The corporate equivalent of the Stanford Prison Experiment
Pros
Learn what’s happening in cloud tech
Cons
Anyone who has stayed at Amazon longer than their first four years, eg your next manager, is likely on the sociopathic spectrum. You have to be soulless to survive and thrive here, because the company is soulless. Amazon is full of performative corporate drones that have learned to game the system and will use an array of tools to make themselves look good while diminishing your and other subordinate employees contributions. The leadership, particularly Jassy and Garman, are visionless and uninspiring. They don’t have any good growth ideas to combat competitors so they are using their monopsony power to squeeze margin out of the employee base to goose up the stock price. This adversarial approach to management has turned the South Lake Union campus into something of a gilded prison. The gleaming buildings hide an upside down world in which the least competent but most ruthless people run the show. Your work and contributions are consumed by these ruthless people to further their careers. You get to keep your paycheck, but not your dignity, as long as you’re willing to play the game.
