cesarbs

I guess we're covered then :) We' re still working on building an emergency fund the size we want, but it's already there to cover us for at least half a year.

Right now we pay more than what we'd like on rent, but next year we'll move to a cheaper place.

We're saving for a large down payment for when it comes time to buy a home. Also, we'll get a mortgage as if only one of us were working, we have already agreed on that. And we're planning on moving to a state with a low cost of living when that time comes.

So in our case, two incomes is pretty solid.

> but two-earner households are often also more economically fragile

Can you elaborate on that? It doesn't make sense to me. When we were on a single income in my family, it felt a lot more fragile than now that we have two incomes.

> Old ideas and old people last to long in this business, they need to be overthrown more quickly.

I'm not sure how literally you mean this, but have you considered that old people are still humans, and after a certain point it's a lot more likely that they have a family to support, need more medical care, plus a bunch of other things? You can't just throw people out because they are no longer as fresh and efficient as they were in the beginning. Being old comes with it's own advantages. There's a place for everyone in the business.

Hey, same here. I'm in Seattle though. I have no idea were to start... Sure, I can go to a gun shop and get a shotgun, but then what?

This is the epitome of America's appreciation for avocados :)

What would be a cultural fit for Seattle? Seems like such a diverse place.

Just today I went to the doctor and had a bad experience, as it is usual since I came to the US.

I basically love everything about living in America. I love this country. But one thing that I don't love here is primary medical care. It is so damn shitty compared to what is was in my home country of Brazil.

I don't understand what goes on here. I have to basically convince doctors to examine me. They treat me like they're doing me a favor. I'll usually leave the office with a recommendation to take ibuprofen or a prescription for antibiotics, and most of the times that doesn't address my concerns. Also, doctors here have this huge attitude that I don't recall ever seeing on a Brazilian doctor.

I can't fathom how the country with the most advance medicine in the world does so bad on primary care.

Sounds exactly like what I would say about Brazil. A great country with great people and great potential, but so messed up by it's own culture, attitude and habits.

Yeah, I'm the same and my wife and I feel really awkward compared to most parents we see at our child's elementary school. We really push for her to be independent and be responsible for her own stuff (with a lot of success), while her classmates' parents are all around their kids all the time.

I can't tell - I'm in the Seattle area. I think the Bay area might be great for making connections. Probably adds some pretty good resume weight too, but I'm just guessing here.

> I would research the terms of the H1-B visa. It isn't all roses and sunshine for the employee, essentially you will be stuck working for them, and if you ever get fired you have to find a new employer very quickly or risk getting deported.

While the last part is true (about having to find a new employer quickly if you are fired or laid off), it's not true that you are stuck with your sponsoring employer. H-1Bs are allowed to switch companies. The caveat is that if the previous employer had started the Green Card process, it is reset with the new employer, unless the employee is at the last stage of the process (adjustment of status) and has been in that stage for at least 180 days.

> Even if you do keep your job it is extremely difficult to convert it to residence (I believe that requires costly employee sponsorship too).

All of the big tech companies apply for Green Cards for their foreign employees. Some have a requirement that you work for them for some amount of time (I've never heard of more than 1 year), others will start the process as soon as you join.

However, there's one BIG gotcha for someone coming from India: they will have to wait for a really long time to get their Green Cards. I'm talking about 10+ years here. For China it's bad too but no so bad. For the rest of the world it used to be 3-5 years (for EB-3, EB-2s have had it quick for years), but recently they sped it up a lot. I'm from Brazil and it took me a little less than 2.5 years to get my Green Card, counting from the day I set foot in the US. The actual process was a little more than a year.

Still doesn't answer why engineers are let go. It's not like they didn't learn lessons too, and their expertise could be used for "that v2".

Then everyone in my wife's team must be on their way out. We're talking about 10+ people here.

I've never said that I work or have worked there. I was not talking about their tools.

When you can choose the tools you want to work with and still complain about them, then yes, you are at fault. But when you are forced to use a set of really bad tools and there's not much you can do about it, it's legit to complain about them.

It's one thing being able to choose to use e.g. Emacs, git, and a language of your choice vs. working on a project that requires you to use an outdated version control system, a clunky IDE and more of that sort.

