Amazon reviews

backstabbing people in HR, it was just awful. Rumors galore everywhere. It seemed like quality output was not the goal, rather looking busy was.

Duct-taped back end systems. Amazon is a great customer experience, but better to not know what's going on behind the scenes. Vastly different environment/culture between groups Unnecessary meetings (on many days back-to-back for 8 hours) Absolutely no requirement for people management skills or even some basic level of self-awareness of your own abilities to be a manager at Amazon. In my group a voluntarily terminating employee was given severance pay because a manager's conduct was (in my opinion) actionable, but the manager was given no reprimand and continued to have more employees placed as direct reports. Competing for resources/funding sometimes lends itself to a reality show "today's challenge" environment. I couldn't care less about work/life balance and am a life-long workaholic, but there is absolutely no downtime in some roles. The job I was in broke me and I've now changed careers due to my experience. Ask your recruiter what the turnover rate is in the organization you are interviewing in. They know - everything at Amazon revolves around metrics. People generally don't quit in high numbers with a manager/org that has their back and treats them right.