Amazon

I got in early, so I made money with the stock options.

I needed a job at that time, and they gave me one.

I also got to build the core software that keeps track of how many things are available for sale at a given moment.

I learned a lot from an older co-worker about the fungibility of inventory, the theory of an item being promised to a customer at a point in time, etc.

I learned how to build a system that is resilient to outages, bad data, stale data, etc.

I also liked most of the engineers I worked with.

If you work here, you will be given tasks that, at other companies, would go to older and more experienced workers. The reason is that at this pay rate, those folks have left or wouldn't join as they have other options.

After a few years, it became apparent that they didn't want trained managers, but instead just "yes people." No amount of suggestions that they run new managers through training seemed to be heard.

Pager duty, you will come to hate it. If you have no life, you might not notice, but if you have a family, they will hate it. It's what house arrest is all about. Oh sure, you can go out, but you need to start working on a page within 20 minutes and not leave it until it's resolved. Try explaining that to your kids why you just packed them up from the park, or your SO why you need to get a box to go for dinner.

Pay rates. They have a 2 and a 4-year plan. That's because that's the length of time you need to wait for the first vesting of stock and signing bonus, and the majority of that first grant.

Stack ranking, or ratting on your coworkers to try and keep your job during review time. They cut the bottom 5%, no matter how good they are in comparison to the rest of the world. They give PIPs to the bottom 10% (i.e., threaten them) and no raises to the bottom 20%. So, if you have a group of 100, even though the company spent thousands on hiring them, waiting until they actually figured out how to do anything useful, training on internal systems, they toss them right back out. What a waste of money. (It also demoralizes the team for a month or so every review cycle.)

If you want a better written review of the place, go find that NYTimes article. It was spot on.

Quit while you still have a soul. There is no hope for this company. The DNA is too corrupt to be fixed as long as Jeff B. runs the show.