Grinds up smart, competent people, spits out their broken husks
Pros
* Many very smart, capable people work there * Compensation at the low end of big tech, but still above the overall industry average * You learn a lot about how to make high throughput, global software
Cons
* You can only succeed in most of the company if you are a workaholic. If you don't prioritize your job over everything else in your life, you'll be viewed as underperforming. This has always been an issue with Amazon, and the race to the bottom has only intensified in recent years. It wasn't unusual to hear managers brag about how their team was the first one to start work in the morning and the last to leave. * Extreme churn-and-burn with employees in many teams. People who want to do anything other than put in long hours for the company and step on their coworkers heads to advance their own career are quickly managed out. If you're a kind, decent person when you start a job here, then chances are you either won't last long or you will come out the other side a nasty jerk. * Not truly a tech company. Glaring on the retail side of things, where most teams are full time working on keeping systems that barely worked when they were built a decade ago running, while slowly replacing them with new systems that will be badly outdated when (if) they finally launch. Even in AWS, the retail ethos is pervasive, and product/business interests perpetually trump investments in innovation and reducing tech debt. * Specifically as a manager, the company is incredibly isolating and draining. You have no peers - every other manager is competition for funding, stack ranking slots, and promotions. A constant stream of toxic, anti-worker policies and demands filter down through you. You either have to be a "good manager" from Amazon's perspective and put enough gold paint on the turds you're handing out to convince your reports that they should be thankful for them, or be honest with your reports and paint a huge target on your own back. * Diversity and inclusion are FAR worse there than any other big tech company I've seen. Some managers/directors are good about this. But entire orgs in the Seattle HQ will be 90%+ people from mainland China or India. Exclusionary social environments and blatant favoritism of the in-group for performance and promotion evaluations are the norm. Middle and upper management don't care.
