Vishupla Saxena

** Unfortunate Experience with Amazon: Seeking Guidance ** On March 30, 2024, I placed an order with Amazon for a Boat neckband and Boat earbuds. While the neckband arrived in good condition, the earbuds turned out to be defective upon receipt. Naturally, I initiated a return order, and the defective earbuds were collected on April 19, 2024. However, over a month later, I'm still awaiting my refund. Each time I reach out to customer support, I'm told an investigation is ongoing, and worse, I've been accused of potentially returning a different item. Despite their agent verifying and collecting the item, I continue to face delays and blame for an issue that's beyond my control. I filed a complaint on the consumer portal, only to receive a response stating that the product wasn't returned, despite confirmation from their own agent. Here's an excerpt from their communication: "Dear Sir, On review of your complaint and on the information received from the third-party seller we find that you have not returned the product delivered to you vide Order Id 403-8363294-1083540. Accordingly, neither refund nor replacement order can be initiated. Please note that the seller initiates refund only after receipt of the original product as per return policy. Further, it is submitted that our role is limited to that of an intermediary and we are not the seller/manufacturer of the products listed on our e-commerce marketplace. The products listed on our e-commerce marketplace are sold by independent third-party sellers. In view of the above, the issue stands closed. Thank You." I find myself at an impasse and seek your guidance. What steps would you recommend I take next in this scenario? Your insights and advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. #CustomerService #AdviceNeeded #AmazonExperience #boat

9

3 Comments

When I left Apple, I got a 50% pay raise, and unknowingly left millions of upside on the table… After getting laid off from my first full time job in tech, I was very excited and relieved to land at Apple, a company I had long admired. It was my first job in BigTech and I learned a lot about company culture during my time there. My salary there was a bit smaller than my prior role. But, on the perks/benefits side of things, the company was very generous. Google was just emerging from the garage phase of life, so the whole BigTech compensation arms race hadn’t really started yet. My former director from my first job recruited me to the company she had joined, which was a younger public tech company that seemed to be doing pretty well, and had survived the dotcom bust. She was looking for a tech lead for the web team, which was working on the corporate web site, the marketing lead-gen system and the customer support portal - lots of stitching internal systems together in the database layer. After going through technical interviews with the team members, she made me an offer - one I seemingly couldn’t refuse. It was 33% more salary, 50% more bonus and more stock options annually. Topping that off, she wanted to support my growth as a team lead and eventually provide an opportunity to try out management. So, I decided to go. There were many reasons for me to make the leap - fantastic manager, growth opportunity, and compensation. But, the main point of this post is that compensation can be tricky to gauge head-to-head. If I had only gone for the compensation, it would have been the wrong decision. It turns out that the Apple stock options I left behind would have been worth multi-millions by the end of the vesting schedule. After I left, the stock split and then split again after a short time and continued to go up quickly in value. Stock compensation in a public company with a solid track record is almost as sure as cash. No, it is not certain, and you have to make your vesting cliffs. But, it is vastly different from pre-IPO shares. And, if you get RSUs that are vesting quarterly or monthly, that is basically cash compensation. The good news is that I took that 50% pay raise and used it to start building wealth. I did not change my standard of living, but instead increased and diversified my stock market investments, maxed out my retirement accounts (401K and IRA) and started on an accelerated pay-down of my home mortgage. Had I finished 5 years at Apple, I likely would have been financially independent early in my career. Instead, I had a very fun job for a few years, got the career development I was looking for, and learned financial discipline.

191

9 Comments

𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐰 𝐚 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐠𝐠'𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠. Like many others, my role at Chegg has been impacted due to restructuring. After taking some time to process and plan my next steps, I’m now exploring new opportunities. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈’𝐦 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫: 👉 𝐌𝐢𝐝-𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐬 in 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 or 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 👉 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐟𝐟 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭/𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫 roles 𝐌𝐲 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: 👉 10+ 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 ✅ 7 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 & 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 ➡️ Driving key CX metrics (CSAT, NPS, response/resolution times) ➡️ People management & building teams from the ground up ➡️ Proficiency with tools like Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom, and Helpscout ✅ 5 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭/𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 ➡️ Planning, Execution, Stakeholder Management, Change Management and Risk Management ➡️ Agile Practitioner and Scrum Master ➡️ Proficiency with tools like Jira, Confluence, Smartsheets, ClickUp, Trello, and Notion 🚨 𝐓𝐨 𝐦𝐲 𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤: If you know of relevant opportunities, I’d greatly appreciate your support. Also, if we’ve worked together, your recommendations would mean a lot as I navigate this transition. 🚨 😇 𝐓𝐨 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝: feel free to reach out—happy to support in any way I can.

