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Messy, overloaded, unfocused, and horrible internal tools

Senior Software Engineer
Current Employee
Has worked at Amazon for less than 1 year
January 11, 2022
Amsterdam, Netherlands
1.0
Doesn't RecommendNeutral OutlookNo CEO Opinion
Pros

Here you are judged by what you do, not what you say or how loud you scream.

There are processes to ensure quality, and there are clear expectations.

People are equal, no matter where they are from.

Cons

As a developer, you have to work with internal tools that are extremely outdated, don't have documentation, and rarely work well.

Your team will be drowning in pipelines, dev-ops work, and no real product gets ever developed on time. Top-down requests for updates and campaigns will take all your time.

The "Amazon way" mantra shields criticism and is used against us. "This is not working well?" "Well, that is the Amazon way."

Methods like PFRQ are interesting; I see their value, but now, they are exploited. Whoever writes a better PFRQ gets funding, regardless of how crappy the product is. If the pitch is good, they move on.

OP1 is an advanced version of PFRQ. Don't believe the lies, your dream product will never be built! After you deliver the first prototype version, you are stuck with it, in its horrible ops, because no one has time to really iterate on it. It's time for the "next big thing" that will get the eyes on "re-invent".

There are "large scale events" every week; those are company-wide system failures!

On-call is mandatory and non-paid. Good luck sleeping at night.

Additional Ratings

Work/Life Balance
1.0
Culture and Values
1.0
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
4.0
Career Opportunities
4.0
Compensation and Benefits
2.0
Senior Management
3.0

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