I left Amazon a month ago (voluntarily) for a fully remote role because they asked me to move to Seattle/Arlington. When I joined them, I was already in a different state because of my wife's work. So I told them, I cannot join if they don't give me remote exception; it took them ~4-5 weeks to get the sign off for remote exception from the VP. I took the job and 9 months in, Jassy decided to force everyone back to the office.
A few of my coworkers (3 out of ~15 people team) have/had left when RTO mandate was announced, and I know at least 4 people are thinking of leaving as soon as they have a chance. Since the RTO, a lot of my colleagues have started working at 9 am and log out at 5pm pronto. Before RTO, they would be working until 6-7 pm and will be logging in around 8 am. Sometimes, coworkers would even log in late because they were commuting. I wonder if Amazon would check the Slack+Chime logs to see how the activity drops before and after RTO mandate. Based on my observation, I would bet that the activity/productivity drops significantly more.
Glad I left Amazon. I have been programming for 15+ years (have been in a managerial role for 6+ years), and I firmly believe I am (and my team are) more productive working remotely. I will never work for a non-remote companies even if they are big names.
I used to work at Amazon too. I also refused to go in (even though the office was only a 15 minute drive) because I signed up for a remote role and I wanted to keep that flexibility.
> I wonder if Amazon would check the Slack+Chime logs to see how the activity drops before and after RTO mandate.
They already have and they found that productivity was way down. They don't care. They made this decision from the gut, despite claiming to be a data driven company. When anyone called Andy on it he just said "sometimes we make decisions that we know are right" blah blah.
Their data shows their decision was wrong from a productivity standpoint. But that's not why they did it. They did it so they wouldn't loose their tax breaks from all the cities that were threatening to pull their subsidies if they couldn't show enough butts in seats in the downtown areas. Also they over-hired in the pandemic and need people to leave because their attrition numbers were too low for 2022 and 2023.
> > I wonder if Amazon would check the Slack+Chime logs to see how the activity drops before and after RTO mandate.
> They already have and they found that productivity was way down. They don't care. They made this decision from the gut, despite claiming to be a data driven company. When anyone called Andy on it he just said "sometimes we make decisions that we know are right" blah blah.
Respectfully, do you know this because you yourself have seen the data, because a person you know saw this data and told you about it, or are you speculating that this is probably the case?
Because in a meeting with the CEO (which was publicly leaked so this isn't internal information I got it from outside sources myself I wasn't in the meeting) someone called out that the data doesn't support this decision and that was his response.
I don't see any claims in that article about productivity going up or down after the mandate, however? Just that data was not used to inform the decision in the first place.
Would love to hear knowledge of internal data on this either way but it sounds like we're still just guessing.
They have a tool at Amazon called "connections" which is a super annoying mandatory survey you must interact with every day. It measures a lot of things like whether our teams have certain internal processes in place, job satisfaction, tools satisfaction, etc. The surveys provide a list of fixed answers you can choose or if you rank something "negatively", you can select an option to describe why you ranked something poorly. Some of us have indirect access to the larger data through senior-level middle management who will either show us the connections data in private Slack DMs (if you're lucky enough to have a friend up that high) or they will blatantly tell us what the data shows in meetings. For example the job satisfaction one has been down below 50% satisfaction since RTO and management has explicitly stated it's due to RTO because that's what people are writing in as the reason.
Okay understood (that’s application sounds fascinating to be honest) and the drop in job satisfaction doesn’t surprise me at all.
But what about productivity/output?
Obviously this is partially a function of job satisfaction, or a correlation. But wouldn’t it be interesting if job satisfaction went down but productivity stayed the same?
> They made this decision from the gut, despite claiming to be a data driven company
I also work in a big "data driven company" and the same thing happened. Pretty sad that they bother engineers to justify everything they do with metrics (even when it's obviously wrong), but admitted in a Q&A that they didn't have productivity data to back up their RTO choice.
> I wonder if Amazon would check the Slack+Chime logs to see how the activity drops before and after RTO mandate.
I would be surprised if they did this, and if they did, use it for implementing any sort of meaningful change. Plus I would not put faith in leadership to being able to interpret what this really means because they are so out of touch with how things are going. Discussions with upper leadership is heavily reviewed and curated as a means to avoid getting called out and stay under the radar. They all have a skewed view of what's going on with the teams that build and this data wouldn't feed into it in a way that would be meaningful.
Likely what they will do is keep track of stuff like regretted attrition, hiring numbers (once they get back to hiring), Connections results, project/goal delays (the well established orgs are all aggressive about tracking dates along with goals to see how things are going).
> a lot of my colleagues have started working at 9 am and log out at 5pm pronto
I think this is a great thing. This is long overdue there. It's too common for employee's personalities to be all Amazon all the time. I've been to many social events over the years where I'm told to not bring/invite anyone from my Amazon circle because all they can do is talk about Amazon.
