Amazon

This is one of the few places where QA can find a true FTE position with high pay. The benefits package is good, and adding significant others is relatively cheap. If you have a good manager, they will put you on the track to promotions, but you will need to prove yourself constantly. If you want to learn and grow very fast, Amazon is great for truly pushing you to dive deep. Many of your co-workers and even senior leaders (L6/L7) are truly incredible people and live by the Leadership Principles that are intended to guide Amazon. This makes many of the teams there incredible to work with.

Amazon will push many programs about Diversity, Inclusion, and well-being; however, they do not practice what they preach. Many of the most recent C-suite decisions are clearly not about being "The World's Best Employer" as their leadership principles dictate, but instead about satisfying the bottom line for the highest level of stockholder. My team, in particular, did incredible work in a WFH world, but that performance didn't matter. RTO and layoffs removed many of the leaders from our team and several of our best and brightest.

There's a wealth of talent Amazon let go to cut costs, keeping smaller paychecks over those who made a big impact in some cases. The overall climate at Amazon is all the dread you hear about, even in the best Orgs. It won't change, even if your senior leadership wants to; the big bosses won't let it.

Listen to your people. Make sacrifices on your end, not of staff. Actually strive to be what your leadership principles say you should be. Then you'll see incredible results, as Jeff did.