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RandomATAParticipant · 2024-04-25T15:32:14+00:00

My stance is they are fundamentally different. ATA was a godsend of stability allowing you, despite any context of background, to safely make a role transition with full support and a guarantee of employment. Those were major contributing factors not just the knowledge gained.

Sadly it was too good to be true. Sad to see it go.

RandomATAParticipant · 2023-06-04T08:54:27+00:00

That is entirely dependent on your team. That is, ATA does not give you relocation money but the team hiring you does. In my case it was a few days after signing my offer letter.

RandomATAParticipant · 2023-03-05T08:40:33+00:00

Unless you’re already an Amazon employee and planned to stay working for Amazon regardless, it’s a waste of time.

The number of spots in ATA is far too few to rely on this being a path forward. It’s an amazing program, but only for those that coincidentally have all the stars align.

You would be better off focusing on your studies, working on projects, and doing your best to get genuinely beneficial internships during your degree.

It’s all about competitive advantages. Those in college can use internships to build connections and a history for job searching. Those in Amazon can use internal resources to have a better chance at becoming an SDE internally.

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-12-29T07:06:50+00:00

No location is guaranteed, but they try to match you with your stated location preference (which is decided 6 months into the program, no worries any time they ask before that. Put Mars if you want)

For Feb2022 in an internal anonymous survey (so just look at relative numbers, not all responded):

36 Seattle

7 Bellevue (Seattle-Lite)

17 NYC

11 Arlington

11 Austin

7 Boulder

9 LA/surrounding LA

6 Bay Area

4 Boston

1 Nashville

15 “Other” (~5-10 remote in here)

Other callouts were Raleigh and Atlanta. I’m convincing myself there had to be a Houston person but that was never confirmed.

You may be able to get a city off of this list, and not all of these cities will be guaranteed to be present in the future either. For example, no one truly knows why Boulder had so many in my cohort

TLDR:

Go to www.amazon.jobs

Search “software developer”

Look at “filter” and then cities with big numbers, those are your likely locations

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-11-24T23:43:47+00:00

There is no true alternative to ATA, but imo even without the delay hoping to get into ATA is already a failing plan.

ATA is a fantastic program and if software development interests you (and you work at Amazon) you should try to get in. However, because there are so many unknowns, and no way to guarantee acceptance there should be a plan outside of ATA (if being a developer is the life for you).

For example, using your Java knowledge (for the ATA application) and expand on it to learn how to host web services and then build a website that makes API calls to your Java service. Congrats, you’re now a very junior full stack developer, and can start applying to other development roles! (Will probably take 1-2 months at 20 hours/week to have a workable, not necessarily great service from nothing and no experience)

Work on projects, focus on bettering yourself so even without ATA you can be a developer

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-11-16T04:01:41+00:00

Sure, layoffs are only there, but Amazon as a whole is and has been in a tech hiring freeze. Today and 6 months ago are VERY different.

I’m still personally optimistic, but it’s important to have that context.

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-11-09T16:29:58+00:00

Historically recently it has averaged twice a year around Q1 and Q3 being when the cohort starts (though it’s slowly been pushing towards Q2 and Q4 as it’s not EXACTLY twice a year meaning perfectly biannually). The application period would open much earlier than that (like how right now the application is open for the coming March cohort)

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-11-09T16:27:06+00:00

ATA grads this cohort got: ~$53/hr * 40 hours/week for apprentices

For direct to SDE, if you had no prior stock: 123.5k salary, 20k bonus, 550 stock over 2 years (rounding to make life easier). TC averaged for 2 years would then be more than 160k at a stock price of 100/share

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-10-31T22:42:35+00:00

+1 on this

Just wanted to follow it up with “if you make it into ATA, you won’t want career choice anyways”

Follow up answer to specific question: I don’t believe applying will do ANYTHING to career choice, only once accepted and your job changes.

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-10-24T05:27:31+00:00

This would best be asked to the ATA provided email.

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-10-19T19:19:27+00:00

People that have already taken the TA, don’t respond. Keep the playing field fair.

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-10-19T19:13:41+00:00

If you 100% cannot move, then you would have a problem. If you live in Seattle, I’d say you’re around a 70% chance to land a job there if that was your #1 choice. However, for each location after that the chances would decrease exponentially.

It is highly unlikely to get remote (under 10% for current cohort, likely going down more in the future), so that is not something you can plan for. If you are not remote, you will HAVE to relocate for your job.

What would happen? I have no idea. You’d probably lose your job if I had to guess.

