Amazon

There are a lot of pros about working at Amazon, both for my happiness and my career.

• Global-Scale Challenges: Amazon and AWS operate on a worldwide scope. Providing the best for customers brings challenges that will really allow someone to do the best work of their life.

• Brilliant Coworkers: Amazon prides itself on hiring and retaining the best. This couldn't be more true! The folks I work with at Amazon are extremely smart and wise experts in their fields. I learn from them every day and get the opportunity to share my expertise and mentor others.

• Meaningful Impact: A large portion of the globe knows of Amazon, and many are customers. Knowing that the work I do on a daily basis helps people and businesses across the globe is a good feeling. I know I am just a cog in the whole machine, but every person here at Amazon is on a team that impacts (and focuses on) customers in one way or another. The work that I do here is meaningful and makes me proud to be a part of it all.

• Work/Life Balance: I know Amazon has a reputation for not being a place with good work/life balance, but I have not experienced that. My team (and whole organization) highly values work/life balance and encourages each other to avoid working during off-hours, valuing personal life balance with work. I don't feel like I have ever been pressured to work extra hours (beyond 40 in a week) or gotten push-back for taking care of myself or loved ones.

Largely, the cons are the benefits offered by Amazon. Amazon offers the same benefits to their corporate employees, delivery drivers, and warehouse workers. This results in good benefits for warehouse workers and drivers, but below the standard for corporate employees.

Below are the benefit areas that could use some improvement:

• Company Holidays: Amazon does not offer many holidays each year. For example, Black Friday, Christmas Eve, and New Year's Eve are not company holidays. Compared to other large companies that I have worked for, Amazon's company holidays are severely lacking and leave me missing the days around the big holidays because I have work.
• 401K plan match: The Amazon 401K plans do not start matching employee contributions until an employee has worked at the company for 2 years. For such a large company, it is surprising that they don't match some portion of contributions on day one. Most of the companies I have worked at (even retail and small companies) have offered some portion of a 401K match that starts in the first 90 days.

Comparing Amazon to other large corporations, the company holidays and 401K benefits are below the standard. Amazon has a reputation for working its corporate employees rather hard. While I have not yet experienced that, expanding the company holidays will help employees take time to recharge and really do the best work of their lives.