danpark487/gist:0ddecd88d6c3a6693e8483b806cc950d

## gistfile1.txt
Q: What do I get for referrals?
A: $1250 for a referral who accepts an offer from Amazon.

Q: How many leetcode algos would be adequate for Amazon?
A: Depends on what position you are interviewing for — SDE/WDE/FEE.
For SDEs, you can expect medium to medium-hard questions.

Q: For FS alums, do you think FEE is better fit for us than SDE?
A: Short answer, yes.

Q: Curious what product managers at Amazon actually do.
A: Its full lifecycle product development from inception, design, research, UX, to working with engineering and marketing to get it launched — from one of our PMs. And I can tell you it really is the entire cycle. They are sitting in those meetings, discussing requirements, etc.
Michael: PMs in my department do a lot of business strategy ideation, coming up with A/B tests that will drive retail purchases, a lot of working with other departments to make sure those experiments actually see light of day

Q: I'm curious what you've noticed about the quality of work/experiences in other offices? I ask because I've been hit up my Amazon recruiters in San Diego multiple times, and I always wondered how the job quality at the smaller amazon offices stacks up agains the big boys (I mean quality like mentoring opportunities, collaboration, etc). Is there a lot of a collaboration across the many different locations?
A:  It’s actually quite interesting. Work/life culture is dependent on the team. Amazon’s org structures are highly hierarchical but products are silo-ed — which means manager/employee driven culture. For the most part, I have friends in retail (ads, video, fulfillment) and AWS (organizations, i myself am in cloudformation, etc.) and most of us have very positive experiences at Seattle. Seattle definitely has the more relaxed culture I believe. As the HQ, there’s a lot less pressure and the city itself serves as a gigantic campus — everything is Amazon, you feel like you are part of some ecosystem. I don’t think it’s as sterile as SF tech scene because Amazon feels well-integrated with the city’s culture (but there also nay-sayers of course).
To answer your question about opportunities: I would hope that there aren’t less opportunities elsewhere. But I think naturally because certain teams are only at certain locations (e.g., Amazon Fashion in NYC), if you want to switch to an AWS team that’s only based in Seattle, you’d have to relocate.
Which leads to another point about working at the HQ --- moving between teams to find a product you like and culture that suits you is very easy. Amazon managers loves internal transfers because they are already acquainted with internal tooling and can contribute quite fast. In fact, moving between teams has a good reputation. Managers even suggest for the growth of the individual to switch around every 2 years or so. Most engineers move after their first promotion (2-3 year mark). And because there are so many products here, you can always find a team from Alexa (business, devices, games etc.), Games, AWS (ec2, lambda, ec2, 100+ service teams), kindle, fire, etc.
Collaboration isn’t daily. As suggested above, teams are siloed generally by where they are located at. However, there is some interaction depending on what you work on. It is possible that a service that you depend on heavily is based in Dublin or on the East coast. It isn’t common, but it happens.
Our frontend team uses an internal design library whose developers/designers are based in Berlin — so sometimes our feedback and question cycle has delay because obviously when we are asking the questions at our office hours, they are sleeping.
	Q: What do I get for referrals?
	A: $1250 for a referral who accepts an offer from Amazon.

	Q: How many leetcode algos would be adequate for Amazon?
	A: Depends on what position you are interviewing for — SDE/WDE/FEE.
	For SDEs, you can expect medium to medium-hard questions.

	Q: For FS alums, do you think FEE is better fit for us than SDE?
	A: Short answer, yes.

	Q: Curious what product managers at Amazon actually do.
	A: Its full lifecycle product development from inception, design, research, UX, to working with engineering and marketing to get it launched — from one of our PMs. And I can tell you it really is the entire cycle. They are sitting in those meetings, discussing requirements, etc.
	Michael: PMs in my department do a lot of business strategy ideation, coming up with A/B tests that will drive retail purchases, a lot of working with other departments to make sure those experiments actually see light of day

	Q: I'm curious what you've noticed about the quality of work/experiences in other offices? I ask because I've been hit up my Amazon recruiters in San Diego multiple times, and I always wondered how the job quality at the smaller amazon offices stacks up agains the big boys (I mean quality like mentoring opportunities, collaboration, etc). Is there a lot of a collaboration across the many different locations?
	A: It’s actually quite interesting. Work/life culture is dependent on the team. Amazon’s org structures are highly hierarchical but products are silo-ed — which means manager/employee driven culture. For the most part, I have friends in retail (ads, video, fulfillment) and AWS (organizations, i myself am in cloudformation, etc.) and most of us have very positive experiences at Seattle. Seattle definitely has the more relaxed culture I believe. As the HQ, there’s a lot less pressure and the city itself serves as a gigantic campus — everything is Amazon, you feel like you are part of some ecosystem. I don’t think it’s as sterile as SF tech scene because Amazon feels well-integrated with the city’s culture (but there also nay-sayers of course).
	To answer your question about opportunities: I would hope that there aren’t less opportunities elsewhere. But I think naturally because certain teams are only at certain locations (e.g., Amazon Fashion in NYC), if you want to switch to an AWS team that’s only based in Seattle, you’d have to relocate.
	Which leads to another point about working at the HQ --- moving between teams to find a product you like and culture that suits you is very easy. Amazon managers loves internal transfers because they are already acquainted with internal tooling and can contribute quite fast. In fact, moving between teams has a good reputation. Managers even suggest for the growth of the individual to switch around every 2 years or so. Most engineers move after their first promotion (2-3 year mark). And because there are so many products here, you can always find a team from Alexa (business, devices, games etc.), Games, AWS (ec2, lambda, ec2, 100+ service teams), kindle, fire, etc.
	Collaboration isn’t daily. As suggested above, teams are siloed generally by where they are located at. However, there is some interaction depending on what you work on. It is possible that a service that you depend on heavily is based in Dublin or on the East coast. It isn’t common, but it happens.
	Our frontend team uses an internal design library whose developers/designers are based in Berlin — so sometimes our feedback and question cycle has delay because obviously when we are asking the questions at our office hours, they are sleeping.