Amazon

Out of every ten employees I have to work with, 7-9 of them are brilliant in their own right (former Startup CEOs, rocket scientists from NASA, scholars, former pro athletes, academia stars, etc.). I've been drinking from the firehose for three years and counting, and honestly don't see that slowing down.

If you like to learn and really want to propel yourself in your career and industry, coming to a company like Amazon (or Google, Facebook, or MS – really, any of the top tech companies) is a great career move. I honestly don't see how I'd go back to a middle-of-the-pack company again. So many people leave here at middle-level positions and go on to be higher-level directors at middle-of-the-pack companies. It's like the difference between playing at a D2/D3 college and going Division 1.

Compared to other companies in the Washington D.C. area, the pay is better and/or on par. Because of the stock you get in addition to the salary, most of us are faring much better than any other position you'd have around here in a comparable org/role.

Amazon is more progressive than most D.C. area companies. Dressing up is frowned upon; people have tattoos, pink hair, etc. – basically, come as you are within reason. This removes a layer of stress associated with having to get ready for work, which people don't realize has great value. We have pretty good benefits too.

You can get hired on and change roles internally easily. No manager can stop you from transferring. I think this has made managers a bit nicer, as they can lose you easily if they get out of line.

Amazon is pretty progressive when it comes to skills; they don't care as much about certs and degrees as your abilities. I'm on a team where I'm the only degreed individual, and yet, I do believe that one person is probably among the top ten experts in their field in the world, and another person is exceptional in their skillset. The third person has over 30 years of experience, and they literally begged them not to retire. That said, we also have many PhDs and exceptional academics here, but the key takeaway is to be exceptional at making and/or doing. Alphabet soup credentials are not impressive here. Curing cancer is.

So many internal programs exist to develop technical skills and change career paths. You can come here as an hourly employee and eventually train your way into engineering if you do the work.

The pace is incredible. Some teams are not as bad as others, but that can wear on you, especially if you're a "yes" person and don't have the strategic thinking to say yes to the right things and no to most things.

People do burn out here. We have a term for people who leave due to burnout (generally) and then come back: "boomerangs."

Amazon teeters the line between frugal and "frup-id" (another term used internally). Often, you have to work with not enough or no money, and understaffed. I imagine how amazing some of our projects would have been had we had an extra set of hands or some money to work with, and not been hacking together solutions.

Amazon attracts a lot of Type A personalities. I thought I was one until I got here; then I realized I'm not.

There are the typical problems here too: some people are jerks, politics, drama. Out of five companies I've worked for between internships and full-time employment, this has been the best environment, though.

Let's get a bit more progressive with leadership. Just because someone works in a field for 15 years doesn't mean they are automatically ready to manage people.

Let's get better at recognizing that people management, leadership, and expertise are not conflated skills or terms.

We need a more formal and intense manager development program. Other companies do this. The data shows that people quit their managers, not their company. Use this as a catalyst to develop better people developers, which is what a manager should be.