u/shutup_t0dd

Would you choose a team with exceptionally strong engineers if it meant facing the risk of being directly compared to them?

The team works on deeply technical problems, and I feel like there would be a ton of opportunity to learn and grow as an engineer. However, I’m afraid of being the newcomer in this domain and struggling to ramp up to their level. Since my company is famous for stack ranking, that adds a lot of extra pressure.

On the flip side, I could choose a more chill team in familiar territory with minimal growth, but I'm worried I won't end up gaining anything special. I'm at a point in life where I can handle longer work hours within reason, but I'm not sure how sustainable that path would be long-term.

Has anyone made a choice like this before? How did it turn out?

Edit: The stack rank risk here is pip to be clear

L6 SDE

My team is going through major attrition right now. L7 leaders left, manager leaving, no product vision and both team and personal growth has stalled, we're just focused on ops and region build for 70% of our bandwidth.

I'm considering switching internally but I'm lost and not sure where to start. Every acquaintance I know at Amazon is miserable about their team. I see a lot of open positions hiring but worried about picking the right team given the layoffs, even AI orgs with ton of spending are not safe.

For those who have made the switch what made you switch and did life get better? Did you regret your switch for any reason? What did you look for when choosing or shortlisting teams?

Of course the ideal goal would be to land an offer outside Amazon but that is another ball game altogether.

Thanks!