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Amazon Web Services

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No time, high stress, high turnover - Software Development Engineer (SDE) Amazon Web Services Employee Review

4.0
19 July 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Knowledgeable coworkers, high impact & visibility, ability to work with massive amounts of resources. Internal transfers are possible.

Cons

1/3 of the time oncall, getting paged 20+ times per day for issues that are often out of your control. Insane turnover, so that people who stay >6 months are some of the most tenured. 9 of 10 people turned over on my team in about 8 months. Because of this, the ops schedule is constantly shifting and doesn’t consider planned days off, to the point where I’ve had to reschedule vacations and plane tickets because no one could swap for that week. No time for documentation, and tribal knowledge gets lost when people leave. There is also little time for mentorship, which in high stress situations leaves junior engineers feeling unsupported and even more stressed. Managers are non technical, and care more about getting results, as opposed to creating robust systems or taking time to plan and act proactively. They would rather re-architect an entire system than move slower and build a well thought out one to begin with. That said, experience depends a lot on your team. My advice is to ask about operational load, work life balance, and project work before joining.

Explore other reviews about Amazon Web Services

5.0
8 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great team when you have a manager and full team that works well and collaborates well. Stock is great. And you know when youre doing well, the pay increase is roughly the same as everyone else.

Cons

Low perks compared to other FAANG companies and most teams have high turn over

3.0
21 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Ambitious projects if you're in the right team. Typically great team-mates. Don't believe the memes, the ppl are not back stabbing jerks but are overall genuinely nice. Not constrained by budgets when building cool things. Tools while sometimes clunky are powerful.

Cons

Schizophrenic lack of focus, entire teams get split, merged and upended multiple times a quarter. Some product managers are disconnected from reality. It didn't use to be the case, the PM-Ts were previously top notch. You're pushed to vibe code everything. Established products with loyal customers are getting neglected. Newer VP level leaders don't seem to know what they are doing. Veteran OG VP level leaders are either leaving in droves or seem stressed or checked out.

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