Vantaggi
• Starting pay was decent but low pay increases. Good bonus for first two years. Equity is great because the stock is doing so well. Fun conferences and many learning opportunities • The Amazon brand, saying that you worked here (it matters for some people/companies). I got an offer from Microsoft largely due to the rivalry and brand. I turned them down. I got calls from Google too which I didn’t pursue
Svantaggi
• Scheming culture - There are a lot of smart people, but there are also a lot of untalented schemers who get ahead by sucking up and bad mouthing others behind their back. Culture makes it very difficult to form a network. • Bad middle-management - You’re working with many A-type's especially in the middle management ranks. Middle management is not transparent and always scheming. They will back stab you and throw you under the bus first chance they get, if it means saving their own skin and if you’re not part of the “in” crowd. Zero feedback or appreciation from middle management • Non-commission based work - Support multiple commissions based non-technical Account Managers where they make big money (via commissions) and you do the hard work and burn out • No teams, just groups - They try to mold you into a technical widget so you can potentially be easily replaced and the culture promotes isolation and lack of synergy, all individual contributor work. They want you to know as little as possible outside of your tunnel vision • Just building block services that are costly - Strong IaaS player, but bad when it comes to SaaS or PaaS models. Many new services are MVP and waiting for features of interest can be a long wait. They put a spin with low costs and utility style billing but seeing the bills of many customers are anything but cheap. AWS is always competition with everyone which creates a lack of trust, and the customers don’t always come out on top and the product is not always rock solid