The magic of Simple English: how a Russian-speaking IT specialist got a job at Amazon without good English

If you are preparing for an interview and are worried about your English, then this information may make your life easier. The IT specialist told on Habr about his experience working at Amazon without special knowledge of English.

Photo: iStock.com/atakan

Andrey Stolbovsky worked at Yandex for the last 5 years, and last year he moved to Amazon. Now he has found a job as a Software Development Manager at AWS Redshift - this is his first full-time experience of working in an international company.

The IT specialist shared his observations and conclusions regarding English language proficiency, which he made after passing interviews and after a year of working in the company.

Don't worry about the language or accent

When Andrey got a new job, in his mind there was a picture that was as far removed from life as possible. He thought that in an international company everyone spoke excellent English with excellent pronunciation, that in an interview, language proficiency was primarily important, and if newcomers did not meet high standards, they were discounted.

On the subject: How to quickly improve your English: tips from professionals on what is really important in the language and what you can 'score' on

In reality, he says, it's not like that:

• You still have to try hard to find a Briton in London.
• The company employs people from all over the world, and the vast majority are not native English speakers. They sometimes say things in a very strange way, regardless of their work experience.
• A very small number of people try to pronounce words normally - the rest simply speak with their own accent, often with a very pronounced one.

“And this applies to absolutely all levels. I regularly see top employees (directors and vice presidents) who speak very simple English - and that’s okay,” says Andrey. “The same applies to writing such as emails or documents - during the document review, no one even comments on errors that do not affect the meaning.”

Actually, this is the key to mastering the situation - focus on the meaning of what is being said, and not on the beauty of the wording or grammatical correctness. According to Andrey’s advice, try using different techniques to make yourself understood, and everything will be fine.

Focus on meaning

When you want to say something or answer a question, focus on conveying the meaning in as few words as possible. This is good advice for any language, even your native one, but for a foreign language, Andrey emphasizes, it’s simply salvation.

“It’s also important to make sure that what you bring to the meeting has a complete meaning. With a native language, it is easy to express half-thoughts, directions, or feelings of directions that other participants are already developing. It almost doesn’t work with non-native people – which is actually good,” he believes.

Use simple words

Forget about idioms. Forget about complicated words. Forget about metaphors. All this complicates the thought and reduces the chances of being understood.
On Amazon, wherever it recommends how to write documents, it says “use Simple English.”

Remember those YouTube shorts that tell you how to stop speaking primitively and give you a dozen beautiful synonyms? Look and do the opposite.

For example:

• Instead of “I'm underwater” or “I'm swamped,” say “I'm very busy” or “I have too much work.”
• Instead of “I'll take a stab at it” - “I'll try to do it.”
• Instead of “It's like two raindrops” - “They are almost the same”.
• Instead of “ineffable” - “hard to describe”.

Learn to ask again if you don’t understand

Andrey assures that everyone asks again, and native speakers ask more than anyone else.

This is done with approximately the following phrases:

• Sorry, say that again? (Sorry, can you say that again?).
• Pardon? (Sorry?).
• I'm not following. Could you explain it differently, please? (I didn't catch it. Could you explain it differently please?).
• What does “fungible” mean? (What does “interchangeable” mean?).
• What do you mean by “delinquent” in this context? (What do you mean by “offender” in this context?).
• I didn't catch that or I missed that. (I didn't catch that, or I missed it).
• How do you spell it? (How do you spell it?).
• Come again? (Say it again).

By the way, if technical reasons interfere with understanding, they can also be corrected:

• Sorry, you're breaking up, what was that? (Sorry, you were interrupted, what were you saying?).
• Sorry, your room is super echo-y, could you switch to headphones maybe? (Sorry, there is a lot of echo in your room. Could you please switch to headphones?)
• I'm sorry, didn't mean to interrupt, but there seems to be a delay. (Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt, but there seems to be a delay in the audio).
• There's very loud background noise/your voice is far away/there's lots of static, I can hardly hear you. (Very loud background noise/your voice is hard to hear/lots of static, I can barely hear you).
• Am I audible? Can you hear me? (Can you hear me? Can you hear me?).

Ask again right away

To ensure that asking again minimally interferes with the dialogue, Andrei advises learning to quickly understand what you did not understand.

“At first I made noticeable pauses, during which I first tried to comprehend what was said to me, and only then asked again, and this slowed down the dialogue. It's better to ask again right away. Imagine that you are speaking Russian with a friend in a noisy place and you don’t hear the phrase. How many milliseconds will pass before you say “ah”? It’s the same here,” he explained.

