Amazon Web Services reviews

Extremely political. There is no clear direction, and constant change and ambiguity are the norm. Your team members are not encouraged to help or collaborate, rather your encouraged to all be "leaders". So it's a very "every man for himself" culture. There are constant conversations going on about you and your performance at all times, and you never know who is a part of those conversations. So, for example, if you work on a project with someone, it's not just you working on a project...it's a test. Because that person was likely advised to work with you by a leader so that they could see how well you performed. So you're constantly being scrutinized and tested. There are tons of smart people there, but no one's really passionate about the work, so it's a very uninspiring work environment. People just endure for the money, but the culture is actually quire sad and depressing.

AWS has grown fast and many senior leader have hired under them which has projecting themselves upwards. The skills now needed to run a large sales and engineering organisation are being learnt on the job and as such many decisions are being poorly made and are risk adverse, slowing the innovation that once ran through the company. The company has lost its day-one culture and is starting to adapt to the slow down in its growth. The pressure on senior leaders to hit return on sale quotas means head count freezes and span of control being implemented; capping promotions and career options.