Justin Rudd wrote a really great tome on how he got hired at Amazon as a developer. Subscribed!
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Dev hiring process at Amazon
Published by Robert Scoble
I give you a front-row seat on the future. Focusing most of my efforts now on next-generation augmented reality and artificial intelligence, AKA "mixed reality." SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTER: http://clevermoe.com/scobleizer-news/ BUY OUR NEW BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/Fourth-Transformation-Robert-Scoble/dp/1539894444 "The Fourth Transformation: How augmented reality and artificial intelligence will change everything." WATCH MY LATEST SPEECHES: State of VR with Philip Rosedale (done in VR itself, very cool): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zAA1EVGUZU At GEOINT, June 2017: http://trajectorymagazine.com/glimpse-new-world/ Augmented World Expo, June 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4xHILvLD8E At Leade.rs, April 2017: https://youtu.be/52_0JshgjXI +++++++++++ BIO: Scoble gives you a front-row seat on the future. Literally. He had the first ride in the first Tesla. Siri was launched in his house. He's been the first to share all sorts of technologies and companies with you, from Flipboard to Pandora to Instagram. Today he's focusing on mixed reality, AKA "next-generation augmented reality" which will include a new user interface for EVERYTHING in your life (IoT, Smart Cities, driverless cars, robots, drones, etc). That's based on his view thanks to his past experience as futurist at Rackspace. Best place to find Scoble? On his Facebook profile at https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble He has been a technology blogger since 2000, was one of five people who built Microsoft's Channel 9 video blog/community, worked at Fast Company Magazine running its TV efforts, and has been part of technology media businesses since 1993. ++++++++ SPEAKER PITCH: Apple and Facebook now have revealed their Augmented Reality strategies, which means your business needs one too. Rely on Robert Scoble, the world's top authority on AR, to bring to your conference what businesses should do next. SPEECH ABSTRACT #1: TITLE: The Fourth Transformation: What's next in mixed reality (AR and AI) and the future of technology? Here's an example of this talk at Leade.rs in Paris in April, 2017: https://youtu.be/52_0JshgjXI Why "the Fourth Transformation?" Soon we will have phones and glasses that do full on augmented reality. Everything you look at will potentially be augmented. This world is coming in late 2017 with a new iPhone from Apple, amongst other products. Microsoft is betting everything on its HoloLens glasses that do mixed reality and the industry is spending many billions of dollars in R&D and funding new companies like Magic Leap. This future will be the user interface for IoT, Smart Cities, autonomous cars, robots, drones, and your TV. This is a big deal and Robert will take you through what mixed reality is and how it will change every business. Learn more about Robert's speaking style and contact his agent at http://odemanagement.com/robert-scoble/Robert-Scoble.html ++++++++ SPEECH ABSTRACT #2: "The Next Two Clicks of Moore's Law." Over the next four years, or two clicks of Moore's Law, a ton about our technology world will change. Scoble will bring you the best from his travels visiting R&D labs, startups, and innovators around the world. He views the world through his rose-colored-mixed-reality glasses, which will be the new user interface for self driving cars, Smart Cities, IoT, and many other things in our world. He'll send you off with some lessons for companies both large and small. ++++++++ SPEECH ABSTRACT #3: "Personalized Meaning: What is Augmented Reality For?" As we enter a far more technological world where even cars drive themselves, I predict we'll see a blowback toward the analog, more authentic world. What role does augmented reality play in both worlds? Get Scoble's insight into where augmented reality is going, see tons of real-world demos, and understand what he means by 'personalized meaning.' CONTACT: If you are looking to contact me, email is best: scobleizer@gmail.com. ++++++++ ENDORSEMENTS: IZEA Top 25 Tech Influencers: https://izea.com/2017/07/07/25-top-tech-influencers/ Time: One of the top 140 Twitterers! FT: One of the five most influential Twitterers! Inc. Top 5 on list of Tech Power Players You Need to Know: http://www.inc.com/john-rampton/30-power-players-in-tech-you-need-to-know.html Next Reality: #4 on top 50 AR influencer list: https://next.reality.news/news/nr50-next-realitys-50-people-watch-augmented-mixed-reality-0177454/ View all posts by Robert Scoble
Published
From the article:
“They had a ton of jobs listed (568 as of this posting). I looked through them, and they were all for C++ and Linux. Some of them were for Java and Linux. But they all had Linux on them”
This is why you should really expand your skillset beyond MSDN. The MS development tools are really beginning to look like Legacy Borland stuff. I was sure I would find something cool when I subscribed to MSDN professional late last year after having used Linux only for development for 2-3 years, and I found nothing. Just more fun house pseudo VB crap.
You can say I am biased all you want but I still spend $1500 USD on the subscription. I DID want to find something of value. 😦
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From the article:
“They had a ton of jobs listed (568 as of this posting). I looked through them, and they were all for C++ and Linux. Some of them were for Java and Linux. But they all had Linux on them”
This is why you should really expand your skillset beyond MSDN. The MS development tools are really beginning to look like Legacy Borland stuff. I was sure I would find something cool when I subscribed to MSDN professional late last year after having used Linux only for development for 2-3 years, and I found nothing. Just more fun house pseudo VB crap.