154

46 Comments

I recently dived into an exciting Market Basket Optimization project, where I analyzed transactional data to uncover patterns in customer purchase behavior. Using association rule mining techniques like Apriori, I identified frequently bought-together items to optimize product placement and cross-selling strategies. This project sharpened my skills in data wrangling, frequent itemset generation, and visualization to drive business insights. Highlights of the project: - Transaction data analysis using Apriori. - Extraction of valuable association rules with high lift and confidence. - Data-driven insights for improving product arrangements. Check out the full project here: https://lnkd.in/ea65gRzB #DataScience #MarketBasketAnalysis #MachineLearning #Python #CrossSelling #BusinessIntelligence #AssociationRules

14

2 Comments

I just read a post from Chantal Cox about how people write emails to Hiring managers before or after applying for a job, and it really resonated with me. I mean, the common mistakes — like sounding too generic or not personalizing the message, or just applying because I need a job — are so easy to make, but it doesn’t work like that. 🧬Writing to hiring managers is almost a science. It’s something I often discuss with candidates during consultations — how to craft thoughtful, genuine messages that truly stand out. So, sharing with you here 🤗

9

2 Comments

I've been at Amazon a long time. When I talk about my career with Amazon, the most frequent questions people ask me are: What kept me with Amazon for so many years? When I left after nearly 14 years, what drew me away? What brought me back 2 years later? The genuine answer to each, as trite as it sounds, is the same: it's the people The people who took a chance on me. The people that, when I struggled, helped me lean on my strengths and shore up my weaknesses. The people who saw potential and invested in me. The people who modeled the value of building relationships, not just building code. The people who challenged me, made me think differently, and helped me grow. As I've grown in my career it's also those people in whom I can see potential and invest, where I might take a chance to give them an opportunity, for whom my experience could be of some value as they grow, and with whom I can continue building lasting relationships. I've been with Amazon's Global Talent Management and Compensation for about a year and a half, where our mission is to help Amazonians build rewarding careers. In that time, I've met with hundreds of people in our org and every single one of them has been driven by our mission and passionate about how we can meaningfully improve the lives of every Amazon employee. I've learned so much about how challenging, rewarding, and important taking a culture-first approach can be. This post isn't a claim that Amazon is objectively unique, I know there are amazing people in every company, though it has been my personal experience that Amazon's intentionally peculiar culture is one that encourages these kinds of behavior in people. Rather, my point is this: To deliver sustained business and customer value, your organization cannot be a feature factory. It needs to be an organizational engine that continuously inspects and adjusts its culture to grow people and relationships, according to your values, and through which you deliver for your customers. #people #relationships #culture #amazon

263

8 Comments

In a few days, I'll have spent 10 years at Amazon. Why do I stay? I had a job satisfaction rubric when I started here:  1. Peers  2. Manager  3. Compensation  4. Subject Matter I thought that if I could hit all of these I'd be happy--and for the most part I have hit them; and I've been happy. But as my career progressed I noticed something new that was missing from my rubric: for the first time I was able to be my authentic self--and that self was successful! As time has gone on, I've come to value this one aspect above the original four. Reflecting on my tenure, me from 10 years ago would be shocked by the this post's opening. When I applied, I was convinced I'd never be hired; and when I was hired, I was convinced that I'd never see my sign on RSUs vest--I had done my homework and was aware of the short median lifespan. But the anecdotes I was quickly amassing were at conflict with everything I thought I knew about Amazon. My manager had been there 10 years, a couple of my peers 5, and I never saw anyone crying at their desk (much to the relief of my parents). Rather things went well. My first surprise was to discover that my coworkers universally did what they said they'd do. More so, what I naturally did was often right, whether that was disagreeing in a meeting, or diving deep into some bug in a service I did not own; I was rewarded for following my instincts. This lead to my own personal virtuous cycle: the more I was myself, the more encouraged I'd be to be that self. Of all the satisfaction criteria, this is the one that keeps me excited to stay and continue growing. This leads me to be super curious about others. What keeps you where you are? (10 year cake is--of course--a figment of AI) #amazon #careers

165

17 Comments

I'll fully accept that sometimes CEOs need to make very difficult decisions, but this explanation from Intuit's CEO below is truly atrocious. It is frankly impossible that they've suddenly noticed 1500 of their staff are not meeting expectations and, if it was possible, that would very much be a failure of the CEO for allowing the situation to get that bad. No matter how you look at it, the magnitude of the layoffs forces one to conclude only thing thing - it's a larger problem, the buck therefore stops with the CEO and, as such, one would expect a level of compassion and contrition as the CEO dishes out consequences to much-less-powerful people who aren't them. Gergely summarises the rest far better than what I can, but I really think those who have influence in a company should pay attention to what he writes with regards to what the CEO gains from making such a statement. When you're writing an explanation for lay-offs, ask yourself why you're writing it. Then read the statement from the perspective of your laid-off staff, from your surviving staff, and from the average member of the public. If you come across worse than you would do if you said nothing, then why release those words as they are? In doing so you destroy all possible benefits from writing a statement in the first place and it results, as we say in Germany, in a Verschlimmbesserung (google it, it's a great word). And for heaven's sake, don't introduce a fantastical projection of blame on 1500 people by suggesting you're giving them "the respect and compassion they deserve". That just makes it ripe for a @bestoflinkedin Instagram post.