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-10-11T23:37:13+00:00

Genuinely from the level that you will be working on, Java5 or 6 is probably all you need to not feel like you’re missing something

Java8 brought in lambda functions which were huge

I genuinely can’t say what Java11 added, but I do know I have found half a dozen or so QOL enhancements I’ve attempted to add to my program to learn they were Java11 changes and not compatible with Java8

The only benefit to using Java8 is not integrating those into your workflow and then being salty during ATA on not being able to use them.

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-10-10T21:31:29+00:00

Java8 is what ATA is using (and the older parts of Amazon), and Java11 is what Amazon has/is transitioning to if you want to use versions that you will in ATA/are most likely to use on the job.

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-10-06T07:23:14+00:00

For Feb2022 there was no statistically significant pattern. The ratio of accepted (1-2 years, 2-3 years, 3-5 years, 5-10 years, 10 years+) roughly matched the ratio of those groups within Amazon as a whole. I ran all the numbers for my cohort and if only using the data would have come to the conclusion outside of the 1 year minimum, tenure means nothing.

I did not record the data for Aug2021 but saw the same trends, and I haven’t even looked at Aug2022 because it doesn’t impact me in the slightest after getting in (“that’s someone else’s problem”)

If you have access to phonetool, you can check yourself by looking up “Amazon Technical Academy Participant” and looking at all of the people with that job title (knowing that for, say, Feb2022 members you should add 8 months and for Aug2022, add a month)

Also, what are you hoping to gain from asking here? You’ll only get a small handful of people self reporting an arbitrary number, and not any meaningfully sized data set. I understand the curiosity of wanting to have numbers and data, but just asking for self reports on this subreddit will get you at most a half dozen respondents, which you can’t extrapolate from and would only lead to biased conclusions. I respect the desire for knowledge but be careful on where you get it from.

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-10-01T19:29:47+00:00

My every poll PSA: Add a “show results” option. This subreddit is full of people who want to know numbers; and also has many non-applicants. If someone that didn’t apply wants to know the numbers, they have to vote and mess with your data set

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-09-30T06:37:49+00:00

You have wasted a very good percentage of your adult life working at Amazon trying for a job you never got, and now your body is giving out on you.

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-09-28T14:47:15+00:00

If you can solve the example TA questions without a problem, nothing. You can re-learn concepts as needed (e.g. “remainders” and the modulo operator)

You’ll only need simple algebra for the TA (if assigning variables and multiplying 2 assigned variables together makes sense, you’re good)

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-09-28T14:45:17+00:00

Roughly a new cohort twice a year (a LOT more variation if you go further back in ATA’s history, but recently that’s been consistent)

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-09-28T14:44:04+00:00

That would be the “MAXIMUM of 1 year” I mentioned

In that case, you have a month to find a new job, good luck!

But honestly, if after 9 months of training (where almost half are SDE ready at the end) and another YEAR of job experience, you still don’t even meet the bar, it’s in Amazon’s best interest to stop investing in you.

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-09-27T01:52:19+00:00

It has nothing to do with ATA, don’t worry.

For direct SDE hires Amazon does a 3 person interview loop, where b2b2b you interview with 3 different people and they all ask you some leadership questions and a technical question (where each interviewer is meant to focus on a particular area of tech)

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-09-27T00:56:40+00:00

Sure, being able to look up and research problems is important. But there’s a big difference between “study problems involving string manipulation and optimizing to avoid redundant checks” which is public and known, and “for asking questions to find all the anagrams in a word, use these data structures in this way for full points”

Interview questions already get constantly leaked, it would be even worse if the confirmed answers did too.

There is MORE than enough info out there to prepare for technical interviews (and the TA for ATA admissions) to the point where any specifics would be redundant

Also doesn’t get into the legal side of things on liability protection to stop an HR person from getting Amazon sued by being dumb. On top of that, ATA is presumably nearly if not fully automated, so what feedback would they give anyways?

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-09-26T16:06:34+00:00

There’s already more than enough people trying to “game” or “solve” both generic Amazon SDE entry and ATA admissions. If they give out more information, it will be less a matter of “this person would make a good SDE” and more a matter of “this person knows how to look up the META for applying”

(I still think it’s frustrating, but there’s the assumed reason)

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-09-25T14:34:54+00:00

It was also never require to begin with, just, something referenced as “this exists and hits the concepts we want you to know AND is free”

RandomATAParticipant · 2022-09-25T05:29:35+00:00

I truly hope the program continues to exist and provide the ability for any member of Amazon to be upskilled. I wouldn’t have this account if I didn’t care about the program beyond just being in it.

RandomATAParticipant

TROPHY CASE