@xlayman38
I don’t agree with the principal engineer, when I was at Amazon, I was proactively asking my manager if I was performing well, I also held a backup offer if they say anything negative against my performance. During the end of November he said I am obviously meeting expectation, believing these words I gave up my offer at other good company. The time is January and manager suddenly switched gears and put me on PIP, and my existing offer expired and they hired someone else. Has this person told me earlier my life would have been much better now!! Amazon is full of backstabbers and narcissists people.
@H3110W0rd-j
It's refreshing to hear a perspective from an experienced folk who can speak freely about their experience on their former employers: The folks who are employed may not speak this freely due to conflict of interests. The internet has been flooded with cookie-cutting advice stemming from "Cracking the Coding Interview" or similar. Thank you for being *different*!
@rja62b
im an ex amazon swe. Just watching the first 10 seconds of this brings PTSD and makes me want to quit this industry forever. Yet here i am still leetcoding trying to get into companies i know i'll hate working for anyway. Because money.
@ShawnOfTheDead-v6o
I have asked about expectations and always get a vague ass response as do my colleagues. Then come performance time around the time the company wants to do cuts, suddenly someone didn't meet expectations... lol Steve has clearly drunken the kool-aid at Amazon. When a company is doing well and business is good and the company is growing, his comments on layoffs/perf review are accurate. When things are not going well, revenue slows down, and "structural costs" need to be removed, it is not about performance so much, it is about removing cost from the system.
@tjhsiao06
This is by far the BEST interview of a (Principle) Engineer career in a Tier-1 (Amazon) ever conducted for TouTube
@JayPatel101
It's a numbers game. You can't meet expectations of a lead who has favorites. Plan ahead and do what's best for you. I knew someone who was so good at seeing it coming, they'd leave when the going was good and return as many times bypassing these events.
@jihanzhang5527
For anyone interested in joining Amazon, practice behavioral questions—a lot. It makes a big difference if you practice your stories three to five times. I can’t recall anyone who did extremely well in coding and system design but failed because of behavioral questions. However, I have definitely voted ‘yes’ for someone who did okay in coding but excelled in behavioral questions. It’s just as important as coding and system design.
@repthebae9758
All respect to interviewee (definitely way smarter than me), but completely disagree with idea that landscape is easier to break into swe with non CS degree 6:20. Valid point that there’s more resources today then back then, but due to larger shift in supply then demand, today’s faang recruiters won’t even glance your resume for a SWE role if ur not CS, applied math, or some engineering degree.
@Samjs1
A large number of Tech jobs have been taken by foreign visa holders and offshore employees.
@MrBraveTurtle
As an Electrical Engineer who at first wanted to become a Software Engineer, I'm so happy that is chose my current path. Tech sector seems to be filled with extreme ups and down.
@dr.woozie7500
I guarantee you the vast majority of engineers at Amazon would not be able to solve a Leetcode hard in under 30 minutes. But ironically that's the expectation nowadays. The entire sentiment that it's easier to break into tech nowadays is FLAWED. It used to be you had to code a Leetcode easy and pass a behavioral to prove you are socially competent. Now the bar is INSANE, even for interns. At this point, you are selecting for people who spend their entire waking hours doing Leetcode rather than projects or actual SWE work!
@rkas46
Ryan is such a good interviewer. Excellent questions. Great job brother.
@orijit
How articulate! I loved the comment on "Opportunity" And "Upskill" for those opportunities.
@soulysouly7253
Steve is given too much credit for literally showing up at the right time, when amazon still was super early stage AND he had internal connections to get in. And today, he tells you with a straight face that getting in tech back when theyd train people on the job is harder than getting in today, where you need a T10 school name and published papers on your resume to make up for lack of experience. Like bro stfu. The one and only best advice I can give you guys is to stop trying to get into fancy companies early on in your career, and instead build a name for yourself working at a small but very dedicated company with a product you believe in, itll be infinitely more rewarding, especially if it blows up and you have equity. I am in that situation right now, even though I had internships at NVIDIA and AMD, I saw just how ridiculously hard it was to get in and went for a great startup instead, now I own 2% equity in a company valued at 35M, Im like 2 years out of school.
@ddashkevich
The best interview so far! So many helpful insights… and overall, it was just a pleasure listening to it.
@KevinNaughtonJr
2 awesome people making an awesome video :)
@willfrye4736
I would definitely love to see a series like Steve described - Seeing if he can accurately assess their level.
@briankilpatrick4081
45:16 definitely agree on being proactive in asking for feedback but why is it ok that many don’t know there are issues until close to review time, if at all? It should be on both the IC & manager to communicate expectations & performance
@banned_from_eating_cookies
This was an excellent high-level discussion.
@ps-dn7ce