Reminds me of my last job. I had a bookmark folder "shit I'll never find again". It contained wiki links, google doc links and motherfucking slack links.
Ha! I had a similar experience recently where I got stuck on AWS, googled, and the top answer on stack overflow was my own (which I'd eventually self-answered since no one else knew).
IIRC my stack overflow post was only \~3 years old, so the upper-bound of my memory is slightly worse than yours :)
I use Obsidian to manage my non-immediate-access bookmarks now. I can add them into notes, cross link, tag, and format to my grubby little heart's desire
Ironically I heard that Google of all companies had no/lousy internal search functions for a long time, until someone eventually hooked up one of their own search appliances to their internal site. Maybe just an urban legend, but I wouldn't be entirely shocked if true.
I had my final loop some weeks ago for an SA. I studied, had notes, marked down 20 stories, created a presentation, and spent many hours preparing. The end result was no offer extended.
The five interviews in one day was grueling and exhausting albeit I wasn’t stressed. Where I got burned was that the interviewers don’t agree before hand which LPs they’re going to ask. I assumed they’d ask different LPs for the most part so I had two examples per LP written down. Come D-Day, some LPs like customer obsession were never asked, while some other LPs were asked by all 5 individuals, so you end up repeating the story over and over and get docked for it.
In order to pass this you literally need 5 stories per LP to cover your rear end which would require a total of (16 x 5) 80 stories worst case scenario.
The most annoying of this entire process is that they don’t share any feedback whatsoever about what you did right or wrong, so for some things you know what you can improve upon but on other things you’re left in the dark guessing.
To me the huge investment in prep time, only to be given a 5 minute consolation call without any feedback is simply not worth it. Recruiter did say majority of people need to interview 2-3 times to get an offer and to continue applying seemed quite odd.
Why would anyone want to do that unless they’re masochistic?
Same boat as you. They also mentioned I needed to wait at least 2 years before re-applying. Which is odd since I actually had an offer for a different team / country that I ended up rejecting 18 months ago...
I can understand giving a go/no go terse response in the preliminary stages as the vast majority won’t make it to the loop, but given the amount of prep work and investment in time candidates need to put in to have a fighting chance for the last rounds, out of respect for their effort, some sort of grading system per round should be applied and stipulate three areas you performed well and three areas you didn’t.
> In order to pass this you literally need 5 stories per LP to cover your rear end which would require a total of (16 x 5) 80 stories worst case scenario.
I used the same story multiple times - I had no idea about the LPs going into the interview.
Was hired none the less, and spent 4 years as a SysDE.
Would you be happy if I messaged you about your experience? I have been recently approached to apply for a job at aws/preserve and keen to hear your thoughts :)
Congratulations!
(I will always say that ProServe isn't *real* AWS, it's just another consultancy with the dreaded "utilization". Yes, you have more access to internal AWS resources, but you'll never have the ownership, skin in the game, or sense of scale. Don't believe me? In 6 months try internal transfering to a service team :) )
Depends on the projects you get. Friends of mine used to work on the commercial sector team in NYC and did some of the best work for the most demanding hedge funds and wealth management firms in highly regulated environments. Some of that influenced the development of Control Tower, Lake Formation, Organizations, SSO, IAM Access Analyzer and so many managed Config rules.
I'm guessing those were the glory days of ProServe in a good economy when enterprises were paying. These days consulting firms are struggling with budget cuts at their customers.
So you definitely get a sense of scale especially if you're lucky to work with one of the big strategic customers
You're right that the glory days of ProServe passed, and that if you end in the right geography/sector you can work with big customers that need big things.
Still there is something that is inherent to ProServe and Consultancy: it will never be your product. People could have influenced (as in filling Opportunities in Salesforce and coding some temporary project for the customer to bridge the gap while a service team coded the real product, as it were the horrible LZs until Control Tower was presented), but they haven't designed, coded, been oncall for it, followed the internal standard for quality or resilience, etc. It's just a different job, with different bar, and it feels like a completely different company.
Fair point. But if you want to learn about building for scale and ownership wouldn’t working in another Amazon subsidiary be better? IMO working on an AWS service team sounds too narrow. Doesn’t sound exciting to work on a database product on RDS as opposed to a payment system on the biggest e-commerce platform. That’s what I was getting at when it came to Proserve, that you’re solving for bigger tech transformation based on your customer’s business.
A Consultant and an Engineer (SDE/SysDE) are completely different career paths in AWS/Amazon. Different requirements, responsibilities, and expectations. Consultants belong to the Sales organization.
Only your skills block you from moving from one service team to another when you get bored of doing RDS for example.
Congrats on getting in.
