Amazon

Amazon hires very smart, reasonable people. While people are A-types, they are cooperative and willing to work toward the greater good – customers. That said, it is very customer-focused with a very strong corporate culture. The technologies available to work on are world-class, albeit it can take time to learn it all as much of it is steeped in tribal knowledge.

Work-life balance is tenuous at best. Even in relaxed areas, the only way to get ahead is to put in a lot of overtime.

Some areas talk of 40-hour weeks; this is what it takes to just stay afloat. This can lead to lone warriors pushing changes to team code.

A lot of agile teams devolve into ad-hoc processes. A lot of work is geared toward maintenance engineering rather than cutting-edge engineering; the challenge is to remain stimulated.

Operational support can vary from team to team. In some instances, being on-call is minimal; in others, it can drown you.

Amazon.com is a great company overall, with a mission to serve its customers. It is not a perfect fit for myself, and not a place I wish to remain at for developing a career in the long-term due to its lack of work-life balance. While pay is extremely fair, it is not worth the stress to remain in the environment longer than 2 years.