I think the article is really exaggerating on negative points. Get a handful of people who had really bad managers and extrapolate their stories to the rest of the company - I'm pretty sure one can do that for any large company.

A co-worker's wife also works there as an SDET and her experience is the same as my wife's. A guy I went to college with works there as an SDE and he also says it's pretty much a 9-5 job. He doesn't work on a service though, so his team doesn't have pager duty and that contributes a lot to it not being a stressful job.

Yes.

That's right.

As others said, Software Development Engineer in Test. She's a dev that writes test automation code.

I'm curious about one thing: what exactly was the source of your work-related stress, apart form the on-call pages? This is something people rarely elaborate on and I think is very important to get a good picture of the place.

I see two different sources of stress in engineering work: large volume stress and "hostile dev environment" stress (sorry, I wish I could come up with a better term). The first means just that you have a large load of things to do. Personally I am not that much bothered by it if my environment allows me to execute on that volume of tasks. What often has me going into mad rages is the second type of stress: IDE slowness, random unexplicable build crashes, inefficient engineering systems, poorly designed code that makes it really hard to test it quickly. You get the idea. You have a task to get done and you could get it done if it depended on your competence alone, but the development environment is so fucked up that you constantly battle it when trying to make the smallest of changes. That builds up a ridiculous amount of stress because now you feel like you're lagging behind, and it's not because you don't know how to do something, but simply because the very thing that should enable your work prevents you from doing so.

What of those kinds of stresses did you have at Amazon? I'm genuinely curious.

My feeling is that these things vary greatly from group to group within Amazon. My wife works there as an SDET and nothing in that article applies to her. Most days she is home by 6:30-7pm, and would be even sooner if it weren't for the long commute (we live on Eastside).

A co-worker's wife also works there as an SDET and it's the same - very 9-5, very rarely she has to work a bit later. Our wives are in completely different groups by the way.

Maybe there's less pressure on SDETs, but my wife says that the devs in her group don't seem to be under a lot of pressure/stress either.

My wife works there as an SDET and her experience so far is vastly different from yours and from what the article says. Most days it's a 9-5 job. The only times she has stayed late were because she really wanted to finish something that day i.e. she was never told to do that. Maybe there's less pressure on SDETs? But she says the devs seem to work about as much, at least from her perspective.

My wife is an SDET there and the article doesn't resonate with her either. Most days it's a 9-5 job. Sometimes she'll work a bit late until 7 or 8pm, but only because she wants to.

Maybe SDETs have it easier? :)

That's pretty much the reason why I asked the question. I feel the same way as you. The problem is, I don't know what else I would do. I've been coding since I was 9 and it's basically my only skill. I love programming and engineering but I feel more and more like I won't be able to put up with all the crap in our field.

> low tolerance for under performers

I panic whenever I read stuff like this. What is an under performer? How do I know if I'm one? How can it be expected that everyone in an environment is a spectacular code ninja that does utterly awesome stuff all the time?

How do they perceive each other?

Could you elaborate on Denmark? I always thought they were really tough on immigration.

> boss called me in to try to get me to sign a "pledge" to stay at the company for 2 years.

Wow, in return for what? It's so ridiculous someone would do something like that.

How old is your "intense" kid now? I believe my stepdaughter falls in that category, and my wife and I seem to have the same worries you do (or did) about ADD and other psychological ailments.

She's clearly very smart. She's really good at math (she's in first grade but already has a good grasp of 3rd and even some 4th grade stuff). It took a while but now she's good at reading. She's creative, usually kind to others, VERY social (a challenge for both of us being introverted and shy to an extreme), and doesn't cause trouble anywhere.

However, every conversation with her is a challenge. She's stubborn, sticks to absurd ideas and gets really angry if we try to show her she's wrong. This is contradictory with her ease at math, but she has a hard time following logical things like if A -> B and B -> C, then A -> C, so there are daily verbal arguments with her that are very frustrating. It's practically impossible to have a 5 minute conversation with her without it drifting into nonsense.

Do you notice the same in your "intense"?

Cyber databases made me cringe.