Amazon

Very bright people. I have never been bored. You can see the results of your work quickly. Innovation is encouraged. Developers have the opportunity to use new technologies. The private book signings with authors that are offered to employees are great.

There is too much work for too few people. On-call is onerous. Whether you have a good job is determined by whether you are lucky enough to have a good boss. The management is young and can lack experience. The operational burden that falls on software development engineers can be very distracting. While there is work on improving tools, the spin up for using proprietary tools can be difficult.

Instead of accepting that high turnover is a given, realize how much it costs the company whenever an employee leaves.

In a company that moves as quickly as Amazon, documentation is often ineffective, so the knowledge that leaves when an employee leaves is really very valuable.