Amazon Software Development Engineer reviews

3.5

54% would recommend to a friend

(3,333 total reviews)
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Andrew Jassy

37% approve of CEO

52% positive business outlook

Software Development Engineer employees have rated Amazon with 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 3,333 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
2.0
May 3, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

You will learn. A lot. This company has some of the most challenging, most exciting, most technologically engaging problems I have ever had to solve, and I learned an amazing amount in the time I was there. You will find something in their culture to value. The principles of leadership are impressive, and the way they interplay with each other actually informs how the company operates.

Cons

Your employment will be a blessing or a condemnation depending almost entirely on the team for which you work. I was in Builder Tools on the deployment engine team, and in two-and-a-half years my life was hell. I was forever understaffed, overworked, and unsupported. My manager provided no coaching, no guidance, and no support except on performance "reviews" which were almost entirely full of new information. He was forced out of management, but not before ruining my chances of keeping my job. When I brought the matter up to HR and said I was being unfairly treated, their direct answer was, and I quote, "if we did something about this, we'd set a precedent of letting employees dispute their reviews, and then we couldn't manage." After that, I had no interest in fighting for my job, since it was clear the company had no interest in fighting for me.

3.0
Apr 30, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

* Initially competitive pay for college grads * A well known company

Cons

* long hours * very political review/promotion process * essentially any code you write (even outside of work) is owned by Amazon * uses open source, does not contribute to open source * a lot of bureaucracy * very little engineer autonomy, your roadmap is set (and constantly changed) by VPs and PMs who are making decisions based on what, politically, is best for their careers

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