Amazon reviews

Amazon is a very top-down focused company. Upper management scrutinizes and edits every small detail in a presentation or proposal, and lots of unnecessary time is spent making an unimportant item perfect. The company talks a lot about being able to think of an idea, develop it and implement on the site quickly, but there are layers upon layers of approval needed. Management definitely works a LOT of hours, and expects all team members to do the same, so the work-life balance is fairly nonexistent. Employees are expected to be available at pretty much all times, but then they won't pay for a Blackberry or email-enabled phone.

The hours are very long. Expect 12 hour days at a minimum and you will work every weekend, except they give everybody a laptop so you can work at home so some of that 12 hours is at home at night too. Everybody has a blackberry because its expected that you be available at all times, even when you're on vacation. If you want a work life balance, start running in the other direction. Its basically an environment of work the person as hard as you can as long as you can, and when they collapse and die, people say they just didn't have what it takes.