Horrible intern experiences

If you are just starting your SDE career as either an intern or SDE1, then cross your fingers praying for being assigned to some team with even a little bit humanity, because majority of the tech teams at Amazon are humanity-deficient sweatshop. And yes, you'll be "randomly assigned" without knowing anything of the team, because Amazon is hiring so many with extremely tricky and weird standard and their HR system is totally a mess and nothing but a joke. Remember, Amazon is just a brandname of an umbrella composed of thousands of completely different startups. It's the small team that determines your life being normal or as hell.

I came across a brand-new team with unrealistic pushing deadlines to launch new product. And I don't think the team ever want an intern (they may be forced to accept an intern by company), they may want an experienced SDE2 to expand their team ASAP, or whoever came to fill in the opening, even a high school student, will be given a mission impossible and exploited to the extreme. Thus I was given an extremely big project out of my intern scope, and in the end they could simply throw out a bunch of bullsh*t leadership saying "the project is NOT completed" to kick me out. Looking back now, clearly I was SET UP for failure.

Also, the people: A bunch of young, ignorant and arrogant kids who were just lucky enough to catch the Internet trend but would give all credits to themselves and think they are the center of the world. And in Amazon culture, everyone tries to step over other's face to show they are more excellent. As for my so-called "mentor" and team, cold as ice. I could barely get any support and the joke that "people would cry at desk" is nothing surprising in Amazon. And as an intern me and my work will be at lowest priority thus my mentor wouldn't even like to spend 5 minutes sitting down talking with me giving clear instruction, usually with the excuse like "I'm too busy". OK, then I would just write the code on my own according to my preference. But later on my mentor shows his twisted personality that he'll criticize every tiny little thing in my code by the highest standard and complain the team has certain preference for writing some feature that I should follow and I should re-write the code. Excuse me? Then why won't you spend 5 minutes to inform me at the beginning? Are you wasting my time deliberately? Such scenarios happened again and again during my internship, making me feel sick. I gradually feel like I'm just piece of trash or slave enduring his torture yet still begging for his approval of my code review.

Talked to manager? Yes I did, of course he's on the side of my "mentor", and could barely help but speak some bullsh*t cliches. He actually ran away from the team before me. Talked to senior manager? I did, but won't give a damn sh*t for the intern and only put an hypocrite smile on their face. Asked for help from other members? I did. They are also cold as ice catching their unreasonable deadline. Reported to HR? I did. They just wrote down my horrible experiences and protect company's interest. But I won't give all blames to them, even my mentor. Ultimately it's Amazon's toxic culture that turned good-will people into evil.

All of these combined, I feel I'm SET UP for failure. But I'm super glad I quickly run off this sh*tty hole throwing away this company as toilet paper. The day I left Amazon I felt I was reborn and life is so beautiful. So unless you could guarantee a nice team (more difficult than getting a Nobel), I strongly won't advice coming to Amazon for an internship. Even if you get a return offer, you probably won't be happy, and you'll have to cross fingers praying again because you'll randomly thrown into another team for full-time employment where you'll face Amazon's notorious PIP and on-call. But still thanks to Amazon teaching me a huge lesson about the reality of tech industry and that happiness and freedom is NO.1 thing for my entire life. So avoid Amazon because it's a big jail where you would sell your happiness, freedom and even your soul.