Amazon

Tons of smart engineers, great processes in place for ensuring healthier development practices, and competitive monetary compensation.

The RTO mandate was callously and unempathetically implemented. Layoffs always feel on the table.

AWS abuses Amazon warehouse worker numbers to avoid filing in the US as an H1B-dependent employer.

Both too slow to implement things for the sake of perfecting design first, and quality of code tends to be low for the sake of implementing fast to meet deadlines.

On-call can be brutal, especially for any team with direct ownership of public APIs.

Office parking is paid by employees with minimal reimbursement available, and the price increased during RTO mandates.

No pay increases in 2024 for many tenured employees.

Micromanagement is rampant as a result of bad Agile implementations.

Promotions may be blocked for multiple quarters because there's not enough headcount at the level you're promoting into allocated in your L8 org.

Value your engineers. They're not widgets. Treat them better, and stop reducing benefits and not giving pay raises while expecting "more [performance] with less [headcount]".

Each person has things that they're great at and things that they're worse at. Work with these quirks, not against them, and performance will improve at the IC level.