Pros
I've been at Amazon for several years in different technical roles and teams as engineer, project manager, engineering manager etc.. Overall, my experience has been very positive and I would recommend Amazon as a good place to work to my friends. * Generally low bureaucracy due to decentralization of decision making - decisions get made quickly and you can focus on doing your job * Work with really smart and capable people - the hiring process is tough and most people that get hired are exceptional * long term thinking around most business initiatives gives us room to make mistakes, learn from them and get better. Other places I have worked at prior to Amazon are myopic about the bottom line that lead to many poor decisions. * Strong culture around try hard things and successfully executing on them - this experience will make you better at whatever you do after this. * the company is still growing incredibly fast (the employee count doubles every twenty months even though its been 20 years since the company was founded). This translates to lots of new and exciting projects and ideas being worked on across the company
Cons
* While many managers at the company are exceptional, there are many ineffective managers as well; main reason is on-going training/coaching for new managers is insufficient. Your experience at Amazon (as with most companies of this size) depends a lot on your manager so take care to ask them good questions while interviewing to get a good idea on how it is to work with the manager * While base compensation/stock grants are very good, other benefits such as 401(k), medical etc. are weak compared to competitors in the software development industry (though are much better than other employers in general)
