Great place to learn. Some teams are better than others. Incompetence exists, just like in any other big company
Great place to learn. Some teams are better than others. Incompetence exists, just like in any other big company
The problems you have the opportunity to solve are large and unavailable at most other companies. It's extremely exciting to see your project talked about all over the tech press and to think about how many billions of times a day your code is being run.
At Amazon, someone who is right out of college can easily have the opportunity to design a big system from scratch without being told what to do by more experienced people (although this is a negative if you are that experienced person having to clean up after the newbie). This, of course, allows you to learn from your own past mistakes since you are allowed to make them. And, after you eventually leave Amazon, you'll have that recognizable name on your resume.
On-call! On-call sucks!
It's possible to have a decent on-call experience. On one team in the past, I had just that great experience, but most of the time it sucks really bad.
The worst of all is being on-call for horrible software that you didn't even write and not getting much opportunity to fix it.
The work environment is pretty horrible. If you care about working in an aesthetically pleasing environment, then don't work for Amazon (although it might be different once we move offices to South Lake Union in 2010).
The benefits aren't as good as a lot of other big companies. If you have a family, then you might not want to work for Amazon.
Some parts of the company are run by completely incompetent people. You really need to get lucky when you start working for Amazon to get a good group, although it's pretty easy to move around once your manager realizes that you're an engineer that Amazon should try to keep.
Stand up to Jeff B once and a while. He's not God. You're not going to get fired for telling him that he's wrong.
If he has a stupid idea, tell him it's stupid. And if he wants you to do something really quickly, make sure he knows what you're going to have to trade off for that.
Jeff is normally a pretty good CEO, but he can only successfully do his job if you stop kissing his ass so much.
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Amazon Interview Questions
Amazon Interview Experiences
Software Development Engineer III
A total of four approximately one-hour interviews were conducted on the same day. Three interviews focused on Data Structures and Algorithms, while one focused on System Design. All four interviews started with an introduction, followed by behavior
Software Development Engineer III
I received an email from the recruiter, followed by an automatic email inviting me to complete an online assessment. I am still waiting for the results and do not know if they will call me.
Software Development Engineer III
Interviewed 5 hours after the written test. The interviewers followed an exact pattern of questions that they had prepared. I would say they need to know what they want to know, but not what the candidate knows. This clearly reflects Amazon's dictato
Software Development Engineer III
Toronto, Ontario, CanadaApril 1, 2022A total of four approximately one-hour interviews were conducted on the same day. Three interviews focused on Data Structures and Algorithms, while one focused on System Design. All four interviews started with an introduction, followed by behavior
Software Development Engineer III
ItalyApril 1, 2022I received an email from the recruiter, followed by an automatic email inviting me to complete an online assessment. I am still waiting for the results and do not know if they will call me.
Software Development Engineer III
Boston, Massachusetts, United StatesSeptember 1, 2021Interviewed 5 hours after the written test. The interviewers followed an exact pattern of questions that they had prepared. I would say they need to know what they want to know, but not what the candidate knows. This clearly reflects Amazon's dictato
