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Horrible experience, soulless company, uninteresting work

Software Development Engineer Intern
Former Employee
Worked at Amazon for 1 year
November 28, 2014
East Palo Alto, California
1.0
Doesn't RecommendNegative OutlookDoesn't Approve of CEO
Pros
  1. The pay for an internship was high.
  2. Good brand name on the resume.
Cons
  1. No free food, no benefits.
  2. Very high turnover rate.
  3. Nobody seemed passionate about their job.
  4. Everyone was looking elsewhere for a job.
  5. Very soulless as a company; nobody talked to each other inside or outside work.
  6. People were not of top caliber by any means.
  7. People seemed to use it as a stepping stone for other companies.
  8. In the middle of nowhere (East Palo Alto), the closest restaurant was 0.7 miles away, yet there was no food (free or not) in the office.
  9. Unlike other reviews of Amazon, I wasn't given too much work or taken seriously as an intern, even though I had prior experience with Facebook and Google.
  10. Frugality culture got in the way of things. For example, I was given a crappy old MacBook which kept crashing. Thousands of dollars of developer productivity time is lost that way.
  11. Stop getting into such low-margin businesses, and actually try making money for investors for once!
Advice to Management

Instead of hiring so many employees, hire fewer but a lot better employees.

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