6 Reasons I'll Never Work at Amazon as a Software Engineer

welcome back to another one of my vlogs in this vlog I'm gonna talk about why I don't think I'll ever work at Amazon Google Facebook Apple Netflix you know name your company name your big company or any really other small company for that matter and I'm not saying these companies are bad or even necessarily that they want to hire me I just want to list out the pros and cons that I would make that I do make when when considering ever going to get a job or if a recruiter reaches out to me and says hey we think you'd be a good fit for this job which happens a lot especially from Amazon I seem to get messages from recruiters you know every week now before I start talking about the pros and cons I want to be really clear here I've never been offered a job by any of these companies and I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with these companies this is purely a perspective video my perspective of the pros and the cons that that I think about when I'm considering hmmm what I ever go actually get a job you know how much money would it make would make it worth it for me to go get a job what are the good things what are the bad things about it just basically weighing everything and seeing where I'm at and I think generally like everybody should do this all of the pros and cons that I listed in this video for getting a job or not getting a job I think everybody should really consider because it takes into consideration you know your lifestyle what you really want what's important how much time you want to spend in a day working on things what really makes you happy that's that's kind of what it really comes down to the pros or the positive points about getting a job at any of these big companies you know Amazon Facebook Google Apple whatever or even a smaller company I really think that the pros are the positive points come down to four major components or four major groups number one is the team that you're working with the people do you like the people and just so you know I'm gonna expand on these ideas so I'm just kind of listing them out just to start with do you like the people that you work with I think this is this is definitely the most important thing number two is probably the money you know when it comes down to it we all need money to live money is very important we you know people say that money can't buy happiness but money pays for your lifestyle it provides for your family it allows you to go on vacations it buys food like no matter what way you look at it you need money to live number three is the technology that you're working on I I can't imagine going to work and working on something that you are not interested in I think that would be basically torture and I'm sure that there are lots of people out there who do that so I think number three comes in at working on something that actually interests you some kind of tech stack something that makes you want to get up and work on it in the morning and number four is going to be your resume so how good is this company going to look on your resume at the end of the day when you end up leaving it it's very important to have a resume that looks good because no matter what at the end of the day or at the end of that job you're going to go and find another job so you need to have something on your resume that's gonna make you look credible make you look like you know what you're doing make it easier for you to get that next job or maybe get a pay increase at that next job now let's loop back and talk about those things that I just listed so number one was the team that you're working on you know I did have a job once I had a single job when I graduated school when I graduated from my undergrad I went out and I started working in IT and I have to say that the people that I worked with at that job were really excellent I liked I really enjoyed spending time with them I enjoyed working with them I got along with them it was a fun like environment where you could joke around and and just generally have fun now I didn't get along with quite everybody probably 99% of people but there was one person that I did not get along with and just having that one person that I didn't get along with made it almost like torture going to work but it didn't help that I sat beside him - that was pretty terrible but I really I really hated it I hated working with somebody who I had I guess you would call conflict with and just it was always in my head like from the time I woke up in the morning I thought oh I gotta go sit beside that guy great even though everything else was like generally good just having one person that I didn't get along with really made it quite miserable well I'm miserable I guess but just it was annoying very annoying so I can't imagine going to work and like having a bunch of people that you don't get along with I think by far that would be like the worst case scenario so suppose you worked at a company like Amazon I think that in a company that big it's almost inevitable that you will run into somebody that you don't get along with whether it's your manage whether it's someone on your team whether it's someone from another team that you're constantly like you know talking with coordinating with I think like it's it's pretty much impossible it's very very very very unlikely that you'll get it on a team or get to a job where you don't have somebody that you don't get along with so that's you know that's a pretty big thing that you have to consider when well I mean I don't even know how you consider that because really you don't know until you start the job so that kind of sucks but that's that's definitely something that comes into my mind when I'm I'm self-employed now so like if I think about going and getting a job I think yeah I probably would get along with most people but chances are there's gonna be somebody I don't get along with now looking back the second thing that I mentioned was money so as I said you know we all need money to live some people like money more than others some people say that money is evil you shouldn't want money you shouldn't try to make a lot of money because it's like bad somehow you know I don't really I don't really stand on either side of that fence I don't think money's bad I don't think it's good I think it's really just like you need money to live so at the end