48

3 Comments

After 7 years, last week I said good bye to Amazon Web Services (AWS) 👋 7 years ago, I was working as a project manager but I was secretly dreaming about going to a coding career. Somehow I managed to get in Amazon. I barely knew anything about coding production systems. But being surrounded with some of the smartest engineers I have ever met, I was able to learn, grow and eventually achieve my dream of being called a software engineer. Here are a few fun moments that will stay in my mind forever: - Before my first day, I asked my skip level manager what's the dress code for my first day. He was shocked at first and then told me "do what you want, but never wear a shirt and a tie, that'll be super weird" 👔 - I bought ice cream at 11:59pm just one minute before the store closed while working on a project with a friend. it was the fastest run of my life and eating this ice cream is a moment that I remember as pure joy 🍦🏃 - One day when I was on call, all the on call engineers on the entire floor got paged. Thinking it's a global issue, I am relaxed... Until I see all the on-calls on the floor looking right at me and walking in my direction... The outage was caused by our service and it was my job to fix it 😱 - One night, I wasn't on-call but my pager rang for missing connection... While sleeping, I woke up my wife (who doesn't work at Amazon and has never been on-call) and I told her to go to work. I got screamed at a lot that night... 🫣 But the part that I love the most is that most of the people I worked with, I can now call them friends. So I wanted to to thank all of you, directors, managers, PMs, fellow engineers... And all the others I'm forgetting now. See you soon friends, now it's time for another dream! 👋 PS: Also big thank you for all the devs sharing free content on blog or YouTube and also those writing great books. Your contents were and will continue to be a big part of my growth too!

126

38 Comments

DoorDash Last night, I had made an order from your App. Sequence of events in nutshell: 1. I ordered from your app food from a restaurant. 2. Doordasher/delivery person picked the order and came up to my location. 3. As per his word, he gave it to some random person standing near the elevator area asking are you from doordash without verifying the name or other relevant details. 4. I had explicitly mentioned that "Hand it to me" to my apartment number, which apparently he never did. 5. On calling him, he was just outside the apartment and had a conversation with him and was asking me did I give him any tips. As per him, if I would had tipped him, he would had taken more care about my order. 6. I requested a refund for the same as I did not receive any food after long wait time and hence had to order from UberEats in parallel. 7. Request got denied once. 8. Called customer care, got assured a better outcome, again request got denied. 9. Called to customer care again, but in vain. Response from Customer care: "I'm really sorry and can confirm that your case was reviewed, appealed, and reviewed again second time. Both times, compensation was denied. Unfortunately, there's nothing further we can do per DoorDash policy." Tried to connect with your customer support multiple times. FYI, the apartment is covered with CCTV and buzz code as well. If required, can provide all the proofs of relevance. Its not about money but about the principle that I am not paying for food which I never received. I would like to have addressed from your end if possible. #Doordash Tony Xu

4

2 Comments

🌟 SQL Saturday Houston - Dive into Snowflake Architecture with Surbhi Pokharna! 🌟 Excited to introduce "Snowflake Concepts and Architecture for Data Professionals" led by Surbhi Pokharna, Director of Cloud Data Platform Services at Charles River Development and a seasoned expert with over 20 years in data architecture. In this session, Surbhi will cover: Why Snowflake? – Discover what makes Snowflake ideal for large-scale data warehousing, with an emphasis on cost efficiency and performance. Unique Cloud Benefits – Learn how Snowflake’s PaaS design sets it apart from other cloud databases. Hands-On Demos – Watch Snowflake in action on Azure and see how it stacks up against traditional tools like SQL Server. With Surbhi’s extensive experience in cloud data migrations and cutting-edge analytics, this session is a must for anyone looking to understand Snowflake’s architecture and its unique advantages. Don’t miss out on this deep dive into Snowflake! 🔗Register: https://lnkd.in/gZDwcvsZ 🧊 #SQLSaturdayHouston #Snowflake #DataArchitecture Paresh Motiwala

41

2 Comments

This dashboard is so beautiful and informative!

3

Dear Intuit, Layoffs always suck but publicly labeling laid-off employees as underperformers is not a good move. Firstly, it reinforces the stigma that being laid off is synonymous with poor performance. While this may be true in some cases, it's often not the reason for large-scale layoffs. Highlighting this only strengthens that misconception. Secondly, bad performance doesn't necessarily mean it is the person's fault. We have all seen teams left in a dire situation after a reorg or change in company priorities. In reality layoffs often reflect company decisions, not employee capabilities. Additionally, personal challenges or ineffective management can impact anyone's work. Let's face it, we've all experienced periods where our performance wasn't our best. Not performing at a given time is not a sin and it shouldn't weigh on those employees forever. Thirdly, this labeling can have a significant negative impact on the mental well-being and job prospects of those laid off. The perception becomes, "They were let go because they weren't good enough." Let's support those affected and help them land awesome new gigs. Here to help any Intuit employee in any way I can #layofffs #layoffssupport https://lnkd.in/gX3TfqGe

604

50 Comments