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Get paid, but prepare to be miserable

Software Development Engineer
Current Employee
Has worked at Amazon for 6 years
October 22, 2019
Minneapolis, Minnesota
1.0
Doesn't RecommendNegative OutlookDoesn't Approve of CEO
Pros

Pay is the best around; stock options are a nice perk.

Your coworkers are some of the smartest and most talented people in the industry; you will learn quite a bit from smart people.

Cons

Senior management (particularly in Minneapolis) is awful. They will pit you against your coworkers. Prepare to be in a continual depressive state after your third month of working there.

Nobody cares about you or your personal growth there. You have to be the person in charge. Any "trainings" or "conferences" are done on your own dime, and managers will see all personal growth as time you could have spent doing work for them.

Work-life balance is poor if your manager decides they don't like you; it's always arbitrary. Amazon pretends to be a "data-driven" company, but it's all political, and managers will manipulate data however they see fit. I know some people whose managers like them that do little to no work and have found the gravy train. Good luck if that's you!

They are having attrition problems because they are driving many people out, presumably because Amazon is cutting a significant part of its workforce. Sooner or later, that will hit you.

Advice to Management

Mandatory attrition rates to continually cut engineers, while managers continue to get paid, is dehumanizing. You are throwing away talent continually for no other reason than to make Lord Bezos happy.

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