Amazon

Before joining Amazon, all my friends told me not to join and that it would be a horrible working environment. While this might be true for some people, it has not been my experience at all.

The team I joined has been respectful of my time and was able to earn trust and make me feel welcomed.

In the past 3 months, I've learned more than in the past year at my last employer. I am surrounded by exceptional, knowledgeable, driven, and hard-working colleagues, which makes me want to better myself.

The diversity of talent and cross-pollination of skill sets between individuals makes Amazon unrivaled for personal and career growth.

Beyond self-development, Amazon is a great place to work on challenging, unique, and large-scale projects. Without a doubt, this environment is perfect for personalities who love to innovate and have an entrepreneurial mindset.

It can be quite easy to get overloaded with work. Most people I've met at Amazon love to take ownership and have a bias for action. Unfortunately, this can mean that you will end up in situations where you need to work extra hours to complete your project and deliver results.

Some of the benefits at Amazon are more frugal than at some of the other top tech firms. Finally, most teams have an aggressive on-call rotation, which means that often you are randomized, and this reduces the time you can spend on projects.

A lot of churn in teams. Not necessarily because people leave, but re-orgs happen often. Try and reduce the amount of changes in teams when possible.