Amazon reviews

-Not kid-friendly -Unrealistic expectations to move fast and make no mistakes while not having tools that work well enough to enable employees to achieve expectations -Bottom 10%-25% are let go every year -No work-life balance -Aggressive meeting culture; encouraged to interrupt conversations; very intense -Management/leadership gives bad marks for asking them questions

Huge company - You can't turn your head in South Lake Union without seeing an Amazon employee wearing a blue badge. The company is expanding extremely rapidly, and while they are building new office spaces in downtown Seattle, work spaces feel cramped. You'll feel like a number at company meetings. Work-life balance - On-call rotations are a norm because of the companies notion of 'ownership'. Though I was an software developer, managers are also subject to being paged. My shift usually started between 9 and 10 am and most days didn't end until after 7pm. This was normal for all of my team members. Of course, this is also very team-dependent. Benefits - The retirement plan is lackluster compared to other tech companies. New hires only get two weeks of paid vacation (10 paid days off not including weekends and holidays). That's lower than all companies I've researched. Not only is it lower than other companies, you are not given your vacation days upfront. You a portion of them per month. Also, Amazon (in the U.S.) only recognizes 5 holidays, versus most other companies which I've seen with a minimum of 8 paid holidays). Your happiness here is directly influenced by the team you're put on. If you don't like your team, you can either leave the company or wait out until the first anniversary of your employment. After one year of employment, you are allowed to switch teams (if you have a good performance review). You might still need to interview with the team that you plan to switch to.