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Comment by dekhn | Hacker News Reader

I had to read carefully into the article before I understood this is probably a fulfillment center job, not an AWS SWE.

I figured that out in the second paragraph when he said "drug test" - I think they'd have an awful hard time hiring engineers if they required drug testing. I don't do drugs (not even marijuana even though it's legal here), but I'd refuse to take a drug test just on principle - they are paying for my performance at work, not for what I do on my own time.

The only time I worked at a job that required drug tests, was at a transportation company where federal law required it.

The last time I took a drug test the company itself was absolutely horrible.

Only place where my manager expected me to work multiple nights per week. This was as a software engineer!

At this point drug tests are just a filter. Let's me know the company culture will suck.

So long as you are filtering out all companies with government contracts as "a company culture that sucks," that's true. https://www.samhsa.gov/workplace/legal/federal-laws/contract... requires any organization receiving a federal contract of over $100,000 or a federal grant of any size to do so. Tied to that is a page of HHS-certified labs for drug testing and federally regulated industries.

It's pretty silly but it seems to be a common thread.

Nothing in the minimum requirements listing here mentions drug testing, though. So the places that are doing drug testing are zealously going above and beyond, which itself is a big red flag.

The "Drug Free Workplace Act" does not require drug testing.

There are drug testing requirements for specific jobs/industries that are safety and security related.

https://www.samhsa.gov/workplace/legal/federal-laws/safety-s...

Worked for a company that had to drug test its people (and take other security measures) to get items through federal customs in an expedited fashion.

I worked for a (small boutique) consulting firm and the much larger telecom company they placed me at required a drug test. The culture in my group there did happen to suck, bad enough that my form pulled let me come off the client after just a month.

I've interviewed there twice and I gave up on them twice because honestly it was about the same thing with no one knowing what they were doing and being EXTREMELY slow about everything else. In the space between my first screening and an email to schedule an interview day, I applied at another place, did 3 interviews and a coding test, negotiated an offer, accepted an offer, and quit my current job. It was absolutely wild.

Yep, the only place I’ve ever interviewed at where i had multiple no-shows in a row for my interviews. I had to notify my recruiter multiple times of this 30 mins after my interview was supposed to start, and she wasn’t even aware that my interviewer didn’t show up. The process that was supposed to take a month at most stretched out to almost 3.

Not even mentioning the whole bait-and-switch, where I was led to believe that i was interviewing for a position at Twitch, not at at Amazon itself. Turns out, after I got suspicious of it all and asked quite a bunch of very specific questions from my interviewers, it was revealed that it was actually for a role on an AWS team that worked as a partner for Twitch. After me asking the recruiter if I just misunderstood it all from the start, I was just met with “well, it is still working with Twitch, just for AWS”. I was kinda mad after spending those miserable months interviewing, especially since i made it clear to the recruiter from the very start that I am solely interested if it is a job at Twitch and not Amazon. Lesson learned though.

Same. Do SWE/SDE roles also involve drug tests and orientations?

in Germany, they could do a background check

if you used cannabis and got caught, you'll have a police record for up to 5 years

when applying expect it not to be in your favour

Fair enough, I was curious about that point too (but maybe they were working for govcloud, which probably has more onerous background checking).

Every single job I've had in California for the past 30 years (from academic software engineer to computer scientist to industry software engineer) has clearly stated that they do not drug test before I signed any paper. In fact, my manager at Lawrence Berkeley Lab (RIP) was specifically sent there after he refused to take a drug test at a more serious DOE lab, "so he could fit in with all the other hippies and druggies".

I can't speak to any of the other roles, although in my time in the food service industry there wasn't any testing either.

No, they can't do that, anymore, except for very specific jobs, e.g. working with children.

Sure (to orientations). Here's how a pre-COVID SWE orientation at Google (for folks in professional jobs in Mountain View, not data center contractors in The Dalles): there is a dedicated lobby and theater with multiple people staffing the area welcoming you in. You're handed a laptop, configure your credentials, log in, access benefits, etc, then sit down for a couple motivating videos/speeches and some details on your benefits. At this point you're ready to go to your team's work area (many details could be different outside the mothership).

The second time around it was even more polished than the first time, but contained much less useful information and more cheerleading, so I left once I had my axe and saw that it was sharp.

Same experience more or less exactly at Amazon hq in Seattle. The sheer number of people onboarding every week in that room was kind of stunning.

Every SWE role I've had in the last decade had a 1-day orientation (plus additional training after)

I'm not convinced the distinction is that important.

Well, lets try taking a zero off your paycheck to confirm that then.

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