4.0
10 Apr 2016
Current employee, more than 3 years
Seattle, WA
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook
Pros
In my experience, Amazon's leadership principles guide the company. There's emphasis on working backwards from the customer to deliver value, on innovation, and on technical excellence. There's willingness to take risk, and willingness to learn from poor outcomes, rather than look for someone to blame.
Cons
Amazon's out dated personnel system means competition, rather than collaboration, among those who understand there must be a low performer, and low performers are moved out of the business. Excessive demand on development teams, coupled with poor support structures, mean dev's and dev managers are constantly pushed to do more with less, then held accountable for not having time to go deep, deliver value, etc.