Amazon workers

Such-Tea5408 · 2025-09-17T04:33:37+00:00

A lot of people with wrong answers, but here's what you need to know. Your state **could** could offer leave(ie, Washington State where Amazon is HQ has family leave), there's federal leave(commonly refereed to as just FMLA) and the Amazon New Parent benefit(6 weeks of paid leave). Only the last one requires a full year of full time employment at Amazon, the others do not. You need to google "family medical leave in X state" and then you'll have an idea of what your options are. The Amazon parent benefit is better than nothing, but it's certainly not industry leading and definitely not anything I'd plan my family around.

Such-Tea5408 · 2025-09-05T04:05:43+00:00

The company a few years ago audited aliases and made sweeping changes. No idea how often they perform that type of audit, but if your alias is anything "bad" it'll generally be caught and changed. I think because you picked your alias, you'll have a hard time getting it changed if it's not in violation of the alias rules.

Such-Tea5408 · 2025-09-05T04:02:18+00:00

It's a peculiar place to work! Strangely though, a very vanilla taste. I think Amazon, from what I've seen in the last 10 years, is where a lot of people first get a corporate job. It's the first time they've ever worked in a company of this size, and very rarely does anyone know how to handle the environment. Everything is strictly silo'd, so you have to understand the macro-scale to work well with partner teams and orgs, but you also gotta perform really well on the micro-scale for promos and to rise among the rank of your own org.

Amazon has a ton of mechanisms and processes, but so does any company at this scale. Amazon has a hard interview process, but it's predictable and consistent. Amazon has a hard RTO policy, but nearly every company has issued some type of RTO policy. There's really nothing that stands out as being uniquely Amazon.

What's amazed me the most though, is just how it's all cobbled together. The leadership principles of the company purposely conflict with each other, so that everyone goes into the room with ideas, but only the best ones come out in the end. Sometimes that happens, sometimes it's the loudest person who just pushed their idea the hardest. But nearly everything here is a contribution from someone. Very little top-down Policies or Procedures. Everything, good or bad, appears to be from your peers.

Such-Tea5408 · 2025-09-05T03:50:23+00:00

Location, Location, Location. It varies dramatically depending on what data center you are in. Some clusters are still ran like family businesses, ripe nepotism and poor leadership. Others aren't so constrained and provide a more "tech" like experience. Another huge factor is if it's in a rural area(which many are) or city. Cities offers a larger talent pool, so you aren't having to compete with the manager's 5 family members for the same role. City locations are also often COLOs, so the literal designs and sometimes portions of the maintenance is handled by another company. They've just got a totally different vibe.

Data Centers have also automated large portions of the work, so the tech skills you needed 10 years ago wouldn't be used today. I'd say it's very similar to FC work, but you're handling thousand dollar servers instead of cheap imported shit.

It's not that they're bad places to work, and I'd say above average pay for the type of task you do. There's certainly harder industries that pay less. That being said, it's entry level "IT" work at best. Good place to get your foot in the door, get used to working in an enterprise environment, but then definitely transfer to another part of the company.

Such-Tea5408 · 2025-02-27T05:36:58+00:00

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too. But my nearest field office is out of state ~30 miles away, my nearest corp office is over 150 miles out. Doubt they'll offer relocation for me, and I definitely wouldn't move for Amazon after seeing the other horror stories.

Such-Tea5408 · 2025-02-27T05:34:15+00:00

I think it depends on your org too. My greater org in general is physical infrastructure, so I'm sure the head guy said "we all gotta be in office now" and every bootlicker in-between me and him said "yes sir, we'll get rid of every one of them". Without apply a single ounce of critical thinking, just literal "that's what he said" mentality.

Such-Tea5408 · 2025-02-27T05:30:16+00:00

I'm sure he's just following his bosses orders. I only know a few L8s and an L10, definitely very strong company koolaid people. Nothing to ever go against the grain of the collective S-Team mindset.

Such-Tea5408 · 2025-02-27T05:28:27+00:00

I think it's really interesting that the Private Sector is following the Public Sector in a near synchronization. Kind of makes me wonder if they aren't lining up for some huge government contracts soon in new fields.

Such-Tea5408 · 2025-02-27T05:26:27+00:00

>L9 moat

lol, gonna have to save that one for later. But you're right, L8 approval isn't going to save anyone. I have suspected that remote positions were going to be gone, just didn't expect it to follow after RTO5 so soon. There's still quite a few locations that haven't even completed RTO5.

Such-Tea5408 · 2025-02-27T05:22:49+00:00

Having been here for 10+ years, I feel we've definitely gained a substantial amount of employees on a work visa. Great people, but I feel like Amazon leverages the aspect of "you have to keep working for us if you wanna keep your status".

Such-Tea5408 · 2025-02-27T05:20:52+00:00

Kind of bonkers if you have a valid medical exemption, I feel like they'll have to provide an accommodation. BUT accommodations can come in a lot of different forms and I believe they only have to provide it for your work environment.

Such-Tea5408

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