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Join if you have been offered a position at the appropriate level, or you will be stuck

Solutions Architect
Former Employee
Worked at Amazon for less than 1 year
October 7, 2019
2.0
Doesn't RecommendNeutral OutlookNo CEO Opinion
Pros

Great to have a large company name on your resume. You can work on as many services/projects as you want and interact with all sorts of folks. If you want to work 24x7, you can surely find work to do and even do work not related to your primary job to help develop new skills. If in a pre-sales role, you literally can travel anywhere and travel very comfortably.

Cons

Golden handcuffs for RSUs and 401k match. Each time you change roles, you "reset" the clock to be eligible for a leveling promotion. Not everyone at AWS is actually smart, as there are a few deadweight folks who, for some reason, are still around. They literally don't do the work that is expected at their level.

Lots of politics between service teams. Public sector teams don't get the same attention as commercial teams.

The level process in general is odd, especially if you have a manager who is an amateur and doesn't understand the promo cycle process; they can't appropriately advocate for you.

New folks get hired in with hardly any relevant experience to the role they are hired for, but will be hired a level higher than most tenured folks. Your future lies in the hands of your manager. If they suck, you are screwed.

Management will play games to keep you from leaving, but won't do their part. Easy to get caught up in working 24/7 while sacrificing family life or work-life balance.

Advice to Management

Reward those who deserve to be rewarded. Especially those who have given their job a priority where it greatly impacts the bottom line, business, and revenue when compared to others in the organization.

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