>Could this be an example of crumbling engineering standard at Amazon?
As someone that's been going through quite a bit of depression because Amazon was the best offer I got (as opposed to Google or Facebook because I'm still bad at coding interviews) I'm afraid this is the straw that's going to break the camel's back for me. This is exactly what I was afraid of and exactly what I have waiting for me when I join next week.
100% serious here: you should probably see a therapist. Life is so much more than your job, and your job is so much more than the brand name of your company. Having worked at a failing business and one of the companies you mentioned, I’m no happier at the latter than I was at the former. If you define yourself by the names on your resumé one day you’ll wake up and realize how much of life you’ve missed out on.
Hey, I've seen a few of your posts around here and just wanted to encourage you to keep your head up. Amazon is an amazing place and even though I don't know anything about your specific situation, there are a lot of incredibly smart people there and I promise that you'll learn a ton.
I was in the exact same boat - ex Amazon intern, felt I was a pretty solid engineer, but didn't quite nail the FB interview. Ended up joining Amazon because I was sick of interviewing.
Let me tell you: it will be OK, and the other posts about making the best of your situation are true. Amazon is an incredible learning opportunity if you stay open to it. I'm still working there a year later and I'm building far higher impact projects than my friends at Goog and FB because like another poster said, Amazon lets SDE1s work on just about everything. The growth potential is tremendous if you show you're competent and willing to learn.
People say the same thing about every big tech company - Google and Facebook included. Trust me, employers will still be impressed with Amazon on your resume.
they have a lot of really amazing and smart people. but like anything in life, its what you make of it. I'd say put your best into the position and try to learn as much as you can from others. no good reason to do less
It's not just what you make of it: a lot of your experience there is going to depend on your manager. I had three: the first was awesome, so he left for another company; the second was good, but he cared too much and went back to his old (non-management) position to feel fulfilled; the third was a sociopath and did really well, promoted to upper management and a subsidiary and out to greener pastures. Working for the sociopath was awful and got me to leave (where I'd planned on a long career). And no, there was no escape from him except leaving Amazon: he sunk my performance reviews when I asked to leave to go to another team 'cause I told him I didn't think I was a good fit where I was.
There are a lot of amazing and smart people, like you said, but there is also a lot of stress, heartache, and trouble if you don't keep your ear to the ground and build a strong network of people to give you an early warning. Don't keep your head down and concentrate on tech and building cool stuff: Amazon can be way too political for pure techies to thrive without strong protection from management.
Chin up. You're probably in the top 5% of the country in income. If you're in Washington, feel free to tack on another 9% or so to your income in state taxes you don't have to pay.
While it's nice to not have state income taxes to worry about, total tax burden isn't all that much different from any other state. The only time you really come out ahead is if you can live in WA and do all your shopping in OR.
For high income a people like amazon engineers, WA is crazy low tax burden. CA income tax could only match WA sales tax of you spend 100% or probably more of your income on taxable items.
You can't let an outage or some alleged talent gap be a reason for wanting to tap out.
You need to realize that your doing great, folks would kill to get a job at Amazon, the scale and the challenges are mind bending compared to what most other companies deal with and the interview is grueling and you made it.
Technology is a word that describes something that doesn't work yet and Amazon thinks that you are a person that can help tip the balance.
As someone that's been going through quite a bit of depression because Amazon was the best offer I got (as opposed to Google or Facebook because I'm still bad at coding interviews) I'm afraid this is the straw that's going to break the camel's back for me. This is exactly what I was afraid of and exactly what I have waiting for me when I join next week.
There's no point anymore.