Ask HN: How do I feel better about working for Amazon? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do I feel better about working for Amazon?

8 pointslowiqengineer21 comments

I’m an L4 at Amazon and will make about $150k this year (inclusive of stock growth). My job is fine, but I constantly struggle and wrestle with the fact that my job is considered unimpressive by my peers, and that regaining a positive total compensation trajectory is difficult to impossible now (for example, my peers at Lyft and Facebook make in excess of $300k with 2 years tenure. If I get promoted within the same time period I’ll make less than $200k). In addition, seeing constant microaggressions from people that work at elite companies like Google (identifying as “Googler” on social media, bragging about the fact that they get a WFH bonus or get fancy gifts or Hawaii offsites etc) has driven me into dark places in the last few months especially. Even when I try to study and prep for interviews it weighs on me like a brick because it feels like they’re just made to be superior.

I’ve tried therapy, but it hasn’t been effective. What are good strategies to mitigate this feeling?

Simple suggestion - take $500 each month and go to a soup kitchen near your house. Buy something nice for everyone there - you'll be shocked how far your $500 can stretch. It can be as simple as 400 doughnuts and several gallons of coffee from Dunkin Donuts.

Then, spend the rest of your evening serving food and carefully notice how everyone smiles and thanks you as you serve gruel, mashed potatoes, plain pasta, and water.

Next, think how much that person might earn in his lifetime and compare it with 3 years of your salary.

Then, you'll begin to appreciate that life is more than just making 150k or 200k.

This is a really good idea.

(1) Recognize that getting rid of this mindset is going to be an uphill battle, because humans are wired to compare ourselves to our peer group, as a means of determining our status within it. It is okay that this is a hard thing to deal with, even if it seems like a profoundly "first world problem". Don't feel ashamed that you are dealing with it and don't be demoralized when it remains quite hard.

(2) Delete your social media accounts; they really enable the self-minimizing comparisons with other people. Try this out, at least for a bit: stop going on Twitter, Reddit, HN, Facebook, Instagram, etc. and see if this issue is on your mind as often over the course of a month.

(3) Recognize that you are making an objectively huge amount of money, even for a software engineer. It helps to keep some global perspective: even if the people you socialize with don't view your income as impressive, 99.5% of people in the world do. Contrary to the vibe on this site, most software engineers aren't making 300K+ each year.

(4) Recognize that money is not everything, and if you are otherwise happy with your job perhaps the money thing shouldn't matter that much. As people get older (at least in my experience), they tend to see this and start to value other things in their lives more. Try to socialize with some people outside of tech, doing something you enjoy (beer-tasting, hiking, playing board games, whatever) - though this may be quite hard to do right now depending on where you live.

(5) If none of the above make you feel better, its okay to decide that money (or the associated status) is a priority for you and pursue it: hit the books and apply to the jobs that you feel would pay you the amount you want. BUT, this feeling almost certainly won't magically go away if you get the job: you will find new people to compare yourself unfavourably to. And unless you're Jeff Bezos, there is always a bigger fish. And even if you are Jeff Bezos, there are always going to be 100 people working their hardest to dethrone you.

Median US income for a software developer or engineer is around $105k. Median income for employed people in the US is less than $34k. Around 18 million Americans are unemployed.

I'm not sure what this is responding to in my comment.

Adding some hard numbers to your point that $150k is an objectively huge income outside of the small bubble of highly-paid and overpaid software professionals. A lot of my friends and family make a lot less than I do, and work under worse conditions. If I complained about making less than someone at Google they would do worse than “microagress” me. That perspective and grounding in the real world sure helps me not feel bad that some people make more than I do.

Yeah, having the perspective of people outside your bubble definitely helps. Outside of software engineers, I have seen this quite a bit in people I know that became doctors: its the natural thing to compare yourself to your perceived peers, so the comparison becomes the people at your hospital who are making more. The sudden reminder that there is a world outside of your bubble is a bit like splashing cold-water on your face.

+1 for getting off social media. I quit all of them except occasionally reading/replying on HN and have felt much better. Social media is a colossal time suck that makes people feel worse about themselves. I no longer feel bad when Kanye microaggresses me and brags about his success.

If this drives you to earn more, go earn more. Get a job at Google, get the 300k.

If that's not what you want then don't. You are earning a huge amount and are working at a well respected company. You are doing awesome. Seriously you're kicking ass.

Don't take this the wrong way but maybe it's time to grow up a little bit. You should not feel this bad because someone else is doing better than you. This is the definition of envy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envy. Envy will rob you of so much happiness. Believe it or not you can learn to feel happy when other do better than you do. It will be a huge source of joy to you if you can learn this. It won't rob you of your drive. It will allow you to celebrate and be inspired by the success of others while being happy in who and where you are.

As a culture we used to denounce envy but now we embrace it, it's a truly destructive force.

Life is suffering, and the root of suffering is desire.

