Amazon

Depends on where you are, but the engineers are talented and the projects are interesting/impactful. My team helps each other out and isn't a "crabs in a bucket" kind of team in the way some teams are.

1. Timeline pressures: WLB is a false choice, because you can choose to leave your work at the office, but then you have to face leadership's displeasure at not meeting their crazy timelines. If you complain about them, you're asked to raise the bar.

2. Culture at the top is extremely uninspiring: Hearing the kinds of decisions (e.g., RTO5, layoffs, scrapping diversity initiatives) that the people at the top arbitrarily make every day burns you out, even if you like your job otherwise. Say what you will about Jeff B, he was an inspiring leader.

3. You give more than you get back – disproportionately so. The bar for promotions keeps getting higher, and your pay raise doesn't even match inflation.

4. On that note, the pay structure is BS. There are no bonuses other than a signing bonus, and your RSU grants are based on excessively optimistic projections of the stock price next year. I've been taking an effective pay cut every year for the past 3 years in this fashion.

Honestly, none. Even well-meaning directors and VPs don't have much of a say when the S team and/or CEO hands down an arbitrary directive from above. (So much for "have backbone".)