Pros
- If you have a good manager, you will have nice work/life balance. - The people I worked with were smart and kind. - Launching new products is fun. - You get to work on projects that affect millions of customers. - Within lab126, promotions are very common because you have the opportunity to working on many new/interesting projects.
Cons
- Amazon is a big company with a culture that is not transparent and that does not promote or encourage employee wellbeing/happiness. - University recruiting is absolutely horrible. If you are thinking about accepting an offer, know that they will not honor the team/location preferences you have. They do not care if you are happy with where you are going. Seriously beware because I didn't think the reviews were true and it was actually a year-long traumatic experience from offer signing to starting. It doesn't happen to everyone but if it happens to you... - There are no perks (no free food, super frugal culture). It may seem dumb to care about this but Amazon has so much money that it is a bit behind-the-times for them to not invest in giving better benefits to employees. Within the office people seem to justify this with the explanation that salaries are higher than competitors, but this is not true. Other big tech companies pay more in total compensation and also provide incredible perks/benefits. Given frugality is a leadership principle at Amazon, one would think they could see that they would get more time out of their expensive tech workers if they come earlier and stay later for breakfast/dinner. Win-win.