Anecdotally, I know a few other Amazon people who have decided to effectively quiet quit / just do their jobs and risk the pip because of senior management's lack of care.
wave. I've been doing this for the last two years, but really dialed it in to the extreme over the last year. I don't give a shit if I get PIP'd at this point. If a company is willing to screw me over at every turn with no remorse and not an ounce of compassion, then this is how I'll fight back. Fuck em!
I don't think I agree. There are small shops (<500 employees) that really do treat people well. I've worked at smaller places that have given decent salaries, no-cap PTO (and actually let you use it without fuss), no overtime, yearly bonuses, shutting down for two weeks during the holidays, and actually listen to employee requests/concerns.
When you work at a FAANG, you know you'll be sacrificing some of those benefits and taking on more stress for much higher pay. The current climate is much worse than that though. It's a complete no-empathy/give-no-fucks environment, and that's not ok. Garbage in, garbage out.
I'm not looking for a hand-out, I just want to be treated as a human being. In return, you'll have a productive employee.
When I interviewed roughly 10 years ago, I asked every person I met on the team roughly how many hours a week they worked. Every single person deflected and answered a question I hadn't actually asked.
For that team at least, the job you were hired to do was to get results. I imagine OP was referring to people simply putting time on the clock and being just present enough to avoid notice, without actually caring whether they were getting the same results a full level of effort would achieve.
Even if they analysed slack+chime log activity. I guess they’ll explain it away with something like “working from office significantly reduces the need for online chatter”.
The important caveat is that we ALMOST ALWAYS need to do Chime meetings/Slack chats because our team is split across three cities -- Seattle, Arlington and Chicago. 2/5 of the team is stationed in Seattle office; 2/5 in Arlington; and 1/5 in Chicago. Not to mention that a bunch of folks from Hyderabad in India that we have to continuously work with. On top of all that, folks who are returning to the office can pick one of any weekday to go into the office (the other two days are agreed upon as Tuesday and Wednesday), so some folks are in the office on Monday, some on Friday (nobody choose to go in on Thursday from my limited observation).
That is, after all, the entire point of RTO mandates. (I am pro-remote and fortunate to work at a company that isn't RTO, but I will say that it is a breath of fresh air and notably higher-bandwidth conversations that are enabled on the few times per year that we get together in-person in an office.)
Almost any value is worth it. On your death bed you will never say I'm glad I spent those years of my life commuting for Amazon instead of everything else I could have been doing.
It’s not so clear cut. If I stay at my RTO job for a few more years, I can probably retire at 35-40, versus taking a pay cut and retiring sometime in my late 50s. I’d say that’s worth the commute.
Good on you if that's how it works, and I would say that's worth it, if all goes according to plan. But be aware that a lot of people have tried that strategy, and just end up working until age 65 and remembering how much of their 20s and 30s they wasted. Family, health, industry shakeups, change of priorities, and on and on. There are so many variables involved in trying to predict your distant future that sometimes it makes more sense to take care of the present, with an eye on the near-term.
This is just anecdata, but I spend my 20s/30s doing all sorts of hobbies that I don't even like anymore. I'm working much more in my 40s and have a high income, and I'm at least as happy as I was back then. Also I don't know what age I'll retire, but I'm sure that the money I'm saving now will buy me some comfort in the future.
No, it's not. Just think about your stress levels commuting, people infecting you with all kinds of diseases at work that lower your quality of life and have the chance to impair you to a great extend.
My commute isn’t your commute, and you can’t make blanket statements like that.
My stress level while commuting is basically zero. Tbh the commute makes me less stressed because it’s a nice time to listen to audio books and provides a physical barrier to “transition” into work mode. I dislike RTO for other reasons, but my stress level was higher while WFH than it is from commuting.
There are plenty of stressful jobs you can find yourself in, and having kids exposes you to far more diseases than working in an office.
Nothing is guaranteed, and if you're young having a few stressful years now then retiring is certainly easier than working dead end jobs for another 20.
What if you don't find commuting (I have a 12 minutes commute against the flow of traffic, I kind of like getting out and seeing the city and I enjoy driving), and aren't too worried about "all kinds of diseases at work" (i.e. Covid, Flu, and colds)? To be honest, you seem very paranoid about the risk of impairment by disease caught from coworker at your presumably white-collar tech job. This is minuscule. Does it surprise you that other's might not find your example to "just think" about not compelling at all?
I guess it depends on what you find fulfilling. Having new and interesting experiences in your 20s and 30s can have a pretty different effect on your life than leasure time in your 40s+. In my experience there is minimal overlap between people who maximized working hours in their younger years and have an exciting life outside of work later on. But I'm sure that's partly a reflection on my social circle and everyone is different; there's no one-size-fits-all life advice.
