A lot of donkeywork and bad work/life balance
Pros
- Mega-Backdoor Roth IRA (you can save a lot on taxes using this) - You get to see how such a big and critical service as AWS operates. There is a lot to learn on the good procedures and protocols that are in place here, that keep AWS working like a clock, prevent bad decision makings (mostly) and make the system anti-fragile. Procedures such as CorrectionOfError (CoE), Operational Readiness Reviews, API Bar Raisers, Working backwards from a hypothetical press release, ... - The UI design system (CloudScape) is marvelous. UI work is so much smoother than other companies because of it. - Culture encourages engineers to challenge managers and seniors on their technical decisions. No shame in calling out your manager or disputing a design document. - Culture of writing a lot of documents especially design docs and consulting the whole team before acting.
Cons
- Culture of bad work/life balance, even in the Boston office. It's not limited to Seattle HQ. - Your work even as senior software engineer is mostly donkey work. It's like fixing 1000 bugs. It serves no purpose for your career development. Most tooling is internal Amazon-specific so no transferable skills there either. - Perks are terrible compared to other FAANG (401k match only 4%, only 6 holidays per year, no gym expense, ...)
