After a long time, I took a moment to write. Amazon has two big business entities, one is Amazon itself with e-commerce, devices, advertising, and more. The other is Amazon’s web service, which we know as AWS. A hot topic this decade that is said to be leading exclusively in the cloud business. I am going to write about my own opinion after working there. I am not giving any official statement.
I started working for AWS in August 2019. About 2 years and 3 months ago. In the beginning, like many others, I was very nervous. I started thinking about how I would perform, whether I would be able to keep pace with everyone, whether I would be able to perform as expected by the manager, and many more scribbles. When you join AWS, the learning curve is impossibly high.
It’s like being thrown into the sea. But the positive thing is that I have been given a lot of time. Managers, mentors, and other teammates are all very helpful. As the days go by, I realize that no one here will tell me anything. I have to decide what I want to do, how much pressure I want to take, and what speed I want to run. I fix my plan on my own. Plan beyond the work given to me. I identify my weak points and decide how to improve.
Then I started sharing them with my senior team members and my manager. After a few more days like this, when I listened to others at the team meeting, I felt like I had a lot missing. Again, I asked my manager how I can improve. He told me that the people I was talking about have already been working at AWS for three or four years. I will be like them but it will take time. You’re doing well, no worries.
As comforting as the manager was, I was able to convince myself. Then I started working overtime. Outside of office hours, I worked on weekends to improve my skillset. After going like this for a while, I regained my confidence and actively participated in team meetings. The manager and mentor all started responding quite positively.
My team and manager changed after 6 months. It took a while for the new manager to see eye-to-eye with me. But in a few days, we could understand the work style of the two of us. Since then, everything has been going well. One day, the manager says, “Raihan, start writing your promotion document.” In the work I was doing, I didn’t feel like I was ready to go to the next level. So I started concentrating on my work. I thought that when this running project is over, maybe I will start writing documents. I’m a little lazy about these things again.
Suddenly one day I saw the manager himself writing about two-thirds of my promotion document. He asked me to finish it and then said that we could review it together. After I finish, he modifies something again and submits it. I know I haven’t been able to perform at my best, but my promotion is the fastest promotion on our team so far.
After the promotion, I saw how everything looked a little new. Suddenly, I saw that the workload doubled and tripled. The manager’s manager now set up a regular meeting with me, discussing the team’s plans. I used to discuss with many people when I had a problem, but now I try to figure it out myself as soon as possible. If I can’t do it, I don’t bother the senior engineers. It is kind of expected that I will work independently and guide the juniors as well. Everything is not bad, new responsibilities, and learning opportunities. It feels good.
What Is The Work-Life Balance?
Now let’s talk about work-life balance. I haven’t had a weekend in 2021 where I don’t have to work. Let me give a simple example. My younger uncle and cousin were coming to visit on Eid-ul-Adha. The weekend was planned for Eid day and four days with one day holiday. Holidays seem to be canceled on the eve of Eid. On the day of Eid, after praying, I start working a half-day. I could have spent those holidays if I wanted to, but I had to adjust the meeting time of about ten engineers, both internal and external. I didn’t do that, I explained to myself. Almost all the holidays of 2021 are frozen. I can’t take leave because of work pressure.
I have been trying to resolve a customer issue for the last two months. I had to work day and night for almost two months, there is no question of holidays. Not just me. A junior engineer, senior engineer, manager, and senior manager of my team are all sleep-deprived. I was the lead in this work, 90% of the work I do even though everyone else helps. Due to a bug in our service, customer performance could not be met. When you go to catch a bug, a few more come out. Every morning and afternoon I had to do internal meetings, external meetings, meetings with customers, and tests. Finally, we are coming to a little control now and some relief.
Today was the quarterly meeting of our organization. There are four meetings a year where everyone from our organ (about 600 engineers) is present and our vice president leads the meeting. Today, along with several others, our Vice President is recognizing my name. I have been given a special award for my tireless work in resolving customer issues. For this, of course, I am grateful to my manager and senior manager.
Come on, have I lost anything when it comes to working at AWS? Yes, a lot. Honestly, I have very little time. After working all day, it would not be good to talk to everyone at night. The mind wants to take a little rest.
I try to talk regularly with my mother and older sister. Regular means 2/1 consecutive days. I try to get everyone’s news from them. Does this mean that I have forgotten my uncle, aunt, cousin, uncle, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, and niece? No. No one forgot. I remember everyone’s words. I miss everyone very much. Maybe no one will ever know how much I miss them. May everyone be good everywhere.
Yes, I have lost almost all my friends. Honestly, I miss my school friends the most. There is almost no conversation with many of them. Sometimes, I wonder if they will consider me a friend when they go to the country. I have not forgotten anyone, I will not forget. Then my college, varsity, and hall friends. Now, of course, everyone is busy with themselves. Many may be in a situation like mine. My only wish is that everyone is good wherever they are.
Am I Happy At AWS?
This is a difficult question. Before that, I need to know what I want. Over time, human maturity levels change, and thoughts change. After getting a little something for a while, it seemed that I have done a lot, I can do whatever I want in life. Maybe I can, but I’ll tell you in time, I wouldn’t say anything right. My next target at the moment is to become a good software engineer. I don’t mean that by level. It doesn’t matter if I am SDE I, SDE II, or Senior SDE.
I want to measure my performance and my depth of knowledge. Simply put, I want to learn to work. I still have a lot of weak spots where I want to improve a little. By all accounts, AWS is a great place to learn to work. AWS Itself is like many different companies. You can change to the team of your choice if you want. With the level of work that is done here, you will never feel bored. You have a lot to challenge yourself with. All in all, I’m pretty good. Because I have the opportunity to do what I love. If you want to get something, you have to give something away.
Another question that comes to mind is, does AWS pay well? You can see the salaries of different companies by browsing the internet so I won’t focus too much on this one. The amount that AWS gives me is more than what Enaf gave me. This does not mean that I should not increase my salary. But I am very happy. Even I don’t even compare to other companies.
In the end, yes, AWS has a little bit of pressure on you. How much you want to take depends on you. Neither your manager nor your team member will ask you to take pressure or work overtime.
Rayhan Hossain, IIT, University of Dhaka
Software Engineer, Amazon!