of the day working at a big company is going to be advantageous to you because they pay really well you know the average employee at Amazon a software developer probably makes like a salary of 200,000 u.s. they probably make 150 to 200,000 u.s. plus they'll get stock options if you look at people like tech Li I'm sure some of you watch his videos he said he worked at Facebook and yeah I believe he said he had a salary of two hundred fifty thousand plus around two hundred thousand of stock options so he was close to getting half a million a year as a software developer so he was at a senior level so like entry-level jobs are quite lower but even a lower level of software developer job you're probably gonna make 150,000 to 200,000 u.s. that is a load of money so there I don't even really see any like downside to this point it's really just a positive if you go and work at any of the big companies Amazon Facebook Google Netflix uber any of these companies they all are gonna pay really well so I don't even I don't even see a downside to this they just pay really well so money if you're looking for money that's that getting a job one of those companies is a good place to go now the third point that I talked about was the tech stack this one reminds me of the first point which is people going to work and working with a bunch of people that you don't like you don't get along with would be really terrible it'd be like basically torture so number three the text stack if you go to work and you're working on things that you just don't care about like some technology you just don't care about it at all that would be basically torture because it's it's hard being a software developer is hard programming is hard working on things solving problems running into bugs all of these things happening when you're working on something you don't care about that would be really terrible now the other side of the coin is if you got to work on something that you do love you do you are very interested in that would be very rewarding so this could be either very bad or very good depending on where you go to work but luckily you're pretty much in control of this well your control this when you apply for the job anyway because you you get to decide what positions you're applying for so you probably do have a lot of control here because if you're applying you can say hey like what kind of tech are you working on if they're working on stuff you don't care about you just not apply for the job so that's um that's a that's a that's a big thing and you are mostly in control of that so make sure to pick a tech stack that you care about because I really think it would be terrible to go to work every day and work on something that you don't care about and the fourth thing I talked about is these jobs a lot of these jobs at big companies they look really good on resumes so if you worked at you know Google Facebook Amazon any of those for a year or two and you have that on your resume maybe you have a manager who has something good to say about you chances are it's going to be really easy for you to at least get an interview at whatever your next job is you're still gonna have to go through the interview process and all that stuff but it's gonna be probably very very easy for you to get an interview they're gonna see that you were doing you know whatever software developer engineer level at Amazon they'll say oh yeah I definitely come in for an interview they probably won't even check anything else so that's that's a pretty big deal so those are the four kind of biggest upsides that I see about getting a job especially at a big company I know I talked about some of the downsides but those are the four kind of biggest upsides now let's talk about the downsides and these are the things that I consider when you know Amazon recruiters reach out to me Facebook recruiters reach out to me and they say hey come apply for a job the these are the things that I sit back and I think hmm do I even want this job so I have some points listed here and they're kind of in order they're mostly in order I would say so i would say pay attention to the order but don't pay too much attention to the order so the first one the first point the first biggest con I would say is having to drive to work now most people don't really care about this most people don't even think about this but I live out like in the suburbs in the country if I was to go and get a job at any kind of bigger tech company I live in Bank I live near Vancouver British Columbia in Canada I live about I'd say about an hour commute an hour 15 minutes out of Vancouver so if I got a job chances are it would be in Vancouver there's actually a new Amazon distribution center I think own Vancouver just got built last year and so if I got a job there say I would have to commute about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes if there's traffic it could be longer it could be an hour and a half hour forty-five minutes one way then I got a drive home so if you think about that even if I'm only working an eight-hour day I gotta drive an hour and 15 there that's nine hours and 15 minutes hour and 15 back that's ten and a half hours ten and a half hours has been given just for me to go to work do the work and get home then what I mean there's other things I got to do too I got to make my lunch some of these companies companies provide lunch but some don't but like there's there's lost time in like preparing for work getting home from work unwinding from work really at the end of the day you can think about it I'm gonna be spending eleven to twelve hours a day just like getting to work doing work setting up for work and unwinding from work 12 hours a day so that's that's a lot of time if I'm sleeping eight hours a day that only leaves me you know say nine hours a day because there's usually unwinding time when you before you go to bed and in winding up time when you're getting up from bed so really that leaves me five hours a day to for myself now I have dogs I have a family I exercise so I go to the gym so say a gym gym workout takes away our hour and a half by the time you factor in drive time that brings me down to only three and a half hours say I spend some time with my dogs because they need attention to they can't yeah so that's another that's another thing with the Drivetime - and going like I have animals my wife