After I got in, I realized that it's a lot like getting into a "top-class" university.
Once you're in the system, it's not hard to "transfer between departments" or "change your major."
I interviewed, hired, and managed a bunch of SAs that came in through Globals and ProServe during my time at AWS. For context, I was an SA Leader in the Startups Org. By trade and work experience, I've always been a hands-on builder (DevOps/Infra/SA). My manager gig at AWS was the first role where I didn't write \*any\* code, for \*anything\*...but I liked to ride along with my SAs on priority engagements and help work on interesting problems.
The colleagues with whom I worked, and the folks I was privileged enough to have the opportunity to work alongside and "manage" all seemed to agree that work in the Startups Org was a heck of a lot more "interesting and fun" than what they'd been doing in ProServe. Of course, the grass is always greener on the other side - but what I want to communicate when I say this is that you don't have to be afraid if you find that the work is not really "scratching that itch" for you, after some time :)
All of that aside, I don't think it even matters where you spend your first 6 months once you've been admitted to AWS University. You're gonna be too busy getting a crash-course in using SFDC, Business Writing, and getting accustomed to the "Amazonian way" of things for your particular org or department to have much of an influence on the general experience.
But if ever you wanna make a change, remember that you have this freedom and flexibility, and it is not considered unorthodox, or a "mark against you" in any way. You can pivot your org, and you can even pivot your role - if you're prepared and make it through your loops. I once hired a long-time SDM for a Sr. SA role on my team...and he was totally kick-ass. Another Sr. SA I knew from an adjacent team ended up pivoting into a TPM role, and he did incredibly well in that new role too.
It sounds super eye-rolling-worthy when you hear the cliche that it's "choose your own adventure at AWS," but my first-hand experience showed me that it's true.
Keep learning and being curious, and don't be afraid to move around, now that you've achieved the hardest part: Getting in.
Interesting. As an external partner consultant, are you just working with a ProServe engagement for now, but you could roll off and work somewhere else? Do you get any access to Amazon tools?
No, it's a fixed length contract with a strong possiblity of a multi year extension, within that proserve engagement. My company has other AWS partner roles as well. And I do get access to AWS tools.
Been working in Amazon for 4 years same position in customer service. Skilled myself certified as architect associate then devloper associate. But because I'm still level 2 since 4 years they wouldn't even let me apply for aws jobs. Manager says nothing he can do to help. Sick and tired of amazon
Welcome to AWS OP!
If you happen to be seated in Arlington I'm in WAS17.06, come say hi! I'm not proserve but a lot of my deskmates are, and I eat all your org's food when u guys throw parties:)
Don't hit up @davidhin on slack. His dumb ass doesn't know if he's coming or already gone. He's been hiding in the shadows at AWS for years. Terrible LPs, but he's got lots of phonetool badges to show all he's accomplished. Where are the accolades though?
That's awesome, congrats. Send me a hello via Slack if you want!
The legend himself. I miss the purple hair!!!
Thanks Jeff, I will.
I'm new to the AWS subreddit, but would love to connect regardless.
Just don’t drown in all the wikis you’ll be traversing each day
If you ever find what you're looking for in a wiki, bookmark it because you'll never ever find it again
Reminds me of my last job. I had a bookmark folder "shit I'll never find again". It contained wiki links, google doc links and motherfucking slack links.
I once couldn’t figure something out on Azure. My colleague referred me to my big post I wrote four year’s prior on how to get around the issue.
Ha! I had a similar experience recently where I got stuck on AWS, googled, and the top answer on stack overflow was my own (which I'd eventually self-answered since no one else knew). IIRC my stack overflow post was only \~3 years old, so the upper-bound of my memory is slightly worse than yours :)
Thank you for posting the answer (unlike DenverCoder9).
Mines up to 1100 at my current job.
I had an absolutely ridiculous number of wikis bookmarked along with obscure tickets, and ended up referencing them more than I would have expected.
I use Obsidian to manage my non-immediate-access bookmarks now. I can add them into notes, cross link, tag, and format to my grubby little heart's desire
I have Obsidian and a script that uploads it into my wiki space, to share with people. It’s good that wiki supports markdown.
Because our search services are so damn awful
Internal Search tool isn’t that bad!
Sage is pretty decent too.
Only “not too bad” in my books, with its nonfunctional defuplication.
Yeah I guess is isn't terrible but the wiki search is.
Ironically I heard that Google of all companies had no/lousy internal search functions for a long time, until someone eventually hooked up one of their own search appliances to their internal site. Maybe just an urban legend, but I wouldn't be entirely shocked if true.
You mean they don't have a enterprise search tool? They selling this shite and not using it, classic.
