Ask HN: How does Amazon keep its best engineers from quitting?

11 points by Flopsy 10y ago ↗ HN

6 comments

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Who says that they do? Amazon is well known for having a rather high level of acquisition of new talent and a relatively high level of turn over. Their HR department literally looks all over the world for new talent constantly. So I would say they don't keep their best engineers from quitting.

tyh 10y ago ↗

At my previous company I remember some devs got fed up with things and jumped ship for Amazon. After about 6 months only one was still there.

Ellahn 10y ago ↗

https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/tour-de-babel

Read the bit about Lisp. Explains what Amazon did And how it went wrong.

hwstar 10y ago ↗

Noncompetes would be one way. They are based in Washington which unlike California allows noncompete agreements.

lingua_franca 10y ago ↗

they have a pretty bad reputation already. I'm sure they won't be able to hire anybody with non-competes. Remember there are Microsoft/Google/Facebook and many startups in Seattle; ppl have choices.

hwstar 10y ago ↗

I'm not so sure they really want the best candidates, as they come at a premium. They may settle for someone desperate for income they can lock in with a non-compete, then use them up and wear them out.