Worst place, bad treatment, no real future - Software Development Engineer-II Amazon Employee Review

2.0
8 Nov 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The salary is competitive to other big names, I guess only because they could only hold themselves and their devs up like this. Some types of people can get by to stay in for many many years, like 5 or 10. If you're close to retirement and looking to do this, and make money, you can try. But be careful of the Dev Plan/PIP. There are better teams. / Still not that great, it has a very very low probability you end up in a very good team.

Cons

I would give 1 star but it's not Hell itself, so... Bad communication throughout teams, areas. Chaos in maintaining old solutions or very slow and hacky to moving to new solutions. Not cutting edge technology at all. Maan, if you think Amazon is supposed to be a very cool tech company with the newest tech and newest cloud-based lightweight tricks, no. It's super old. You won't progress. If you leave Amazon you'll be having this big name on your resume and no knowledge of current technologies, you will s_ck at frameworks, languages, take-home assignments, new protocols, tools. They have a continuous lay-off plan going on. Every half year or year they will kick out one member of your team, and you could be that person. It's called dev plan, dev list, coaching plan, any name and then another step after that is PIP. PIP is impossible to get out of. Coaching plan is 60-70% lay-off possibility. They don't care about outliers, if you're an exception or a good engineer just couldn't show results. If your manager is against you, you stand no chance. If he/she's with you, he/she is risking themselves to be laid off. Everyone is on themselves, on their own. You all pray to stay and be all right. Promotion documents are hard to make and you have to be a friend of your manger to be promoted, you'll wait a looot. Principles are bullsh_t. The only principle Amazon has is Deliver Results. On-call hours in some teams are very very hard. You'll be called so many times with hard problems you can't solve or finish in time. Some AWS teams have over 20 issues in a week that have to be handled within 15 minutes and solved as fast as you can. Amazon is very cheap. You don't get perks. You get the cheapest hotels if you go for a meeting in another city, IF you manage to book in time. You don't get raises or bonuses. Some teams can get a team budget approved for a nice one-day fun but some teams don't do this at all. I can't even.

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5.0
20 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great Community, Got to visit factories and improve on logistics Flexible work schedule

Cons

Very demanding and can be rough if you get behind on things.

5.0
10 Jan 2016
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Really smart people, a lot of opportunity for growth, always encouraged to be innovative, think big, and create something new. Competitive salary and benefits with other major tech companies. 100% self motivating work environment. No dress code and 4 legged friends are welcome.

Cons

You have to be self motivated. NO ONE will hold your hand and tell you that you're doing a great job. If you need constant affirmations from management, this company isn't for you.

3159
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