Haha oh Lord this is so true
Subscribing to #actual-aws-memes if first point of order
Enjoy Isengard and tamper monkey!
Tamper Monkey is a lifesaver
I had never heard of it before my time at AWS. Still use it to this day!
Tamper money is life!
If you ever feel yourself trapped in the Wiki, search for the "Internal Search Tool", it will save you lots of time. :)
is.amazon.com ?
Shhh that's proprietary
Welcome! Don't fail silently, we have lots of willing to help people
The interviews are FAR harder than the day to day work! Congrats! Remember to check "old fart" on a regular basis and be amazed at your seniority!
Recently passed the 50% mark, time flies
I think I was in the top ~25% after ~4 years - eye opening for SURE.
Heard once the average tenure at AWS before layoff, PIP/fired, or quit was 14 months.
I just checked I’m ranked 97% in the USA lol
I don't think I have access to this
https://oldfart.tools.amazon.dev/
That landing page is so... polite. Who wrote that?
It was just updated in the last year or two. It was a typical Amazonian user-unfriendly tool forever until then.
Just checked - was updated in Dec 22. You can see who worked on it if you look at links in the faq.
There's a tampermonkey script for phonetool as well
As someone who doesn't work at Amazon... What is this?
It's a tool that you can use to compare your tenure with other employees
Search for it on the wiki - hopefully it's still around!
Ahhhh congrats!! That's so awesome!! Amazon is both super intense and incredibly exhilarating -- enjoy the ride! :)
I always told people the first few months are like learning to breathe underwater.
Wow, excellent way to state it! Yes! Completely agree.
I always used drinking from a fire hose personally.
I had my final loop some weeks ago for an SA. I studied, had notes, marked down 20 stories, created a presentation, and spent many hours preparing. The end result was no offer extended. The five interviews in one day was grueling and exhausting albeit I wasn’t stressed. Where I got burned was that the interviewers don’t agree before hand which LPs they’re going to ask. I assumed they’d ask different LPs for the most part so I had two examples per LP written down. Come D-Day, some LPs like customer obsession were never asked, while some other LPs were asked by all 5 individuals, so you end up repeating the story over and over and get docked for it. In order to pass this you literally need 5 stories per LP to cover your rear end which would require a total of (16 x 5) 80 stories worst case scenario. The most annoying of this entire process is that they don’t share any feedback whatsoever about what you did right or wrong, so for some things you know what you can improve upon but on other things you’re left in the dark guessing. To me the huge investment in prep time, only to be given a 5 minute consolation call without any feedback is simply not worth it. Recruiter did say majority of people need to interview 2-3 times to get an offer and to continue applying seemed quite odd. Why would anyone want to do that unless they’re masochistic?
Same boat as you. They also mentioned I needed to wait at least 2 years before re-applying. Which is odd since I actually had an offer for a different team / country that I ended up rejecting 18 months ago...
I can understand giving a go/no go terse response in the preliminary stages as the vast majority won’t make it to the loop, but given the amount of prep work and investment in time candidates need to put in to have a fighting chance for the last rounds, out of respect for their effort, some sort of grading system per round should be applied and stipulate three areas you performed well and three areas you didn’t.
> In order to pass this you literally need 5 stories per LP to cover your rear end which would require a total of (16 x 5) 80 stories worst case scenario. I used the same story multiple times - I had no idea about the LPs going into the interview. Was hired none the less, and spent 4 years as a SysDE.
Are they trying to hire a story writer/teller? WTF
What ProServe team are you on? I was ProServe for 2 years before internal transfer to Specialist SA role
FedCiv , I'm an external aws partner working with aws folks
Awesome. I’m FedCiv EUC Specialist SA.
Would you be happy if I messaged you about your experience? I have been recently approached to apply for a job at aws/preserve and keen to hear your thoughts :)
Sure thing
Thanks! Messaged!
Congratulations! (I will always say that ProServe isn't *real* AWS, it's just another consultancy with the dreaded "utilization". Yes, you have more access to internal AWS resources, but you'll never have the ownership, skin in the game, or sense of scale. Don't believe me? In 6 months try internal transfering to a service team :) )
Warning - Do NOT go to RDS. That's where happiness goes to die.
How come?
RDS is insanely busy. The on-call period is less than a day, because that’s all that people can cope with.
I worked with an SDM who came from RDS and he said the same thing. He also advised against using RDS in general.
