Amazon Software Development Engineer reviews

3.5

55% would recommend to a friend

(3,336 total reviews)
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Andrew Jassy

39% approve of CEO

54% positive business outlook

Software Development Engineer employees have rated Amazon with 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 3,336 company reviews on Glassdoor. This indicates that most Software Development Engineer professionals have a good working experience there. Amazon is rated in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) by Software Development Engineer professionals compared to other employers within the Informationstechnologie industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

3K reviews
1.0
Apr 5, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

+ learning opportunities + certain autonomy to complete tasks + work with smart & diligent people

Cons

- lower than average compensation. compare SDE salaries on glassdoor and you'll see... - politics: some managers are good player of 'visibility' and get promoted for no reason... - no promotion space, even you get promoted, you have minimal leverage to increase your salary. getting promoted by leaving Amazon and coming back seems way easier than following Amazon's internal process... - some team use outdated technologies due to historic reason. working on outdated technology is a waste of your time. meaningless in terms of keeping yourself current with latest dev technologies - ONCALL. NOTORIOUS ONCALL. Use software engineer as cheap front-line support is stupid. Engineer resolve engineering problems, engineers do not shoulder responsibilities of customer call centre/IT support. Period.

1.0
Apr 1, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

If you don't have any development experience there can be a lot to be gained. Compensation is ok for new developers, but not so much for more experienced ones.

Cons

Intra-departmental politics can be a mess sometimes, people like to backstab each other with the anytime feedback tool. Can't say no to requests, have to do everything half-assed. Burnout rate is pretty high, knowledgeable people always leave. Oncall rotations in small teams is a nightmare. Technical debt isn't usually taken care of because "the oncall will take care of it". Time spent doing operational stuff/fixing can be more than actual development. Most projects are written in "death marches" and is horrible to maintain and add features later. Vancouver location is where they put all the people who can't get H1Bs.

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