Amazon

• Flexibility to do work that immediately goes into production
• Ship things quickly
• Helpful teammates
• Linux (and Macs)! Seriously, this is a huge plus. Unix tools > everything.

I really enjoyed being able to work on a lot of projects and seeing them go live. You could literally build stuff and ship on the same day.

Because we ship so quickly, oftentimes there are issues overlooked. Experience highly depends on the quality of your team. More hours equal more rewards for learning, but little rewards from management that is often biased towards friends. Personal growth is 100% in your own hands; the manager does little to help.

This really bugs me. The range of experiences really depends on the team you end up on. If you end up on a team with very few coding standards, a lack of good SDEs, a manager who doesn't reward people properly, and a lack of technical understanding in the team overall – and these teams are out there in bunches – then expect to have a really mediocre experience, even if you put in the shifts. At some point, when you are critical for every project your team owns, some teams can be very demanding by having you on-call 24/7. If at any point something related to that breaks, they will call you, regardless of who's on-call.

Also, be wary of managerial nepotism. Some teams aren't entirely meritocratic. Managers might just promote or reward people they are friends with or are most senior, not who has contributed the most to the team's growth.

Need to root out some management layers that are nepotistic or outright incompetent.

Need to be critical of people if they make mistakes, even if they're friends.