100% agree, but I don’t think a work commute will be the deciding factor in that. If I wasn’t commuting, I’d just be logging into work earlier, or maybe waking up later. It’s not like I’d be using the extra 30 minutes each morning to go adventure in the mountains.
Commuting doesn’t necessarily mean working long hours and missing out on the rest of life. I still only work 35-40 hours, I just sit in my car for 30-45 minutes each day. I definitely wish I didn’t, but for the pay I get (and the pay cut I’d take for taking a remote role), the 30-45 minutes is worth it at least temporarily.
$5250 USD (not including the bonus at my new firm, which is expected to range from $5K-$35K; higher cell phone reimbursement; 50% internet reimbursement and $350 yearly allowance for equipment, etc. at the new company). Most importantly (for me), I get paid twice a month at the new company. All in all, I'd say the TC is about the same.
> started working at 9 am and log out at 5pm pronto.
Isn't this 7-7.5 hrs? Are you not required to take at least a 30 minute break within that period? Or does Amazon pay for lunch? I thought 9-5 was a myth/thing of the past.
I've had required breaks at part time jobs and minimum wage jobs (which will never give you >35hrs/wk and your schedule is definitely not consistent). My understanding is it is state law and the 3 west coast states all have unpaid 30min breaks (if you aren't on call during break) for >5hrs work.
I am guessing that all of those previous jobs were non-exempt roles (non-exempt meaning Not exempt from regulations about overtime pay and mandatory breaks). It's worded weird and it took me a long time to even understand what the heck it meant. It is Federal US law, but there are also state laws that apply. I am not a Lawyer, I am just a guy who has had a lot of jobs before so take that for what it's worth.
I work 9-5 almost exactly (sometimes a little less) but I think that's just because we have a relaxed team when it comes to this. I usually end up making up some hours one or two evenings per week at my choosing. It's a really nice situation, but most of y'all would laugh at my TC. Everything in life's a tradeoff.
It includes lunch break at 12pm-1pm. I can confidently tell that most of my former coworkers (since RTO mandate) have been taking it slow/easy more so than they used to be.
Interesting. Maybe because I'm an intern at a big CA based tech company right now that's been pro WFH, but my timesheet will specify the regular and unpaid hours. It even puts the unpaid into a lunch category.
But then again, my internship feels like a job and I'm a bit confused. I do all the work with no direction, just report to my manager weekly and no training. Every internship I've had just feels like every job I've had except I don't get the equity and 401k that normal employees do. I've also always had to fill out a timesheet for every salaried position I've had, which seems a bit odd too. It's at least be quicker to fill out a checkbox lol.
That's not a sign of a good internship program. I've always put a great deal of time coming up with projects that are suitable for the intern, and they always have to be tailored to the individual skill-set after the process. At the end of it we either have something that worked, and we have a good sense of the capabilities and fit with the team dynamic.
I would ensure that you have someone to talk to who can discuss what success looks like for the role (of intern). With that, there is always what you want to get out of it, but if you are looking for a job, you need to have performance and goal conversations reguarly. How are you doing compared to peers or other interns, etc.
I don't think you're wrong, but my situation appears to be the norm when talking with others[0]. All but one internship I've had is like this and honestly I don't think I can adequately say I've gotten training, be it internship (excluding the one) or job (I worked prior to grad school). I've simply concluded that training is a thing of the past, or it is expected to be self-driven, and performed outside work. (Personally I do not think this is an intelligent move, but these companies are quite successful and I'm not even a millionaire, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
> How are you doing compared to peers or other interns, etc.
Hard to say, as I'm not sure who would be an adequate peer. If you are to ask me personally compared to my expectations, I would say below expectations. In part there is a lack of the adequate resources I need to do the job (I work in generative ML but I'm trying to not dox myself so I can be honest and I want to hear your advice), there is more complexity than I expected and no one to really bounce ideas off of or whom can offer advice, and I'll be honest that my motivation is nowhere near where it was when I started, so I'll admit that I could do better. But I do want to say that I am still learning a lot during this time, getting work done (my manager seems happy, I've had no complaints, and its the second job I've had where someone says "well done" more than once in a blue moon. It's been extended twice now, so its a decent signal that they're happy with my work), and having a reasonable wage does reduce a significant amount of stress. So I don't want this to come off as depressed doom and gloom, it's more that the conversation is around critiques rather than highlighting the good or benefits. I'm generally happy about the opportunity but it is clear that my experience(s) does not fit the common expectation of this title and that there is room for improvement (both me and them). But if critiques aren't acknowledged, how then can I improve? (I am looking for other teams who may offer a better fit, as that might just be it)
[0] There is a gap that I do notice though. It appears that this is not the norm for those who obtain internships that are more prestigious or the highly sought after ones. But I am not at a top 10 school and that appears to be one of the stronger variables of correlation (more so than understanding, as I do talk and collaborate with people from those institutions so I think I have a decent gauge on at least intellectual capabilities. There are, of course, people who stand out, but most seem no different). Connections appear to be a key part of getting internships and undoubtedly this is an opportunity feedback system. You take what you can get. I'm a bit surprised others do not exploit this, as it reasons that you could get top talent by creating top talent, but that's an entirely different conversation.