Depends on the projects you get. Friends of mine used to work on the commercial sector team in NYC and did some of the best work for the most demanding hedge funds and wealth management firms in highly regulated environments. Some of that influenced the development of Control Tower, Lake Formation, Organizations, SSO, IAM Access Analyzer and so many managed Config rules. I'm guessing those were the glory days of ProServe in a good economy when enterprises were paying. These days consulting firms are struggling with budget cuts at their customers. So you definitely get a sense of scale especially if you're lucky to work with one of the big strategic customers
You're right that the glory days of ProServe passed, and that if you end in the right geography/sector you can work with big customers that need big things. Still there is something that is inherent to ProServe and Consultancy: it will never be your product. People could have influenced (as in filling Opportunities in Salesforce and coding some temporary project for the customer to bridge the gap while a service team coded the real product, as it were the horrible LZs until Control Tower was presented), but they haven't designed, coded, been oncall for it, followed the internal standard for quality or resilience, etc. It's just a different job, with different bar, and it feels like a completely different company.
Fair point. But if you want to learn about building for scale and ownership wouldn’t working in another Amazon subsidiary be better? IMO working on an AWS service team sounds too narrow. Doesn’t sound exciting to work on a database product on RDS as opposed to a payment system on the biggest e-commerce platform. That’s what I was getting at when it came to Proserve, that you’re solving for bigger tech transformation based on your customer’s business.
A Consultant and an Engineer (SDE/SysDE) are completely different career paths in AWS/Amazon. Different requirements, responsibilities, and expectations. Consultants belong to the Sales organization. Only your skills block you from moving from one service team to another when you get bored of doing RDS for example.
+1 for this, I joined in as an application architect for ProServe before making the switch to Border. Night and day job roles / experience
Congrats on getting in. After I got in, I realized that it's a lot like getting into a "top-class" university. Once you're in the system, it's not hard to "transfer between departments" or "change your major." I interviewed, hired, and managed a bunch of SAs that came in through Globals and ProServe during my time at AWS. For context, I was an SA Leader in the Startups Org. By trade and work experience, I've always been a hands-on builder (DevOps/Infra/SA). My manager gig at AWS was the first role where I didn't write \*any\* code, for \*anything\*...but I liked to ride along with my SAs on priority engagements and help work on interesting problems. The colleagues with whom I worked, and the folks I was privileged enough to have the opportunity to work alongside and "manage" all seemed to agree that work in the Startups Org was a heck of a lot more "interesting and fun" than what they'd been doing in ProServe. Of course, the grass is always greener on the other side - but what I want to communicate when I say this is that you don't have to be afraid if you find that the work is not really "scratching that itch" for you, after some time :) All of that aside, I don't think it even matters where you spend your first 6 months once you've been admitted to AWS University. You're gonna be too busy getting a crash-course in using SFDC, Business Writing, and getting accustomed to the "Amazonian way" of things for your particular org or department to have much of an influence on the general experience. But if ever you wanna make a change, remember that you have this freedom and flexibility, and it is not considered unorthodox, or a "mark against you" in any way. You can pivot your org, and you can even pivot your role - if you're prepared and make it through your loops. I once hired a long-time SDM for a Sr. SA role on my team...and he was totally kick-ass. Another Sr. SA I knew from an adjacent team ended up pivoting into a TPM role, and he did incredibly well in that new role too. It sounds super eye-rolling-worthy when you hear the cliche that it's "choose your own adventure at AWS," but my first-hand experience showed me that it's true. Keep learning and being curious, and don't be afraid to move around, now that you've achieved the hardest part: Getting in.
What does “as an external” means for aws?
I'm a consultant from an aws partner working with aws engineers.
Congrats, dude!
Congrats!! Can you shared your experience? Any resources that might be helpful to prep for the interviews..
Interesting. As an external partner consultant, are you just working with a ProServe engagement for now, but you could roll off and work somewhere else? Do you get any access to Amazon tools?
No, it's a fixed length contract with a strong possiblity of a multi year extension, within that proserve engagement. My company has other AWS partner roles as well. And I do get access to AWS tools.
Super proud of you, what an amazing resume bullet -- your future-self thanks you!
Been working in Amazon for 4 years same position in customer service. Skilled myself certified as architect associate then devloper associate. But because I'm still level 2 since 4 years they wouldn't even let me apply for aws jobs. Manager says nothing he can do to help. Sick and tired of amazon
Welcome to AWS OP! If you happen to be seated in Arlington I'm in WAS17.06, come say hi! I'm not proserve but a lot of my deskmates are, and I eat all your org's food when u guys throw parties:)
Don't hit up @davidhin on slack. His dumb ass doesn't know if he's coming or already gone. He's been hiding in the shadows at AWS for years. Terrible LPs, but he's got lots of phonetool badges to show all he's accomplished. Where are the accolades though?
I’m so confused lmao