works she's a nurse who's gonna look after my animals my dogs I love my dogs I gotta give them attention so like you can anyway I'm sure you get the idea here I'm slowly whittling down the time I have each day to do things and I and I have things that I need to do that like never mind like what if one day I got to go to the bank and like do some kind of I don't know whatever errand maybe my dog has to go to the vet like I don't know there's just like so many things and having to go to a job drive there every day drive home it is a huge huge burden massive massive burden not to mention like I I personally don't like driving I think it's like I've always get very very sleepy I can't do it it just I hate it I think because it just burns time it's like a complete waste of time so for me I find like driving is a huge burden it's not good for like my mental state it makes me like it makes me like depressed because I think like I'm just burning this time every day I'm wasting like two to three hours a day and that adds up over your lifetime you burn three three hours a day two hours a day like that's that's serious time so anyway driving to work commuting going there is is a huge huge burden I'm an ADD like if it was a remote job that would be totally different that that is like I would take like 30% less salary maybe even 40% just to work from home because the burden of driving there and driving home is it's like on that that like I said I'm listening this is my number one thing this is this is an important thing to me I think it's it's a huge burden okay so now now point number two my con number two is having to work on things that you don't care about now I know in the pros I said that working on a great tech stack or working on some technology that you care about will be really cool and it would but the other side of the coin is what if you got a job or maybe you applied for the job and you got the job originally to do one task and that was something that you were really interested in then later your manager said hey you know what we're gonna put you on this other team and you're gonna go work on this you don't care about have fun you're you know you you're mostly helpless in those situation so if I had to like coupled with driving to work every day and then going and working on something that I hate that is like that is disastrous I think that if you want to talk about depression that is oh that is a your quick ticket to get to depression I think that's like the fastest way you could get there possible waking up every day thinking wow I'm now I'm gonna burn three hours of my life just getting to this job where I have to work on something that I don't care about that sounds miserable oh man just thinking of that like it gives me nightmares now my third point is trading time for money and I know this kind of ties into the other two points that I just listed you know going to work and I'm having to drive to work and spend your whole day there working on stuff you don't like now I know also that these companies typically pay really well like I said you could probably expect 150 to 200 thousand u.s. salary which is a great salary but at the end of the day you're still trading time for money if you don't go to work you don't get paid now if you're self-employed this is a totally different thing and I know that not everybody can be self-employed I feel very privileged that I am self-employed and I don't make money like I don't make the kind of money that I would if I was a software developer working at Amazon but I still do get paid even if I don't work so if I decide that you know I just feel really taxed I feel really rundown I can just take a day off nobody is going to not pay me or I'm not going to not get my paycheck even a month I could take a month off and money is still gonna come in you know and that's that's a really big deal because everybody needs a break like let's face it at some point or another you're probably going to get burned out and being able to having the option to take a break is is a big thing but again like I know that not everybody can be self-employed and I also know that many people do get paid like through their vacations most companies paid vacation pay so that's a great thing but just having the option to like take a day off is a big deal and I know a lot of companies nowadays do like if you got to take a personal day I know a lot of friends who are professionals they if they ever have to take a personal day they still get paid and I think that's that's a really good thing because everybody has happened to them and sometimes you gotta take a day off now my fourth point my fourth con for getting a job is you usually don't have the ability to be creative at work and I'm a very creative person I think so this is like a big deal to me I find this and this also kind of ties into working on stuff that you don't care about if you're going to work and if you're someone who gets a lot of ideas like you you just get these ideas and you want to go and you want to explore them you want to just build this random thing and I think most software developers would probably like that because that's that's how you get into software development in the first place most of the time is most of the time you just you want to build something you get an idea and you're like hey I want to build this so most of you watching this are probably very creative people so unfortunately though in jobs when you go and get a job as a software development company or as a software developer at a company you don't really have much opportunity to be creative and if you do have an idea you pretty much can just pitch it to like your manager pitch it to your team it goes you know up the ladder to the higher-ups and they might just be like no we don't think we're going to do that so you know I don't know this is that's a big one for me and I'm guessing it's probably a big one for it for some of you point number five is office politics now this one kind of ties into working with people that you don't like but I think it deserves its own category because if you've ever worked at an office especially a big one actually maybe it even happens at small ones I don't know but as I would I would think especially a big one there is this thing this phenomenon known as office politics and it's essentially like a clout thing like certain people have reputation