Pros
The jobs is challenging, but extremely rewarding. The Area Manager role is a very busy job, but with a lot of opportunity. You will always have a challenge ahead of you, and will never run out of work to complete. Due to the growth of the company, you will have unlimited growth potential, and Amazon is very open to moving you to any role as long as your talents match the position. The pay is very competitive, although it seems to be getting lower and lower every year. If you love work, and you love thinking about what is possible with any process or issue, this is absolutely the job for you. Look no further. If you can imagine it, and can provide the data to sell it, you can do it. I never imagined I would love operations and logistics, but I really enjoy my job. Those of us that are good enough to weed out all the things that aren't value added will have a great time here.
Cons
Work-life balance can often take a significant turn to the negative, specifically during holiday seasons. Operations seems to be the main place this occurs; yet, support program managers and other corporate entities are paid more than operations management, regardless of the extra work and direct-to-customer facing role. Even so, the biggest drawback of the job in the operations are all the petty, near-worthless duties you will have mostly due to HR policies. Let me be clear: an Area Manager is likely the busiest role in the company. You will have a lot to do, and not enough time to do it. Throughout this, you will receive a high amount of duties that I would consider short-term thinking, not matching the culture that Amazon has created; and most of it is due to HR policies. You will have to enter reports and checkmarks of things HR wants you to do that frankly make no difference in the long term at all. This wouldn't be an issue in itself, but an Area Manager has a significant amount of work to do, and these petty things add zero value to the work, and ZERO value to the associate experience. The company should really examine how much work the Area Manager role is being given, as it is always more and more, and a lot of it it useless. The role would be more useful if this was scrutinized.