Pros: - First-class software organization. - Peculiar leadership principles, which employees breathe and live with. They are really and frequently used in assessing strategies, products, processes, and people. - Senior leaders are often right a lot and dive deep. - Lots of internal transfer opportunities and different career choices. - Contrary to many external articles, there is a lot of care and support from management, HR, and the company level. The benefits are decent.

Cons: Extreme frugality: you need to spend time to get lunch outside the office. The coffee in the office is extremely light. The workspace is a bit crowded, and the IT equipment is pretty basic. Admittedly, this is also why Amazon is so successful in keeping the price low.

Pros: Compensation - Overall compensation is in line with other tech companies, which is a lot of money. There are still some cool areas of tech which only the big boys can afford to fund.

Cons: Amazon has the lowest standards for engineering practices, too often trading short-term gains for long-term pain. People only care about the next promotion. If it's not a promo-worthy project or something that can wow a VP, they don't care. You will inherit neglected, years-old software relying on deprecated libraries and be asked to keep building onto it because they won't support work that improves the quality of services and tools. Amazon's internal tools are the worst-in-class. The work tracking, ticketing, and internal meeting tools are all trash. Amazon has half a dozen horrible solutions to problems that competent companies solve better. There is a dearth of leadership at Amazon. You will constantly get mixed priorities all the way from the top, and nobody will articulate a real vision. This way, they can always claim some measure of success in the VP's eyes. It's pathetic. Amazon compensation is largely based on stock compensation. If you joined when it was near the peak, your overall compensation dropped by as much as 25% this year, and they do NOTHING to make up for it. Internal staff stack ranking will turn even your closest allies against you. People will steal your ideas as their own, trying to make themselves appear better. It's absolutely cutthroat. There is no work-life balance. My boss would give me 16 hours of work on a Friday afternoon and then useless advice like, "Just close your laptop at 5 p.m.". So disingenuous. It's the evil empire you work for. Is the money worth your soul? I decided no and quit.

Pros: * Full control over your world: lots of responsibility but also authority. * Amazing people to work with. * Great technology stack. * Tons of growth opportunity. * Working at scale, building highly-available and resilient software.

Cons: Top-leveling culture was insidious (recently Amazon moved away from this, however). Lots of pressure; you really need to learn how to manage Amazon or get used to not having an outside life. This can be done, but it is difficult. Since everybody is pushed at a very fast pace, you can find yourself working for a manager who is struggling (which impacts everything).