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The IT specialist says that there is no need to sit and silently try to think. Everyone understands everything and meets halfway.

Make sure you are understood

It is important to constantly check that your listeners still understand you. A common mistake is that the speaker goes into a five-minute exposition of his thoughts, not paying attention to the fact that his thought was lost already on the fifth word. Again, this error is not specific to a foreign language, but is greatly aggravated by it.

Andrey uses the following phrases:

• Does that make sense? (Did you get the point?).
• If you get me? (Did you understand me?).
• I'm not sure – am I making myself clear? (I'm not sure – am I making myself clear?).
• Do you know what I mean? (Do you understand what I mean?).

Andrey asks these questions about each individual thought, or about each part of a complex thought.

Use synonyms and explanation on your fingers

Don't get stuck on a word if you can't remember it. Say something similar in meaning or simply explain in other words.
“I recently forgot the word 'junior', but after a slight hesitation I said 'not senior' - and everyone understood,” Andrey gave an example.

If it is important to use a specific word, abbreviation or number that is not understood or confused with others, then you can pronounce them by letters or numbers:

• It's “two”: tee–double-u–o, not “too”.
• Fourteen – one four.
• BAFTA – Bravo Alfa Foxtrot Tango Alfa.

Ask to turn on the camera and turn it on yourself

Surprisingly, even a bad video still greatly helps you understand someone else’s speech, especially with a strong accent. When appropriate, which is almost always, ask to turn on the camera - in the worst case, they will simply refuse.

For the same reason, Andrey advises, it makes sense to turn on your camera and leave it on, even if the interlocutor is without a camera. This increases the chances of being understood.

Don't talk on the phone

“In my personal experience, 100% of calls to a mobile phone regarding interview questions were a complete failure - the sound quality is noticeably worse, especially with an international call, there is interference, and in the end you can’t understand the interlocutor at all,” shared Andrey.

Over time, he began to ask for meetings via Zoom/Skype/Meet and, if something happened, immediately asked to call back somewhere other than the phone. He was never refused.

Practice your interview for interviews

“The biggest interview mistake I made methodically for 10 years in a row was not practicing answering behavioral questions in English. “I thought I could immediately tell you about my work experience,” he regrets. “In reality, of course, I didn’t succeed in anything like that.” Everything changed when Andrey:

• I sat down and described my experience with a sign in the format STAR relying on Leadership Principles Amazon – they provide a good structure, even if you are not interviewing at Amazon (example, which he did for the workshop).
• Conducted 10 interviews with real FAANG interviewees through the service Prepfully.

The difference in the end, as Andrey says, was like between heaven and earth.

“It so happened that my first and last interviewee was the same girl from Uber. The first feedback was with the rating “I’m inclined not to take it” and it was felt that “I’m inclined” was chosen purely out of politeness, and the last one was with the rating “I’m definitely going to take it” and the words “as soon as they freeze ours, be sure to come”! - he remembered.

So, even if you have a well-structured understanding of your work experience, be sure to practice communicating it to another person in English.

Convince with data

If your profession involves persuading other people, be aware that your persuasion may lose its power due to poorer language skills.

“In Russian, I often managed to convince my colleagues of my opinion with various rhetorical techniques, whereas in English the words seem to be the same, but the effect is not at all the same,” Andrey admitted. — Over time, I realized that the problem was not what worked before. My arguments were weak, and this affected the quality of my work and the degree of agreement.”

Andrey realized that instead of convincing formulations, it is always better to strengthen your arguments with specific data. Even a small and very banal piece of data, such as traffic metrics or customer retention metrics, is perceived by the team much better and stronger than a good joke or a series of heartfelt, convincing arguments in the “I see it like that” style. Wherever you want to say something particularly important, think about what number, measurement or metric can be used to accompany it, and how it will be understandable to your listeners.

Try to prepare to perceive accents by ear

Having worked with native speakers of other languages, you quickly get used to their accent, especially, as Andrey says, if you turn on the video. But with interviews you don’t have this luxury, so you can try to tune in to how different accents sound in the context of interviews, for example in the case of using Youtube videos.

“I asked people in the telegram chats of IT specialists, in which I sit, which accents they experienced the most problems with at work and during interviews (almost all options were included here). The top ones include Indian, Chinese and British.

They often complained about French and Irish. Among the more exotic ones are Thai, Dutch, Nigerian, Japanese, Finnish, and one respondent even named Slavic,” Andrey summed up.

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