Amazon

You're surrounded by very smart people and work on projects that are technically challenging and interesting. Amazon seems like just a website to most, but the technology in place behind the scenes is very fascinating. Highly distributed systems built to scale at massive levels.

No real perks besides a bus pass, but that's made up with competitive compensation. You work a lot, and the pager duty can be a real pain sometimes. Then again, by working a lot, I'm learning a lot, so it's really how you perceive it. I wish the remote development offices had more interesting work (my opinion). Sometimes I could use a break from the Seattle weather.

The vision of this company is great, and the fact that pleasing investors is not the #1 priority makes me proud to work here every day.