Volunteer with an organization helping refugees, the homeless, and realize that you make an insanely huge amount of money. Unspeakably huge. Arguably, unethically huge.

A week of your pay is more than many people make in a year. A day's pay, even.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17312819

If you _must_ compare to your peers (though I would add that a job is just a thing you do for money and your "peers" should be your fellow humans), chat with your European colleagues about pay.

The next time you get a pizza delivered, realize you make more in an hour than that person will make all day (roughly).

It's one thing if you're struggling to meet the basics of life, but at this point you're worrying about arbitrary nubers here and money, to some extent, is a made up fiction we all collectively decide is useful.

I mean, I make less than you, and I suppose I should feel bad, but I also get a month off a year, I see my kids on my lunch break (I work remote), I had paid paternity leave, and best of all, every worker around me, even the person behind the counter at the fish and chip shop gets these things too, which makes me happy. In my view, I suspect I'm richer than you in the ways I care about. Maybe you could try a similar reorienting of your values?

Get a life outside of work so you will come to realize how meaningless it is.

If after that all you still care about is money and being able to brag about having a white collar job at some dumb tech company go somewhere else.

I'm sorry, but it's way too difficult for me to take this seriously. We are in the midst of a global pandemic and countless people, even software engineers, have experienced permanent job loss. All those people working barely above minimum wage who serve you and your friends lunch every day? No more jobs. The businesses they're working for have either already gone under or they're close to doing that.

It's okay to not be okay, especially during these times. But if your reason is that you're feeling FOMO over not going from very well-paid to even more well-paid in the middle of a global health and economic crisis, then, well, I dunno. You live in a bubble dude.

Posting that you make $150k at Amazon and expect to get to $200k soon is exactly the “microagression” and bragging you complain about. If your peers put you down find a better crowd. In the world of people in the software business you have already succeeded. In the bigger world of people working shitty jobs for minimum wage, or the hundreds of thousands who lost their tenuous jobs because they can’t work from home, you’re just humble bragging and complaining about problems the large majority of people wish they had.

Volunteer. Get out in the community and see how good you have it. I've always found that to be helpful when I'm feeling down.

If that doesn't help, switch jobs and try to make more money. Money is nice, but after a few years I'll bet one of two things will happen:

* you'll be happy you have gobs of money, and you'll keep chasing it

* you'll realize other things make you happy (status, time, relationships) and you'll decide to pursue those

Oh, and keep up with the therapy.

I personally think that if you could change your perspective on things it would benefit you greatly, let me see if I can help you with that :)

Your biggest asset is the passion you put in your job, and you should do everything you can to reward it. Don't use money to value how good you are doing, but use the "Am I happy with what I do? Am I satisfied of my job"?

I am saying this because being unhappy with that you do is probably the reason that is is holding you back.

Personally, while I have enjoyed salaries like the one you mention, I have never let me stop me from leaving a company with a toxic culture OR because I was simply not satisfied with what I was doing.

I have subject myself and my family to a > 50% reduction on income (!) just to find myself satisfied again with my job.

If you can remove yourself from the money equation, you will find much more satisfaction in what you do.

I always say that people in our situation owe to themselves to maximise their happiness at work simply because we CAN. You can choose to join a more exciting startup. You can choose to explore a new career path.

Don't let money be what you use to define your success.

Take a leave of absence from your current job. Apply for minimum-wage jobs and don't stop until you have landed such a job and worked at it for at least one full month, doing all you can to live off that minimum-wage income. This almost certainly will reset your expectations and help you feel much better about your current job.

There's always going to be someone who makes more than you - if you got a job at Facebook, would you be satisfied or would you then just look at someone who hit it big at a startup and wish you were making that kind of money?

Your current gig is going to make your next gig easier. The FAANGs all seem to recruit each other's people if that's a thing you are interested in.

Do you like the work you're doing? You might hate it if you moved. The grass is not always greener.

I would also reconsider the idea that you're not at an elite company and these other peers are. I sincerely doubt the level of engineering is radically different among the big tech companies. Considering Google "elite" but not Amazon seems strange to me. As one anecdote, check out Steve Yegge's long blog posts about platforms - https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611

Also, check out levels.fyi. The gap might not be as big as you think it is. You may be overvaluing outliers.

From looking at your other posts - in addition to other suggestions, you should probably avoid LinkedIn. Replace it with browsing this: https://twitter.com/BestofLinkedin

Finally, do you have a mentor? Someone who you can talk to about this stuff, maybe someone outside your org?

Sending you much love.

You're more than the salary, bonuses, and gifts. Please try to take to heart the good suggestions in this thread (putting your salary in context of lesser-paid workers in other industries, volunteering).

Best wishes, and take good care.

take a bit more pride in what you do. even your handle, lowiqengineer, says something about yourself. you internalize that and it affects you. it's already been said but stop comparing yourself to others. you don't need those perks, you don't even need that much money. find something bigger than that.

Learn not to give a shit about money and find a job that you enjoy.

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