Amazon.com – “Amazon is a good place to get started, but once you have experience move on.”

Pros

Pros

For someone leaving the Military, Amazon was a good place to go. They aggressively recruit and find new talent. It made finding my job here very easy. The base salary is a good wage and if you plan on sticking around, the stocks and bonuses are very good. The company does grow every year so there are new opportunities elsewhere in the company if you are willing to move.

Cons

Cons

There is a revolving door for both managers and hourly associates. The leadership structure is extraordinarily flat, leaving almost no room for promotion for the hourly associates. As for managers, a lot of their aggressive recruiting currently is focused almost entirely on MBA students who enter at the base management level and then get auto-promoted on a semi regular basis. This is as long as they don't screw anything up too bad.

   The 401K plan is terrible. It matches 1/2% up to 4% (in other words you put up 4% and get only 2% match). You are only vested in the plan after 3 years which is longer than the average young professional stays at a single job. When the annual review comes around and compensation is increased, it is always at the cost of another pay. So if you get more base pay, you get less in bonus or stocks and vice versa. The only way to make more then what you are currently making is to get promoted. As somebody on this site already mentioned, the only way for this to happen is to work so much and long that senior management feels sorry for you.

   The company also somehow manages to mess up the ramp up to the holiday season every year. Even though we have multiple planning meetings before and after peak, we are not able to staff correctly. It is mostly due to the companies unwillingness to have one extra employee rather than be short by 10. This leads to managers and associates alike getting burnt out during peak.

Advice to Senior Management

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate with your associates more. Rethink not having more intermediate leadership positions. These associates who fill new slots will get valuable leadership experience and will be monetarily compensated for their more difficult work. Then they might take more pride in their jobs and they will do them better. It could also lead to more internal promotions.