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Anyone work for Amazon?


BlsdMama
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DH graduated from school long ago, but last year finished a Masters in Logistics.  He's worked for the same aerospace company since before DS was born (and he's 21.)  Last night, he noticed Amazon is hiring management.  It would be a drive - about a 50 minute commute and likely a move eventually in a year if he loved it.

We recently had a friend leave the same company about 18 months ago for a new company.  He was SO happy.  Covid happened, he lost his job, and came back, so we know that's possible too.  

Just would like to hear any experiences....

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A young person my dd’s age just got a well-paying softwear job at Amazon. She does need to relocate to another state far away, though. But I don’t know yet if she will love the job or not, just that the pay and perks is really compelling. 

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My son works for them, not in management, but in a warehouse.  We've been pleasantly surprised by how well they treat their employees even at that level.  He was hired during the pandemic as a temporary worker but still had benefits available to him and was recently hired as a permanent employee.  

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we have friends who work for amazon, finance, computers . .. they like it.  one of dd's friends liked it so much (vs where he was previously), she eventually interviewed with them for a project manager job.  (didn't get the job) - but she liked the set-up.

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thanks for the ping - I probably wouldn't have seen this otherwise.

Yes, as Arcadia mentioned, I work for Amazon. I'm in the cloud computing (AWS) portion of the company, but my background includes a number of topics relevant to ops research (the modeling / optimization problems that are used in planning logistics), so I've done some work with with the retail logistics teams as well.

OP (or anyone else), please feel free to DM me w/ questions.

 

re: the original post...

"DH graduated from school long ago, but last year finished a Masters in Logistics.  He's worked for the same aerospace company since before DS was born (and he's 21.)  Last night, he noticed Amazon is hiring management."

 

A thing to keep in mind in looking at AMZN jobs : Amazon has a very well-established 'two track' career progression and emphasizes the notion that all senior (and most mid-level) people are 'leaders'. I find this often doesn't match expectations for people, especially those coming in from more old-school tech industries.

First-line managers look heavily for skills in 1/ hiring and developing people 2/ project management with enough of a technical nose to point the team in the right direction. Same-level individual contributors are usually expected to be the source of project roadmap (in combination with PMs, not generally management), tech leadership, and mentoring of more junior engineers, and similar. For example, it's very rare for someone without direct people management experience to be hired into any people management role. It makes sense - you can't really answer any of the interview questions you'll get because you haven't done that job. Instead, first-time managers (at least in my portion of the company) are lateral moves from solid-performing, mid-level (generally 'senior' not 'principle') engineers or product managers (a biz-dev role).

More senior management roles start looking more and more like running the business side of a business. Such people generally have very senior ICs (engineers and PMs) reporting to them that actually define what should be built or offered. One can absolutely have a rewarding, well-paying, high-influence career without actually having anyone report to them. Comp is effectively the same for same-lvl IC and management roles. Unlike many other companies / industries, having the organization report to you isn't the same as determining what it does.

So - the first thing for DH to consider is if he wants a management role, under Amazon's definition of management, or if he wants a senior IC role. I can say with confidence that both are available. Amazon is hiring in a large number of locations for pretty-much every role.

 

 

 

 

Edited by AEC
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It can be. Amazon self-selects for people willing to self-regulate. No one is going to say to you 'it's Friday at 8:45 - go home'. Your boss is likely to ask for things that are unreasonable on unrealistic timelines. It's a very transparent and customer-connected company, so you'll be aware of the impact of not delivering on customers. It's not that your boss is un-caring, but rather the expectation is that you're an adult and can make your own decisions and will just say 'I can't do that by Wednesday' if, in fact, you reasonably can't. And that'll be OK. The team will adapt and just do something else. But the request will come and it's on you to say no. People who are uncomfortable with that tend to burn out fairly quickly.

Edited by AEC
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The update:

Thank you all for posting.  He ended up not applying.  The day after I posted this he got a phone call offering him a different position/same company.  He had applied a long while ago but thought they'd opted not to fill it.  It's with his old boss, up a level from what he was, performing similar duties which he liked.  Eventually travel again, but it's really not too much, like 10-20%.  He will work full time from home which will be a huge change, but the flexibility of his old job was fantastic for us for many reasons.      

He worked from home during the first part of Covid (end of March to early May-ish?) and we had temporary setup.  We cleared out a bedroom of everything but 6yo DS' bed and dresser....  DS hates being in his room, so it's a formality, lol.  We're setting it up this weekend with desks, shelves, etc.  DD moves out in about six weeks, so it was an okay time to transition another girl downstairs into a different bedroom.  

Incredible blessing and the timing couldn't have been better.  Bonus points for having a good relationship with his director!

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