How can someone know that he is using a teleprompter?

@@a2shadow You can watch his eyes move left to right repeatedly in most of the videos because he’s reading the text off somewhere. Teleprompter or no teleprompter, who cares, the content is great!

Anyone who knows they want to stay IC, should still try out an EM role at least once imo. Speaking from my experience, it teaches you to be a better IC.

+ 1

I think he answered that already kinda ... If you did your homework, your part to solve those personality conflicts (imho there's usually not only one side to it) and you're still not setup for success... transition teams or company (also deps heavily on how good your mgr is) On the disagreement part I would say as an ex-Amazonian I like the principle "have backbone but also disagree and commit when necessary" meaning you should stand your ground for your opinion, come with data to backup your line of argument, at least with anecdotal evidence. At the same time sometimes to move forward and not get stuck in endless discussions back and forth, we out the dissenting opinion side need to just commit to a decision made either way even if we disagree with it. Two caveats: (1) you don't wanna be in an environment where you always need to take the "disagree &commit" side of this, that would be unhealthy and (2) who makes that decision or how is it determined which of the dissenting opinions to follow? Options: coin flip (seriously), bring in a "tie breaker" like a Principal, staff or even other neutral senior engineer, iow. a neutral bystander with tech experience. Does this help?

Great question!

+1. "why do you work for Amazon?" was a question to avoid. How can one answer that without understanding what is not smart about working at Amazon. Some people need to learn to ask meaningful questions 😀

Nah, he perfectly answers that question.

It's a good question I'd like to hear Meta's answer to. My assumption is that the problems which are unique yet operate with simple concepts allow to show thinking capabilities of a person without limitations based on complicated knowledge. BUT, like in school everybody is preparing for the test instead of just learning, so the quality of evaluation decreases significantly. Then the teachers adapt to students preparing by making the tests harder than it should be. What do you think?

It's strange people truly believe there is only a small amount of capable people and google is perfectly able to capture them all.

I'll let meta chime in too. Career rejections for me were not getting promoted when I really thought I would be promoted. They are hard. Honestly that's what I feel causes burnout. I've had quite a lot of them. For most cases, it was just a minor delay. But there were couple where it caused me to loose all confidence in my abilities. When that happens it feels like your career has stopped. Like a stopped object, it's important to push forward (apply the force), focus on small wins until you gain momentum. You need to challenge core beliefs. Take therapy if needed. Learn about CBT. Believe that you are meant to achieve your dreams, and believe that if you'll relentless pursue those goals you'll win.

​@@ArpanAsawa Thanks for your input, you have a very mature perspective. For me, I recently went through interviewing for Amazon, only to be rejected after the final interview. Initially, I felt extremely upset as I thought the interview to be fairly good. Afterwards, it was feeling dejected that all my work had been for naught and that perhaps I'm not cut out to work at MAANG. It was only after some retrospection in which I realized there were still many things I could improve upon (and that the rejection was justified), that I began picking up myself once again. I'm fairly green around the edges when it comes to these experiences, so any advice from senior engineers (or those who have been through the gauntlet of the industry) is really appreciated.

@@YinYueShiYongYuanDe I too once was rejected from Flipkart (a company in India). If I was not rejected I probably would have taken that job and wouldn't have moved to the USA. I had not even registered that particular rejection as a rejection when I first replied. It's been 7+ years since that rejection. I'm a Hindu and there's a quote in Bhagavad Gita: all that's happened was good, all that is happening is good, and all that will happen will be good. I didn't understand this teaching until I did. It's a very powerful tool to manage anxiety and negative emotions. You have to realise that while there are things that you can improve, you are also awesome. When you are down, focus on your strengths. Don't be too hard on yourself. Take 1 day at a time. Do me a favour, and please write on a paper 'what are your strengths?' and observe what this does to your mood.

@@YinYueShiYongYuanDe and best of luck! :)

My 2pence: you can grow much deeper if you're not constantly changing tech stacks (the build +ci/cd system is consistent across amazon), changing political cultures, and just general onboarding. It leaves your brain to only think about the interesting/deeper problems rather than the busywork of changing scenery. I think both approaches are valuable. A change of scenery can illuminate the common problems across companies, which itself can lead to deeper insight. So long as you're growing, I think you're doing it right, whatever path you take.