Amazon.com Reviews

Pros

FOCUS ON COMMUNICATION: Amazon does a good job communicating at the employee level. At many large comanies, the sheer size of the company means things slow down. Amazon does a great job focusing on communication tools to ensure information is disciminated as needed. Use of email, OCS, IRC, multiple ticking systems, and ancilary tools to find people help ensure information can get to where it needs to be now.

OWNERSHIP OF TASKS: Each department has authority to do what it needs to do without excessive input from management. Even during major issues, regular employees can make the call to execute large scale solutions without having to go to management for approval. Teams themselves own day to day tasks and are responsible for them, often operating as a small business within the company . This allows each team to support their internal customers quickly with out office politics and meddling by multiple levels of management.

LEARNING ABILITY: There is so much to do that after 1 or 2 years in a position, you are encouraged to move to another department if you so desire. This allows you to take your current skills, build on them, and grow into a new job. However, if you decide to stay put, technology changes so rapidly that you'll be constantly learning new programming skills, new operating systems, and new tools.

MANAGEMENT OF POOR PERFORMERS: Up or out. It's that simple. Not performing, improve or you're gone. Poor performers cannot hide and are not tolerated. Managers have to fight for their employees every year and explain why everyone is valuable and should stay. If you don't perform, you'll be at the bottom of the pool and looking for your next job.

KNOWLEDGEABLE CO-WORKERS: Although Amazon does not focus on education but multiple factors in hiring, it seems as if most people have advanced degrees. Not just that, but everyone is a super-star. If you think you know all there is to know about your job and are the top person in your company, Amazon will show you there are plenty of people better than you. That provides the drive for employees to learn, grow, and improve.

FOCUS ON EMPLOYEES: Of course, this depends on the department as well. But, most departments do a great job of focusing on employees. Many jobs can be stressful and hectic at times. But, management takes care of their employees. Some teams have a cereal breakfast bar available every day, a Friday afternoon happy hour with food, beer, and wine (yes, in the office!), and quarterly fun events / outings. This is in addition to the Director or VP walking the cubes just to pop in and say hi and see how things are going.

Cons

DRIVE TO PERFORM: There is a constant drive to perform and produce. What you did last year or last month no longer matters. What benefit will you contribute to the company this week? If your answer is "I want to sit back and relax", this isn't the place for you. The drive to perform can be overwhelming for some as it requires constant work and improvement.

POOR DOCUMENTATION: Amazon is a software company that moves fast. Documentation is an after thought. That causes problems when you don't understand something. Granted, there are internal help documents that any employee can create or update, but that doesn't get done regularly. You'll have to have a keen eye at understanding that a document from 4 years ago that contrasts a document from another department from 2 years ago may be 1/4 right and the new document 1/4 wrong. And, I guarantee once you figure it out, you probably won't go back and update the documentation for the next guy.

A LITTLE TO FAST PACED: Things happen so rapidly that it is sometimes counter productive. That software you just wrote or the fix you are being asked to do may only be in production for 2 months. Then you'll have to completely rewrite it. Amazon uses the excuse of the sheer size of operations to justify projects that only have a life span of a couple of months.

ONCALL: Not use to on-call? Get use to it. No matter who you are you WILL be on-call at sometime. Some teams make it easier by having a "follow the sun" approach (you might be on for 12 hours during the day and someone in India on for 12 hours during your night time). Others give you a day off to "compensate" you for having to work on the weekend. Regardless, if you don't think you will be on-call or don't think you'll get paged, change your mind set - it will happen!

FRUGALITY: One of Amazon's core tenants. However, it almost goes to far sometimes. You'll have everything you need to do your job (pens, markers, computers, even multiple monitors if you're in the right job slots), but don't expect other employee perks like free shirts, a mug, or something else. Think of it this way - if it doesn't directly benefit the customer, it's not going to happen. So that "company wide free day off because you're so cool" - nope. A nice Christmas present? Ha. Your anniversary gift - well at 5 and 10 years each you get a new badge, but that's it.