You can say I am biased all you want but I still spend $1500 USD on the subscription. I DID want to find something of value. 😦
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Darn comment editing, “spend” should be “spent”.
Back to work I go.
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Darn comment editing, “spend” should be “spent”.
Back to work I go.
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I used to work there and I interviewed many DBA candidates in my time. I don’t know how Justin got hired, though. I saw some red flags in what he wrote. But Amazon had hundreds of positions open, so it’s understandable.
One other thing he doesn’t mention is the figure of the “bar raiser”. The bar raiser is a technical person as well, but focus on culture fit and the so elusive ability to “think outside the box”, whatever that means.
One thing the bar raiser must do is make sure that the person being hired would be placed at the top half of the people in his team (meaning everybody thinks the new guy is better than half of the team he’s going to work in). I’m not sure if that’s still as important today. Amazon changed a lot in the last few years and some of the original values have been replaced. For instance, at Amazon you were actually supposed to challenge your manager and any manager that pulled rank would find himself/herself in trouble with the team and their superiors. There’s even an award for those who dared to defy management (as long as the stunt worked, of course). But by the time I left the office politics had changed a great deal.
I also saw some red flags on the way some of his interviewers behaved. This concerned me: “Because when the next interviewer showed up, he said ‘What you got there looks great. Thanks for your time.’ and then he left.”
That’s ridiculous. That interviewer just phoned it in, didn’t he? Amazon must be slipping.
But I can say a few things about work at Amazon:
– Don’t read that 21 dog years book and think you know Amazon. That guy went for humor.
– Work at Amazon is amazing if you are a geek: large systems, low latency tolerance, short upgrade cycle.
– Work at Amazon is stressful. Get ready to work endless nights and weekends. We had a joke that when we said “It will be done on Monday” we actually meant it would be done until 11:59 PM on Monday. That’s not for everybody and it was part of the reason I left.
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I used to work there and I interviewed many DBA candidates in my time. I don’t know how Justin got hired, though. I saw some red flags in what he wrote. But Amazon had hundreds of positions open, so it’s understandable.
One other thing he doesn’t mention is the figure of the “bar raiser”. The bar raiser is a technical person as well, but focus on culture fit and the so elusive ability to “think outside the box”, whatever that means.
One thing the bar raiser must do is make sure that the person being hired would be placed at the top half of the people in his team (meaning everybody thinks the new guy is better than half of the team he’s going to work in). I’m not sure if that’s still as important today. Amazon changed a lot in the last few years and some of the original values have been replaced. For instance, at Amazon you were actually supposed to challenge your manager and any manager that pulled rank would find himself/herself in trouble with the team and their superiors. There’s even an award for those who dared to defy management (as long as the stunt worked, of course). But by the time I left the office politics had changed a great deal.
I also saw some red flags on the way some of his interviewers behaved. This concerned me: “Because when the next interviewer showed up, he said ‘What you got there looks great. Thanks for your time.’ and then he left.”
That’s ridiculous. That interviewer just phoned it in, didn’t he? Amazon must be slipping.
But I can say a few things about work at Amazon:
– Don’t read that 21 dog years book and think you know Amazon. That guy went for humor.
– Work at Amazon is amazing if you are a geek: large systems, low latency tolerance, short upgrade cycle.
– Work at Amazon is stressful. Get ready to work endless nights and weekends. We had a joke that when we said “It will be done on Monday” we actually meant it would be done until 11:59 PM on Monday. That’s not for everybody and it was part of the reason I left.
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@3
“I don’t know how Justin got hired, though.”
You don’t know how hard it is to find qualified programmers then. I’m not saying Justin is qualified. By his own admission he did some light MFC(cough…. um cough, cough, phlem cough) programming in college, and the job was java and Linux framework based.
I would love to see some MSDN tools guy start to try to figure out GNU make. That would be amusing. They could make a whole survivor series based on Microsoft guys trying to figure out how to use vim, emacs, GCC, gdb and Linux and it would be hilarious. I would laugh non stop at the hilarity.
I did notice one thing, eBay invited me to the dev conference in Boston in early June and Amazon never sent me anything about their developers conference. We are also Amazon API members. That strikes me as cheap for a publicly listed multimillion dollar corporation.
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@3
“I don’t know how Justin got hired, though.”
You don’t know how hard it is to find qualified programmers then. I’m not saying Justin is qualified. By his own admission he did some light MFC(cough…. um cough, cough, phlem cough) programming in college, and the job was java and Linux framework based.
I would love to see some MSDN tools guy start to try to figure out GNU make. That would be amusing. They could make a whole survivor series based on Microsoft guys trying to figure out how to use vim, emacs, GCC, gdb and Linux and it would be hilarious. I would laugh non stop at the hilarity.
I did notice one thing, eBay invited me to the dev conference in Boston in early June and Amazon never sent me anything about their developers conference. We are also Amazon API members. That strikes me as cheap for a publicly listed multimillion dollar corporation.
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