I don't know why people say Amazon has a bad reputation as an employee.
You have to consider there is a million employees and it most likely depends on department, location, job.
I personally know a couple handful Amazon employees who are all most happy and treated well.
Some of them have previously been at google and they say Amazon is the better employer period.
In some jurisdictions they pay clear above industry standard.
All companies have good and bad aspects, some feel better in a startup , some feel better in a corporate giant.
> I don't know why people say Amazon has a bad reputation as an employee.
Note this isn't actually a question. You then go on to preemptively defend Amazon's reputation with:
- "depends on department, location, job."
- "I know a couple of employees who are happy."
- They pay really well.
- "All companies have good and bad aspects"
What I find striking about this defense is that it is so generic, it could apply to any and every company (aside from maybe pay). You obviously have no interest in learning why Amazon's reputation is negative, and frankly are trying to shut down discussion of it.
Left AWS two months ago to confound a startup. Can only say good things about my personal experience (SDM at AWS Professional Services). On the other hand I know personally people who work in teams that due to no fault of their own, have a culture that, to say mildly, isn’t necessarily everyone’s cup of tea. Amazon as an employer, is generally great. But you really can’t underestimate how “it depends on the team” matters there.
I learned about technology more in 5 years there than my entire (20+ years) career. Smart people, always got help when I needed, always were able to keep work life balance (it’s many times up to you to know how to disconnect and say no, people respect it).
It will make you a better decision maker, much better writer (it might make you hate writing narratives but you’ll get dangerously good at it).
If you join and you got into “one of these teams”, use the wonderful tool of internal transfers. It’s one of the best things about Amazon. There are no minimums and no manager approval required to find a better match.
Anecdotal sure, but I joined earlier this year and am absolutely loving it so far. Fantastic pay, great manager, interesting impactful work, and more than enough flexibility on the personal side.
I specifically chose a team based on my perception of the manager, and that decision has paid off so far. Amazon is a huge company and experiences can vary dramatically.
Imagine if 20 public state schools, 50,000 students each, formed a mega university and someone started describing it in terms of a singular culture. Ridiculous right?
I fully expect my experience is different than others and I don’t expect it to generalize to Amazon as a whole. It’s nice to hear first hand accounts from former employees (positive and negative), but I could do without the people parroting what they read online.
English is not my first language but I think joined is a common term to say when you start a new job at a new company. "I joined Google recently" or "I joined the team at X" seems like common terms I hear...
Seems to be a rather recent development; looks very much like youngsters falling for tech-bro propaganda-like language usage. If they can make you think of it as sometihng you "join", a "community" or something, they can exploit you more easily than if you think of it as a straight-up business relationship: You sell your labour, they buy it.
Yeah, I have the same experience. I work on a major aws team and we have a lot of focus on work life balance. Oncall sucks for sure but otherwise it's fine. My girlfriend at Google has a much worse work life balance. It depends on what team you're on.
Google doesn’t have a massive distribution network. If you take out the distribution and warehouse has jobs there are still many complaints like the hire to fire headcount. Not to mention one must ask themselves do they want to work for a company that doesn’t give lower employees bathroom breaks or fires people based on AI feedback? How long until they use AI feedback to fire SWEs?
In some jurisdictions they pay clear above industry standard.
All companies have good and bad aspects, some feel better in a startup , some feel better in a corporate giant.