I don't think it's unusual to have to fill out a timesheet for salaried jobs. Most of the places I've worked have required employees to do that ritual. And I say "ritual" because it's basically just writing "8" in the "hours" field for each day and signing it, regardless of how much you actually worked. I remember once getting a talking-to for writing anything but 8 into my time sheet.
I've also worked at a place where I had to physically clock in and clock out (even for breaks and trips to the bathroom), and it was a salaried software development job. Not unheard of at all.
You may actually be hourly and not salaried. That said, it's not uncommon to be forced to log when you work, especially when there are PTO and things like that involved and that need to be accounted for.
Are you paid for the hours you work in the internship? If so then you are not an exempt salaried employee.
Pretty sure I'm technically hourly but clearly not for any practical purposes. I'm not allowed to place additional hours, even if I worked them. My work has unlimited PTO fwiw.
Though I've also worked full time salaried jobs and also been always required to fill out a timesheet. Often being told that it doesn't matter and the manager just saying they fill out a standard block at the beginning of each week. This is really what I've done at every job.
But I do want to make clear that I've had salaried positions in the past and not been given such offers. I am also not aware of any person that I know (offline) who has a paid lunch period and this includes many people in many sectors mostly in the west coast. This even includes my now retired parents.
i agree with the sentiment of your comment, but the pervasive RTO narrative from c-levels is not about restoring their employees' collective, holistic health. rather, it's couched in a narrative of productivity and community, the former being what i believe was being countered in the comment.
there's also the push/pull of the health benefits and disadvantages of commutes and other external factors that go into office-based dynamics. additionally, as i've mentioned in another comment on a similar thread, RTO mandates are not accompanied by corporate commitments to restore the cultures and environments that were present in the pre-remote migration which only intensifies the skepticism and recalcitrance of the workers.
Employees working exactly 9 to 5 is absolutely the opposite of what employers doing RTOs for "productivity" want. They want them putting in unpaid overtime and are suspicious that they aren't when they're at home because they can't see them.
In a healthy work environment where there's high morale and trust, the exact work hours are going to be off somewhat on a day to day basis in either direction based on logical stopping points. In a toxic environment, workers will pretend to work towards the end of the day then go home exactly when the clock hits 5. Once they can, workers in such an environment will probably leave.
In a vacuum, yes. In practice, a ton of people I know spent all that extra time commuting which is probably worse for most people than putting some extra work in.
To me it says that working in an office+commute is much more draining than working at home. So much so that they work only the required amount. When they worked at home, they worked more because it was more enjoyable.
Flexibility has both costs and benefits, for both employers and workers. Being able to switch off and on work throughout the day is a significant benefit for many people, and many people experience having a less well-defined schedule as a significant cost. For some people the benefit will outweigh the cost and for others the opposite will be true. (And I'm sure for lots of people, they will think the benefits outweigh the costs, while actually working in an unhealthy detrimental way.)
But one size doesn't fit all. I'm honestly sympathetic to management of companies figuring out how to balance what's best for individuals with what's best for teams and organizations as a whole.
But I strongly believe that the most successful companies coming out of this period will be those who take this problem seriously, rather than those who pine for the old days and "solve" it with a one-size-fits-all edict from the top.
Yeah, sometimes these are soft-layoffs, but even under that logic it's a bad idea: your best employees are the ones who have the most options outside of your company.
If you do a traditional layoff you get to decide who stays and who goes and have at least the chance to try and retain your top players.
If you do a soft-layoff someone else does the choosing, and the more employable the employee is on the outside the more likely they are to leave.
Just ass-backwards decision-making no matter how one slices it.
A few of my coworkers (3 out of ~15 people team) have/had left when RTO mandate was announced, and I know at least 4 people are thinking of leaving as soon as they have a chance. Since the RTO, a lot of my colleagues have started working at 9 am and log out at 5pm pronto. Before RTO, they would be working until 6-7 pm and will be logging in around 8 am. Sometimes, coworkers would even log in late because they were commuting. I wonder if Amazon would check the Slack+Chime logs to see how the activity drops before and after RTO mandate. Based on my observation, I would bet that the activity/productivity drops significantly more.
Glad I left Amazon. I have been programming for 15+ years (have been in a managerial role for 6+ years), and I firmly believe I am (and my team are) more productive working remotely. I will never work for a non-remote companies even if they are big names.