Developer position at Amazon Web Services

@software_dev_manager Do you work for the Kumo team?
I was at your Kumo dinner last year. It was perfect.
I am a bit scared of doing the tech challenge... I forgot most of my Com Sci theory as all we do is just code and deliver when at work.
 
TelkomUseless said:
Yip. A guy I worked with went to them in USA for his studies and toured Amazon. Even he said they said straight , you will eat, breath Amazon while working there. No time for family etc.
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The last chat I had with them, they told me that they prize work-life balance since they want long term employees and want to avoid burn out.
 
TelkomUseless said:
Maybe if you don't have gf/wife/kids. In your 20's but then the odds of you getting a job there is almost 0 due to experience.

And you are right, it's just a job.. don't have to work there for life.
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A very large percentage of their hires are college grads - experience is valued highly, but they hire at all levels.
 
cguy said:
The last chat I had with them, they told me that they prize work-life balance since they want long term employees and want to avoid burn out.
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This guy went 2 years ago to the USA. And for his Masters they had to go , and he said they said straight that is how it works there. He didn't apply or anything, it was whole class that had to go... so no need to bullshit me (or the company).
 
cguy said:
A very large percentage of their hires are college grads - experience is valued highly, but they hire at all levels.
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True.. if they want a junior a junior would do.


And anybody can apply .. I'm just posting stuff I have read about these big companies.
 
TelkomUseless said:
This guy went 2 years ago to the USA. And for his Masters they had to go , and he said they said straight that is how it works there. He didn't apply or anything, it was whole class that had to go... so no need to bullshit us.
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Whoever “they” is, is not the spokesperson for all of Amazon. While I can’t dispute what was said to the guy by one or more people there, there is no way that is any kind of policy.
 
cguy said:
Whoever “they” is, is not the spokesperson for all of Amazon. While I can’t dispute what was said to the guy by one or more people there, there is no way that is any kind of policy.
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Same can be said to you? Who told you? And Like I said... people can apply!
 
TelkomUseless said:
Same can be said to you? Who told you? And Like I said... people can apply!
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My impression comes from the approx. 100 or so current and ex-Amazon employees I know, and nearly 20 years working in the US tech space.

I’m not claiming the work life balance is awesome, what I am claiming is that their policy is to aim for a competitive WLB, but in reality it is highly variable depending on your team, geographic location and manager.

I am also claiming that them saying “no time for family”, is horse crap.
 
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cguy said:
My impression comes from the approx. 100 or so current and ex-Amazon employees I know, and nearly 20 years working in the US tech space.

I’m not claiming the work life balance is awesome, what I am claiming is that their policy is to aim for a competitive WLB, but in reality it is highly variable depending on your team, geographic location and manager.

I am also claiming that them saying “no time for family”, is horse crap.
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Happy to hear you got info from the troops on the ground.

And you keep saying it's horse crap. I know the guy personally, I'll take his word.
 
CamiKaze said:
@software_dev_manager Do you work for the Kumo team?

I was at your Kumo dinner last year. It was perfect.
I am a bit scared of doing the tech challenge... I forgot most of my Com Sci theory as all we do is just code and deliver when at work.
Click to expand...

I suggest re-reading & studying data structures book, networking and o/s book. Be able to implement various trees, search algorithms, shortest paths, etc It doesn’t matter that you may be saving you company from going broke.. can’t recite an algorithmic structure and big o notation then it’s over. doesn’t it matter what you achieved when you were at varsity (gets u to interview congrats).

Other than the above my big tip for anyone applying is this.. every round they checking on the above. Yes don’t believe the BS of HR/soft skills interview. Eyes on the prize, review your 1st round question answers and go thru the many sample problems.

If applying internationally where they do online code test, I suggest you learn to code blind, like notepad and be comfy without api help.

Ps. All of this you can get info on via some basic googling.

Personally I’d say unless you do the usual cs 2 +/- 3 stuff (everything above is 2nd year cs) daily or prepare enough to be comfy you will struggle unless you get lucky*. Unfortunately this kind of interview is a bad predictor on that which they try to hire.. kinda why people think university grads suck. Ie theory is only that useful.
 
TelkomUseless said:
Yip. A guy I worked with went to them in USA for his studies and toured Amazon. Even he said they said straight , you will eat, breath Amazon while working there. No time for family etc.
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Yup I know someone who has worked for them, and came running back to ZA.. the stories he told me... No thank you.
 
You guys do realise that there's a huge difference between Amazon and AWS right?

One is retail and the other is cloud.

There's a BIG difference between working customer support at Amazon vs say working engineering or development at AWS.

Personally I have no issues with any work life balance at AWS. As with most jobs you can meet your metrics and go home, or you can go above and beyond - but that's on you and certainly not enforced.

The opportunities are there if you want to grab them, but you're not forced to take them - far from it. YMMV.
 
jsheed_sa said:
You guys do realise that there's a huge difference between Amazon and AWS right?

One is retail and the other is cloud.

There's a BIG difference between working customer support at Amazon vs say working engineering or development at AWS.

Personally I have no issues with any work life balance at AWS. As with most jobs you can meet your metrics and go home, or you can go above and beyond - but that's on you and certainly not enforced.

The opportunities are there if you want to grab them, but you're not forced to take them - far from it. YMMV.
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Lol. :) Welcome to MyBB, where the most popular countries in the world are undesirable nanny states, the top companies in the world have no idea how to interview candidates and thus want them to regurgitate rote learned answers on a whiteboard, degrees are just theory, and companies somehow manage to dominate the world by having great employee obtainment and retention policies such as nobody getting hired at more than +10% their last salary, no time off, no work life balance and no family time.

As crazy as the above sounds, “I know a guy who...”
 
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krycor said:
I suggest re-reading & studying data structures book, networking and o/s book. Be able to implement various trees, search algorithms, shortest paths, etc It doesn’t matter that you may be saving you company from going broke.. can’t recite an algorithmic structure and big o notation then it’s over. doesn’t it matter what you achieved when you were at varsity (gets u to interview congrats).
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Yip. It's a pretty one-dimensional interview (x6). They mainly want you to code with a pen on a white board while staring at you. It's basically an interview to see if you recently passed a course in data structures at university level. You can pass the interview by studying up on the latest data structures.

Experience or previous body of open source work is irrelevant. You could be Guido van Rossum of Python or Linus Torvalds of Linux or have a million lines of the best code published in open source projects, and they'd still ask you to first implement some esoteric trie algorithm from memory on the white board.

They also ask whether you prefer a Mac or a PC. I suspect that's to determine how much of a hipster you are.
 
netcruiser said:
Yip. It's a pretty one-dimensional interview (x6). They mainly want you to code with a pen on a white board while staring at you. It's basically an interview to see if you recently passed a course in data structures at university level. You can pass the interview by studying up on the latest data structures.

Experience or previous body of open source work is irrelevant. You could be Guido van Rossum of Python or Linus Torvalds of Linux or have a million lines of the best code published in open source projects, and they'd still ask you to first implement some esoteric trie algorithm from memory on the white board.

They also ask whether you prefer a Mac or a PC. I suspect that's to determine how much of a hipster you are.
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I'm not a dev, but yes there are a lot of theory based questions.

The reason for this is that a lot of people have huge knowledge gaps and often these only show later, but when they do they hurt. It's hard to balance, but it shows a candidate has a good foundation - OR at the very least that they're capable of preparing and showing they can learn (if they haven't been previously exposed to these items).
 
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