Amazon

Work-life balance isn't as bad as critics say. It depends where you land. Know that it's your responsibility to find the right team and switch teams if necessary.

Really interesting projects: experimental "moonshots" and apps with billions in revenue. Millions of people will benefit from your code. You can easily move among teams to gain varied experience.

Smart co-workers. You will learn a ton.

With Amazon on your resumé, you can get an interview with pretty much any other company.

There is a new front-end engineer (FEE) role aimed at modernizing front-end development at Amazon. The WDE role is being phased out. It is VITAL that you apply for FEE and not WDE. Do not accept a WDE offer because it comes with significantly lower compensation, and it is being phased out.

• Frontend developers are second-class citizens. You will not receive the same respect, opportunities, or compensation as backend developers at Amazon. There are efforts to change this, but changing culture takes time.

• On-call can be hellish depending on your team. Ask about operational load when you are considering different teams.

• Pay is great relative to non-tech jobs, but weak compared to other top tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Airbnb. I nearly doubled my salary by moving to Airbnb.

Don't apply "frugality" to engineers' salaries.

Continue working to change the culture so that front-end developers are not second-class citizens.