Amazon reviews

Some managers aren't great at developing people, and it is harmful to the individual especially when they're new. The depth and consistency with which performance feedback is delivered varies dramatically from team to team, and that's something that needs to be worked on. It varies from team to team, but we talk a lot at the company about work-life harmony, but sometimes I feel like leadership and managers are talking out of both sides of their mouth. It is expected that you ruthlessly prioritize so this company doesn't eat you alive, and that's with any company that is operating at the scale of Amazon. There is always more work to do and it's the responsibility of the employee to prioritize and to align on that prioritization with their management. It's also understandable that there are ebbs and flows, some times you're working all night when it's really busy but that is supposed to be offset with times which are lighter. I think leadership doesn't do a great job of listening sometimes when an employee says, "stop," it's too much. I've seen it happen where there's always one more and one more and one more thing to do, and management has said "well it all needs to get done but it will get lighter when...", and that "when" doesn't come. People, particularly people that are new or more junior, I've seen get worried that a "no" will be viewed as "I will hurt my chances of promotion" or "I will create a negative perception or hurt a relationship with my partners/customers." Amazon is not a company where the word "promotion" is well-received from my experience. Advancement can mean increase in scope or a new opportunity, but the "path to promotion" is too abstract in many areas. We have leveling guidelines to help you measure your performance and what the expectations are at the other levels but I've found that many mangers aren't great about aligning your strengths and areas of opportunity to those in a way that indicates when, if, or how you may be ready for promotion. It is a flat organization, and everyone I know has leveled down in terms of title to come work here, and that's okay, but promotion should not be made to feel like it's a taboo or bad word. You don't get promoted into a role here (i.e. if you're a manager, you don't go from Manager to Sr. Manager just by applying to a Sr. Manager role), you do well at your level and either 1. Get promoted in your role and then are expected to rotate into a role at that new level 2. have a current role that can be scoped at a higher level and then they level you up in your role and you can stay in that role 3. Apply to a higher level scoped role (1 level higher max) and are expected to perform at that higher level for x months and then get promoted. The con of that is that it varies from organization to organization within the company and sometimes from team to team on how that works and the transparency around that is not great at all. Sometimes people say you can't get a promotion unless there is a role of that same level open in that organization or the team, in other teams that's not the case. It's super confusing. The upside is that once you are up for promotion, the process is really good from my POV because it's not based on one person's experience. At a high level the concept is that a document is put together where your manager puts you up for promotion and you also have feedback from your partners supporting that promotion.

* "Work hard / play hard" culture usually just means work hard / work hard. * Oncall rotations for most developers * Often multiple vacancies on a team, so teams are constantly understaffed. * The above two points combine to mean there are going to be long periods of crunch, in addition to round-the-clock oncall schedules.