Amazon

Amazon is not a comfortable place for most people new to Amazon. We do things differently, and it is a steep learning curve. 95% of it is for a good reason once you understand it. Amazon is one of the few places where goals and values are not artificially created; they actually came up from the long process of forming Amazon culture and are alive at every level. Amazon is a bottom-up company. Leadership does not dictate what to do. If you have good ideas, you can grow really fast here and make a difference. We are big. Every team is somewhat different. We encourage you to move. Jump in, find the right boss & project for you, work hard, have fun, and make history. At Amazon, you can.

Bottom-up organic growth leads to sub-optimal architecture. Get ready to dig in and fix things that don't work. Don't expect a grand master plan. We are frugal - sometimes to a point of wasting money trying to save it. Again, take ownership. Proof we do, and it can get fixed. Sometimes we try to do too much, which means we have no time to stop and think. We need to learn how to get better at this, how to say no more often, and stand our ground.

We try to do too much sometimes, at the cost of actually spinning our wheels, working hard and not moving anywhere.

We are at times stupidly frugal, wasting more money than we are saving, at the expense of frustrating our employees and making them feel not valued.