Growing pains of a company becoming huge. - Software Engineer II Amazon Employee Review

3.0
7 July 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good comradely among the engineers. Very customer focused. You can pretty much kill any bad idea with "customers will hate it" argument. Agile program management means you'll keep up with what your team members are doing on a daily basis. Nearly everything is client/service architecture. Which if your team does it well, allows your to do whatever is best for your solution to your problem area without having huge migration issues with your clients. Generally managers are too busy to have those useless weekly meetings. (If you have daily ones why have a regular weekly one? You can always schedule a topic meeting to go over design issues etc.) Good and getting better support for bicycling to work. (bike cages, showers, lockers, and towels) Discount on buying stuff on their website.

Cons

On call. Nearly every engineering team has an on call rotation, so count the number of members and divide the number of days in a year by that number and that's the number of days you'll be on "house arrest" Because a page must be answered within 20 minutes any time day or night when you are on call. There seem to be more frameworks than teams. Everyone wants one and they tend to get imposed on your project in order to interface to some other needed service. Then the company drops support for it and you'll have to migrate your service. Difficult to do volunteer coding, ie help with your favorite freeware system, as you need approval from legal. It's not impossible but it's not straightforward either. Annual reviews tend to emphasis the negative vs the positive, that is you have peer feedback but your manager can pick and choose among the comments to either promote you or squash you. Very little opportunity to complain about it via HR.

Explore other reviews about Amazon

5.0
18 Dec 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Amazon pushes you to always be thinking bigger, improving your processes, and becoming more agile

Cons

Not for the faint of heart looking for a company where you can coast or fly under the radar

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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