where possible, but for international shopping the options
are sadly bit limited. It's pretty hard getting Japanese literature (in
Japanese) shipped into tiny country in the east Europe. amazon.co.jp works
reasonably well.
I've been pretty dismayed that sometimes when I buy products elsewhere the seller often just buys them off amazon and then ships them to me, basically defeating my whole effort.
I knew two people who quit after two weeks. One after being called to find out why he wasn’t at work. On a Sunday.
I ended up on a short contract and think I understand why. I also understand why Amazon employees are notorious for taking up the entire sidewalk like nobody else is there. Trauma.
I recently did a contract with a company in the logistics (warehouse/delivery) business for a product you've heard of. Their turnover rate is over 100% every year. The industry is crazy.
The person who told me "autistic people can't work for RAND" was hired by Amazon. I'd blacklisted them by that point -- I don't like when folks treat a good faith interview like a free consulting session.
The company culture reminds me of some kind of suicide cult - treating a job interview like a free consulting session might work if you're looking for warehouse workers with teachable and replaceable skills, but when you apply that goldfish galaxy brain mentality to interacting with folks who have a buck twenty five plus IQ and more esoteric knowledge, it is unsurprising that mistakes will happen, those mistakes will be costly... and that those mistakes may increase in frequency.
>I'm guessing the warehouse biz has the most effect on this stat, but still. Wow.
I don't know off the top of my head, they sell a lot of servers.
(I was thinking the other day about how in my attempts to avoid Google I often involuntarily use their stuff -- it's why my old VPN was hosted on Digital Ocean, because I have no warm feelings for either.)
I'm so glad I screwed a ski trip out of Amazon. Took me 3 hours of my life to pass the coding test, then the remote live coding interview. Then they paid the flight and hotel to meet and grill me in person. I asked for an extra hotel night "to look for houses". That day, I actually took a bus to $BIG_MOUNTAIN nearby and had the some of the best snowboard of my life. The interviews were shit, clearly designed not to know if I knew software but rather if was compliant and thick skinned enough to survive and perform in their shit culture. Fuck you Amazon. Thank you Amazon.
I'm always amazed how little people know about how companies operate. Amazon does the same thing as many many companies and is treated as news. People are shocked that they are profit seeking, that they do barely legal but legal things, that they don't actively knowingly pay their workers more than they have to etc.
Yeah. My brother worked at a Husqvarna warehouse for a few months. It was the most depressed I’ve ever seen him.
I’ve chatted with my dad about Amazon working conditions, and he retorted with tales of his own days in un-conditioned factories and warehouses in Oklahoma in the 1980s.
There are a lot of crappy jobs out there. Those of us who have found enjoyment and balance are fortunate.
> The rate of serious injuries at Amazon warehouses in the United States is more than twice as high as those at other, non-Amazon warehouses, according to a new study that examines injury data supplied to the federal agency that oversees workplace safety.
> Amazon employed 33% of all US warehouse workers in 2021, but was responsible for 49% of all injuries in the industry, according to a report published Tuesday by the Strategic Organizing Center (SOC), a coalition of four labor unions.
No, they are not "the same", they are worse. They are at the absolute fucking forefront of treating their workers badly. You don't hear about postal workers having to piss in bottles and shit in plastic bags to make their deliveries. You don't hear about warehouse workers at other companies having their bathroom breaks timed, probably because damn near no other company's leadership is sociopathic enough to build an automated system to time fucking bathroom breaks.
I absolutely wouldnt mind waiting an extra day or two for my package if it means better working conditions for warehouse and software workers at amazon. I wouldnt mind if bezos earned a little less either. For now tho i stopped using it all together.
Already happening without better conditions. Amazon prime delivery is so unreliable now. I live 1/2 mile from the distribution center. And 1 out of 3 packages are always late. Sometimes a week late.
I think you hold the minority opinion amongst Amazon customers.
TBH I think perhaps the (opt-in) suffering endured by the Amazon staff (both blue and white collar) is outweighed by the massive benefits to an entire society enabled by same-day shipping of approximately everything. It's an extremely powerful and valuable service, that serves as a force multiplier for every personal and business project that has it available.
Facebook can and should be destroyed. I think if you were to destroy Amazon, the world would be a worse place.
How is the US - as a society - okay with companies like Amazon abusing their employees, deny them union representation while paying them a starvation wage?