if you have a high reputation at any given time the likelihood of your ideas or the things that you say getting passed to the upper ups or higher ups and getting executed or much higher if you have sort of your reputation is been taken down a little bit or maybe you don't get along with like one other person who's a friend of the manager things can be very bad for you it's it's kind of like a game it really is I think office politics is very much comparable to a game you want to like cover your at all times making sure to like shift blame to others at least this is what it seems like to me you have to shift blame to others to make sure that you can't be implicated and I don't think this is a good way to do things most companies unfortunately do this though being held accountable and and weighing everybody's sort of opinions equally is definitely the best way to do it but that is not how it happens practically speaking you know office politics is yeah the best way I could think of it is a game it's a it's a game you have to play and if you're not good at the game you are gonna have a bad time now the last point that I'm gonna talk about which is point number six is you have to work for somebody else and I know this was kind of covered for any it could it could be considered as the sum of all of the other points but for me I like to think of it as a stand alone point I personally do not like working for other people I think like I said it's it's kind of like the sum of all of the other points you know I like to be creative I like to explore ideas I don't like to drive to work I don't like somebody telling me the things that I get to work on all of these things I I hate it like like I said if given all of these cons if I worked at a job that had all these scenarios that I've been describing I think it would be a one-way street to depression it would be I would be a miserable miserable person so at the end of the day I think this can all be summarized as I don't like to work for other people and that's just that's just how I am but you know maybe you have a different perspective on all the things that I just just said maybe you enjoy your commute to work because you like to listen to audiobooks maybe you like the people that you work with maybe you like the tech that you work with maybe you like the money you probably do like the money I think everybody's gonna like the money maybe you enjoy office politics and maybe you like to just be told what to do which is I'm not saying this is a bad thing you know you come to work your boss says hey can you work on this today you say yes you work on it you go home now that that could be a good thing maybe you like that so all of these cons you know take them with a grain of salt this is just my personal opinion why I will probably never work at a company even you know even if they offered me a whole bunch of money you know that's actually what it really comes down to whenever these recruiters reach out to me I always sit back and I think and I know they're not like offering me a job they're offering a chance to apply for a job I understand that but before I even go and think about applying I always asked myself what amount of money would it take to make all of these cons meaningless and I really sit there and I think and originally I know my number like probably last year would have been like 300k if they offered me 300 K I would drop everything I'm doing and I would go I would go work at this job but now the more I think about it I don't even think I think if they offered me 500 K u.s. I don't think I would because at some point the money becomes irrelevant and what I mean by that is I have enough money to live you know I can pay my bills I have I can take care of my family I have everything I need I do all the things I need I don't I don't think my life would change if I had more money I would just you know play around with the stock market more I maybe would buy a bigger house I would buy it and you know a brand new car or like a brand new really expensive car you know but those things I don't really care about so like at the end of the day I really think like what amount of money would it take for me to take a job and I don't think any amount of I'm sure I'm sure there's a number like if they offered me so you know something insane like a million bucks a year or two million bucks a year of course I'd probably go do it for a year and then I'd quit because then I would just get a bunch of money like I could suffer for a year get that money and get out but I mean that's not realistic nobody's gonna offer me that kind of money so it's it pretty much is at the point now where I don't think I would ever take a job because there's no amount of money short of something insane which would never happen that I would take because I'm happy and I don't want to be unhappy which is what would happen if I took that job so hopefully this provided some perspective to you again I wasn't trying to like Don any of these companies and say like don't go work for them you're gonna like get unhappy or whatever I'm sure there's a lot of people who are very happy working at these jobs like most people probably you know you get a great salary you probably work on great stuff you probably work with great people it's probably good just just for me I wanted to just talk about the things that I consider when whenever these recruiters reach out to me because that's the stuff that goes through my head and again I want to just just say that I know these people aren't offering me jobs and not saying like they're just throwing their throwing jabs out to me I got job offers all over the place I'm just saying this is what I think about and one last thing before you go do not forget to like the video YouTube does not recommend my videos to other people unless you tell it that it's a good video so please go down there hit that like button I would appreciate it very much and I'll see you in the next one [Music]

Channel: CodingWithMitch

Views: 35,235

Rating: 4.5885715 out of 5

Keywords: life at amazon, amazon jobs, software engineer, engineering at amazon, amazon software engineer, computer science, amazon engineer, amazon software engineering, software engineering, fang, faang, facebook, silicon valley, programming, coding, codingwithmitch

Id: nRUvr0KPJDA

Length: 22min 55sec (1375 seconds)

Published: Fri May 22 2020