Amazon.com Reviews

Pros

- Pay is Good
- RSU is good too
- Lots of principal talks to learn from
- Work with smart people

Cons

- Can be demanding at times.
- Work life balance could be hard with pager
- Can be a frugal place

Pros

Fast, easy to get tools, Lots of challenges and opportunities, great location

Cons

Can get lost in shuffle, and sometimes there are pet projects

Advice to Senior Management

Stop with pet projects of middle management

Pros

Good experience for entry level associates

Cons

No tuition re-embersment for those wishing to advance

Pros

Amazon is growing very fast and provides lots of opportunities for employees' career growth. Lots of great people to learn from, a huge internal knowledge base. Many different teams with different kinds of work/technologies, easy movement between teams. Very encouraging environment for people with a strong work ethic. Compensation is better than most in the industry.

Cons

Needs more time commitment than other companies. Sometimes need to carry a pager, which can restrict what the employee can do on those days/nights; sometimes need to wake up at night to fix issues.

Pros

You have a lot of autonomy and responsibility. You are given a lot of respect for being good at your job... I didn't find much internal politics (even though I've sure it exists elsewhere in the organization). This may be one of the main reasons that Amazon is such a respected name on the the resume.

Also, the MBA intern network is great. There were ~180 MBA interns (3x as many as Microsoft) from all the top schools in the country (HBS, Wharton, Stanford, MIT, Berkley, etc). We all hung out together after work, and I've stayed in touch with many colleagues from other schools after the summer.

Cons

As an MBA intern, it's very important to fit a good project. You are evaluated on how well you complete your project and write your white paper, so make sure you pick something where you know what the end result should be. Open-ended projects, where you don't deliver something tangible (like a new web site feature, new marketing campaign, new product, etc.) will most certainly get you dinged during your final review.

I had friends who loved their experience, and I had friends who hated it. I think the major reasons people didn't like their internship were:

1) Their project was not well-scoped and overly-complicated, so you didn't know what the end result should be, and

2) People were expecting a culture like Google or Facebook (lots of benefits and perks), even though Amazon is as much a frugal retailer as they are a tech company.

Advice to Senior Management

Even though a more formal structure to the summer internship may be helpful, don't do it if it hurts an intern's ability to think independently and "hack" stuff together.

Pros

Continuous improvement and innovation is an authentic core value. I have never received as much internal training and thoughtful orientation at any other employer. Workplaces are very safe, clean and comfortable compared with other similar workplaces.

Cons

Being a retail company dependent on and committed to customer service means that employees sometimes have to work extra hours, on holidays, and sometimes experience changed schedules.

Advice to Senior Management

Invest more in community relations and corporate citizenship. Amazon has a tendency to just move forward at lightning pace without taking the time to develop relationships.

Pros

Amazon is a busy place with a lot of career opportunities. The company is growing really fast and opportunities are available worldwide. Internal transfers make it possible to move to a different city where the company is located.

Cons

From end of November to end of December is a blackout period at the Amazon fulfillment facilities. No vacation time is allowed during this period.

Advice to Senior Management

During peak there is a lot of pressure to meet targets, some managers approach this as to mean time to be aggressive with the employees. Getting along during this time is the way to archive more from the employees.

Pros

working as SDE for Amazon Dev Center in Romania -> Amazon is definitely much better than the outsourcing industry in Romania (Eastern Europe), from all points of view: smart colleagues, much more exciting projects (wide impact, cool technologies), much better pay, perks, looks better on your resume, etc

Granted, we are in Romania, and Amazon doesn't have Google or Microsoft to compete against as employers for SDEs, but still.. it's pretty cool

Cons

steep learning curve, 'frugal' documentation, self-learning seems to be the norm. Colleagues will help you, but I still have the sink or swim feeling

Advice to Senior Management

keep up the good work!

Pros

Amazon encourages innovation which is a huge difference from previous places I've worked. It is extremely fast-paced with a lot of ambiguity, so to be successful, you have to have a strong bias for action. If you do, you will be able to advance quickly because Amazon is growing so fast.

Cons

It is very hard work. Amazon is growing very quickly, and keeping up can be a challenge. The rewards are worth it, however.

Advice to Senior Management

Amazon has a very high hiring bar, which is a good thing. I think that Amazon would do well to take a more holistic approach to talent management.

Pros

Growth is pretty good! Lots of smart people in the company!

Cons

too much oncall workload. should invest more on automation.

Advice to Senior Management

better career path