These companies abuse the total breakdown of the US's social security network; the US made it so bad that people are actually forced to work in such conditions. Together with the almost total dismantling of the unions in the US, this leaves low skilled workers no way to fight back.
It's not as bad in jobs were you need to have even a little training and need to invest in your workers. But in Amazon's case the brutality of this system is laid bare.
It’s the work culture. In the uk it’s more or less known that when a us company acquires a local company it will go downhill in terms of working conditions.
And there are only two ways to hurt them back for it.
One is people refusing to work there, which is obviously easier to do for engineers than for warehouse workers.
The second is refusing to make business with them. Just don't order your stuff from there, don't subscribe to Prime and so on, but I guess this is just too much to ask for the average guy whose whole personality revolves around the shows they are currently watching.
The third is organizing a union and striking until demands are met. The fourth is regulating them with laws. The fifth is borrowing enough money to gain enough stock to force some allies onto board seats and implementing change from the top down.
ozzythecat|3 years ago
It’s not just for hourly workers. I was actively coached on holding promotions as a carrot. My leadership team would commit to unrealistic dates, taking input and estimates from dev teams but hand wave it.
Amazon applies pressure on L7 and L6 software development managers to deliver. They in turn apply pressure to their engineering teams.
We had specific projects where we easily burned out dozens of engineers. They all left within a 1-2 month window of each other.
I can’t tell you how many SDEs were promised that getting some project delivered is key to their promotion. These people would kill themselves working every night, every weekend, coding, writing documents, and so on. They’d get very little in return if anything.
I saw several successful launches, where specific promotions were held back because of nit picks on some engineering decision, which the whole group agreed on, including Principals and Sr. Principal engineers.
It’s just a sweat shop. And the Indian devs work their ass off out of fear of getting PIP’d and with their work authorization, they lose their job means they have to leave the country.
satellites|3 years ago
This matches what I saw at Nike. Though it was a bit less extreme, it was the same dynamic. Indian-born workers got paid half what the American-born workers did for the same SWE jobs. And Indian workers couldn’t complain or push back against unrealistic expectations because getting fired meant getting deported. It’s a captive, exploitable labor force. It’s really messed up.
kappuchino|3 years ago
It stopped working (mostly overtime) on promises that were impossible to keep. In return I got more sleep, social life and very recently a different job.
ctvo|3 years ago
Amazon engineer salaries are in the 90th+ percentile in the tech industry -- let's not bother comparing them to the typical American's income. They have almost unlimited mobility in their industry: They can find a job elsewhere anytime they want.
I remember you mentioning elsewhere that in 10 years of working at Amazon you're now financially independent. This isn't the outcome you usually see in a sweat shop.
I don't disagree that they have a culture of treating employees as expendable and are a harder place to work for than some other big tech companies but at some point a little perspective on your own privilege is healthy.
pjc50|3 years ago
"Amazon" is named after the rainforest, and like the rainforest, developers are an infinite resource that you can burn down forever and there will never be any consequences .. until somehow you run out.
Really the only solution to this is for people to withdraw their labour - not just unionization but refusing to work for them in the first place.
HyperSane|3 years ago
golly_ned|3 years ago
mabbo|3 years ago
That isn't a nobody. He was a major HR guy for Amazon for over 15 years. I knew his name in passing when I was working there, and met his daughter who was a rising star at the warehouse in Phoenix.
Wild to hear him speaking out against Amazon when he honestly built a lot of the system.
barbazoo|3 years ago
edwnj|3 years ago
bvoq|3 years ago
birdyrooster|3 years ago
atkailash|3 years ago
[deleted]
Max-Ganz-II|3 years ago
I never thought to work at Amazon, because I heard from multiple colleagues, former employees, that Amazon is profoundly metric based; then the stories such as this, about burning out staff, and about the fake PIP process, began surfacing.
pembrook|3 years ago
Do you know what the working conditions are like at any of the million non-Amazon warehouses?
Of course not, there’s no media attention for Bob’s fulfillment in Wichita, Kansas.
Here’s the truth: your friendly neighborhood warehouse down the street likely pays its employees far less, with far worse benefits, less safe facilities, and similar turnover.
It shouldn’t be the job of consumers to police labor practices—we’re really bad at it and only care if the company is big enough to get NYT coverage.