Do I like it here? YES. Are the "cons" worth the benefits? HECK YEA. Will I get burned out? Most likely, but at lest in the mean time I'll have fun and make history.

Pros

Amazon is vary quality and customer focused. It is great to work for a company that truly cares. Most of the people are fantastic. They are very smart, and knowledgeable. On the other hand they are not stuck up like some people. You can get lots of work done without playing ego games. There is always something new and exciting to work with/on. For the most part resources are there when you need them.

Cons

Although in some ways Amazon feels small. Some times your progress gets killed by big company policies and procedures. The management structure is very traditional, which is disappointing for such a progressive company. There is no way to get an independent review of any managerial actions, and the manager are given a lot of leeway. Because of this the flavor from one team to the next can be quite different. So you can't go by the way it is for your buddy, unless you are working on the same team.

Advice to Senior Management

Establish some checks, and balances in the review/management process. Establish a method to have independent reviews for employees that are concerned about management actions. Hold all managers accontable to follow the company principles.

Pros

work culture, ownership, opportunity to do something big!

Cons

erc at india is little less responsive.

Pros

The people are real down to earth and the pay is decent for the line of work you do.

Cons

Long hours. Constantly on your feet.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the good work!

Pros

challenging but very exciting at amazon

Cons

time consuming and less wrk on PPT presenations

Advice to Senior Management

work life balance should be more encouraged

Pros

lots of challenging problems and deals with lots of data

Cons

sometimes work-life balance is a mess

Pros

One of the best customer driven company

Cons

One of the worst on-call (operational work) company

Pros

* The environment constantly pushes you to learn something new
* Always a new problem to solve - Not boring at all.
* Making a difference to customers - Satisfying

Cons

* Work life balance needs to be watched out. Its tempting to forget it all and work all the time. But its up to individuals to balance.

Advice to Senior Management

Great going!

Pros

*NOTE: these are generalizations. Crappy managers and co-workers do exist*

-Smart and skilled people
-Highly motivated people
-During any type of "political debate," asking what is best for the customer usually gets people on the same page
-Easy to move around the company. In fact, it's encouraged.
-Things are done for a reason
-Managers seem to be s**t umbrellas rather than s**t funnels.
-Due to the ridiculous scale of our systems, the one in a billion edge case keeps us up at night
-The promotions thing is done on a strict merit basis. If everyone in a department deserves a promotion, they all get it. There is no quota. But each promotion / review is heavily vetted with a bunch of management folks.
-I can drink on the job. We have weekly beer bashes and occasional nerf wars. It's a pretty good balance of youth and older, more experienced folks.
-Management is in tune with you, and what you want to do / are doing. Most teams have weekly one-on-ones with their manager to just chat.
-Management is responsive and receptive

Cons

-Your career growth is dictated by the opportunities made available to you at the team you're on.
-People switch teams about every 2 years. Which is great, since it enables you to move around easily, but it also causes some turnover pains.
-Depending on the team, the pager thing can be annoying. But it's not that terrible, and many teams don't have a rotation. But you do have folks in Ireland / India to take them during the night.

Advice to Senior Management

This is happening in some organizations throughout the company, but I think it would help to re-focus on what the role of a software engineer at Amazon should be. Are they primarily coordinating projects and leading the design? Are they the actual people on the ground coding solutions? Are they just supporting current implementations / deprecating legacy code? The role varies greatly throughout the company depending on the team. And if you're a new hire, you are leaving it up to luck as to whether

Pros

No Dress Codes.
They will never kick you out unless or until you're not inclines toward that.
You'll always remain visible.
No bias. Fair Decisions.
Best management team.
Awesome strategies.
Tech oriented.
No website restrictions.
You can listen music.
A lot of fun activities.
Home to office pick up and drop.
Floor walk done by senior management every day.
Earth's most customer-centric company

Cons

You'll have to prepare yourself for any kind of assignment.
Coffee machines are not as good as Facebook and Google.
Frugality is the main principle.
Ubuntu will be the working environment.

Advice to Senior Management

They should always listen to the lower level employees because they are dealing with customers and they can give better suggestions than any otherone.