This is the role of government and law. If we really care about conditions for workers, we need to focus our attention there.
yrgulation|3 years ago
throwaway12388|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
_wolfie_|3 years ago
ridgered4|3 years ago
tech-historian|3 years ago
This is truly amazing. I'm guessing the warehouse biz has the most effect on this stat, but still. Wow.
deadbolt|3 years ago
It sounds amazing, but it's not original. It says something about where we're at, as a country,
[1] https://www.payscale.com/compensation-trends/curb-employee-t...
hinkley|3 years ago
I ended up on a short contract and think I understand why. I also understand why Amazon employees are notorious for taking up the entire sidewalk like nobody else is there. Trauma.
Consultant32452|3 years ago
dontbenebby|3 years ago
Amazing in a bad way... but I believe it.
The person who told me "autistic people can't work for RAND" was hired by Amazon. I'd blacklisted them by that point -- I don't like when folks treat a good faith interview like a free consulting session.
The company culture reminds me of some kind of suicide cult - treating a job interview like a free consulting session might work if you're looking for warehouse workers with teachable and replaceable skills, but when you apply that goldfish galaxy brain mentality to interacting with folks who have a buck twenty five plus IQ and more esoteric knowledge, it is unsurprising that mistakes will happen, those mistakes will be costly... and that those mistakes may increase in frequency.
>I'm guessing the warehouse biz has the most effect on this stat, but still. Wow.
I don't know off the top of my head, they sell a lot of servers.
(I was thinking the other day about how in my attempts to avoid Google I often involuntarily use their stuff -- it's why my old VPN was hosted on Digital Ocean, because I have no warm feelings for either.)
db48x|3 years ago
speed_spread|3 years ago
LatteLazy|3 years ago
christophilus|3 years ago
I’ve chatted with my dad about Amazon working conditions, and he retorted with tales of his own days in un-conditioned factories and warehouses in Oklahoma in the 1980s.
There are a lot of crappy jobs out there. Those of us who have found enjoyment and balance are fortunate.
SrslyJosh|3 years ago
> Amazon employed 33% of all US warehouse workers in 2021, but was responsible for 49% of all injuries in the industry, according to a report published Tuesday by the Strategic Organizing Center (SOC), a coalition of four labor unions.
(Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/12/tech/amazon-injury-data-study...)
No, they are not "the same", they are worse. They are at the absolute fucking forefront of treating their workers badly. You don't hear about postal workers having to piss in bottles and shit in plastic bags to make their deliveries. You don't hear about warehouse workers at other companies having their bathroom breaks timed, probably because damn near no other company's leadership is sociopathic enough to build an automated system to time fucking bathroom breaks.
ignoramous|3 years ago
Yes, and that's because of its scale and size.
throwaway81523|3 years ago
yrgulation|3 years ago
GoldenMonkey|3 years ago
Quality and reliability are declining rapidly.
sneak|3 years ago
TBH I think perhaps the (opt-in) suffering endured by the Amazon staff (both blue and white collar) is outweighed by the massive benefits to an entire society enabled by same-day shipping of approximately everything. It's an extremely powerful and valuable service, that serves as a force multiplier for every personal and business project that has it available.
Facebook can and should be destroyed. I think if you were to destroy Amazon, the world would be a worse place.
firstSpeaker|3 years ago
esarbe|3 years ago
These companies abuse the total breakdown of the US's social security network; the US made it so bad that people are actually forced to work in such conditions. Together with the almost total dismantling of the unions in the US, this leaves low skilled workers no way to fight back.
It's not as bad in jobs were you need to have even a little training and need to invest in your workers. But in Amazon's case the brutality of this system is laid bare.
yrgulation|3 years ago
Ligma123|3 years ago
And there are only two ways to hurt them back for it.
One is people refusing to work there, which is obviously easier to do for engineers than for warehouse workers.
The second is refusing to make business with them. Just don't order your stuff from there, don't subscribe to Prime and so on, but I guess this is just too much to ask for the average guy whose whole personality revolves around the shows they are currently watching.
Eisenstein|3 years ago
The third is organizing a union and striking until demands are met. The fourth is regulating them with laws. The fifth is borrowing enough money to gain enough stock to force some allies onto board seats and implementing change from the top down.
I'm sure there are more.
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
MichaelMoser123|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
not_enoch_wise|3 years ago
throwaway787544|3 years ago
[deleted]